Is Frugal install to sdc possible?Forum: HD Install Topic: Is Frugal install to sdc possible? started by: Juanito Posted by Juanito on Jan. 21 2007,06:26
Before I try to make a DSL 3.2 frugal hd install to an ancient desktop, I thought I'd check if it is (theoretically) possible.I saw several posts that mention a frugal hd install must be on hda - since I am using a floppy "fromusb" boot on a machine with scsi hd, I have the following: sda - the USB stick I boot from sdb - the Windows boot hd sdc - the hd I would like to use for the frugal install Will a frugal hd install be possible on this machine? Posted by roberts on Jan. 21 2007,06:36
Lilo will use the active partition of the target.Grub will insist on the MBR of hda. I have dsl lilo frugal on sdc1, a compact flash, no problems. If you choose grub then you will have to edit the menu.lst to adjust accordingly. There was a recent post about this. Posted by Juanito on Jan. 21 2007,13:59
Hmm - I tried the frugal-lilo install right-click menu using dsl 3.2 (floppy "fromusb" boot using toram on a machine with 512MB) on the following setup:sdc1 ntfs windows partition sdc2 linux swap - 1GB sdc3 linux bootable partition - 2GB sdc4 linux partition - 7GB I had a couple of problems: 1. The menu states I should type "i" to install from a local iso file - in fact the script appears to be looking for an "f" to do this. 2. After chosing "f" and specifiying the local iso file, I chose sdc3 as the dsl partition and sdc4 as the restore and mydsl partition and everything goes as expected right up until the "are you sure" message. At this point I have 2.4/3.0 MB of the local filesystem free - after hitting "y" the script formats sdc3, starts to write to it and then the frugal-lilo window disappears - the local filesystem now has 0/3.0 MB free. Looking at the sdc3 partition with emelFM, I can see that the script has written the lilo.conf file and started (+/- 2MB) to write the knoppix image. I cannot manually copy anything to the partition as the drive is reported full (it isn't). Using the df command, /dev/root.old is reported to be 100% full but I cannot see this directory using emelFM. Any ideas? Posted by roberts on Jan. 21 2007,16:02
Juanito,I don't have any problems when booting from CD to install frugal lilo. I tested the i/f option and found a problem. Seems some of my changes from frugal-grub did not get propagated back to frugal lilo. Anyway here is the change needed. Look for the line IMAGE="/mnt/staging" Add this line just below it: BOOT="/mnt/staging/boot/isolinux" I just ran with this mod and successful in installing frugal lilo to hdd1 compact flash using the install from file option. Thanks for feedback and reporting this. As far as any issues with scsi disk, I don't know. I don't have any old scsi disks/controllers. Be sure that your scsi module is loaded and you can access the correct device. Posted by Juanito on Jan. 21 2007,16:48
Thanks - I'll be away from the ancient desktop for the next few days, but I'll try this when I get back.
Posted by Juanito on Jan. 26 2007,08:16
I just tried your suggestion and modified the frugal_lilo.sh script as described above - unfortunately it still didn't work...The symptoms are the same - when I answer "yes" to "are you sure?", sdc3 is formatted, the script starts to copy files from the iso and then the window disappears. Slightly afterwards, the "File systems:" stat changes from 2.3M/3.0M free to 0M/3.0M free. (RAM usage is 50.8M/503M used and /home 336M/390M free). This time, the only thing copied to sdc3 was the /lost+found/ directory. If it helps, I pasted the output from df below (note sdc3 was mounted after the script was run): # df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/root.old 3067 3067 0 100% / /dev/pts 402524 57164 345360 14% /dev/pts /dev/shm 53524 48712 4812 91% /cdrom /dev/cloop 121088 121088 0 100% /KNOPPIX /ramdisk 399460 54100 345360 14% /ramdisk unionfs 520548 175188 345360 34% /KNOPPIX/bin unionfs 402524 57164 345360 14% /dev unionfs 416068 70708 345360 17% /etc unionfs 534092 188732 345360 35% /KNOPPIX/lib unionfs 520548 175188 345360 34% /KNOPPIX/sbin unionfs 534092 188732 345360 35% /KNOPPIX/usr unionfs 413004 67644 345360 16% /ramdisk/var /dev/sda1 63718 55030 8688 86% /mnt/sda1 /dev/cloop1 13544 13544 0 100% /ramdisk/opt/samba //MSS-FFB1EF/Public 292528128 197992448 94535680 68% /ramdisk/home/dsl/mnt/Public /dev/loop0 50864 50864 0 100% /mnt/staging /dev/sdc3 1929100 20 1831084 0% /mnt/sdc3 Posted by Juanito on Jan. 26 2007,11:16
I decided to cut & paste commands from the frugal_lilo script to try and make things work and took a guess at what to put in lilo.conf:lba32 #enable large disk support timeout=30 #wait 3 seconds before auto-booting vga=791 boot=/dev/sdc3 #put Lilo boot loader in partition of target disk root=/dev/sdc3 #set root to be partition of target disk image=/boot/linux24 label=DSL initrd=/boot/minirt24.gz read-only APPEND="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi nomce nodma quiet frugal BOOT_IMAGE=/dev/sdc3/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX fromhd=/dev/sdc3 restore=sdc4 toram mydsl=sdc4" This appeared to partially work: lilo loaded DSL The BIOS check passed Probing aic7xxx.o ...found scsi device(s) handled by aic7xxx.o Scanning for usb devices ...done Cannot find knoppix filesystem, etc etc I've tried boot_image=/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX with the same results. Did I make a mistake in lilo.conf? A couple of other questions: 1. I presume you have to repeat the command "lilo -C /mnt/sdc3/boot/lilo.conf" each time lilo.conf is edited but I get ro error messages if I try this? 2. Is there a way to load /KNOPPIX from the (very limited) shell? 3. How can you mount a drive from the (very limited) shell if there is a mount command but no mkdir command? Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 26 2007,14:11
Some notes: a. did you reboot the system after partitioning (if you did) b. try mounting the partition before install (make sure it is formatted already) - this sometimes was needed for me c. Open a terminal, then run frugal_{lilo|grub}.sh - you should be able to see any errors (please paste the error output here) N.B : it seems your latter post indicates that the install script is working ... so you can ignore a. to c. if this is the case --- 1. Yes you need to re-run it every time. Relinking the / is required (like what i posted first in this message) - open up frugal_lilo.sh and scroll down ... you should see a 'ln' then the "lilo -C" 2. Haven't tried this before... I'm guessing you could (re-running boot scripts or something?) but you may as well try to get it running 'normally' from boot as you will want to use it this way. 3. There has to be an existing empty directory. If the directories in /mnt aren't created yet, maybe you can use cp (copy) ? Alternatively, you can add some statically-built mkdir to the initrd. When you're booted, can you find /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX ? Afaik BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix (from knoppix wiki) If the directory name is different, you can change knoppix_dir= If the image name is different, you can change knoppix_name= Did you try without the fromhd code (autodetect)? maybe there's a fromscsi (or maybe fromusb searches these too?) One more thing, are you booting off the floppy or directly off your scsi hdd? Posted by Juanito on Jan. 26 2007,15:20
Thanks for the suggestion of running /usr/sbin/rugal_lilo.sh from a terminal window.After making Robert's BOOT="/mnt/staging/boot/isolinux" modification to the script, I ran it from a terminal window and the script worked - odd that it does not work when run from the right-click menu... I still have the problem that lilo partially boots from sdc3 but cannot find the /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file To answer some of the questions: are you booting off the floppy or directly off your scsi hdd? - from floppy "fromusb" when I run the script and then I attempt a lilo boot directly from the scsi hd When you're booted, can you find /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX ? - the boot from scsi hd drops me to the (very limited) shell when it cannot find /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX. The file is there however and verified to be exactly the same size as that on the floppy boot "fromusb" stick. This time when I attempted the boot, I noticed that something flashed by quickly after "...found scsi device(s) handled by aic7xxx.o" and before "Scanning for usb devices". I also noticed that after rebooting from floppy, the mount tool does not see the scsi hd. If I plug in another USB stick, the mount tool then sees the scsi hd - maybe this is not relevant however... I feel my problem is with the description of where to find the image in lilo.conf. i.e. ...BOOT_IMAGE=/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX fromhd=/dev/sdc3... but I have no idea what this could be changed to ------------- Edit - got it! When I tried to reboot from the lilo hd install, I was removing the floppy and "fromusb" stick which was sda1 - this meant that after reboot, sdc3 became sdb3 and thus lilo could not find the knoppix image. The lilo -C command would not work if I changed sdc3 to sdb3 in lilo.conf because sdc3 had not yet become sdb3 - bizarrely leaving "boot=/dev/sdc3" and "root=/dev/sdc3" but using "fromhd=/dev/sdb3" did the trick. Thanks for the help Roberts/^thehatsrule^ Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 26 2007,21:17
Good job on figuring that out!Does this means you always have to use fromhd and can't use a more general autodetect way ? (like fromusb - because it may be a hassle if you leave some other usb stick in during boot sometimes...) Posted by roberts on Jan. 26 2007,21:58
Real scsi and usb that is seen as scsi devices can become very confusing. I typically use the fromhd=... on my frugal installs just to be sure from which image I am booting from. With me, I have way to many imges on test machines and usually trip over them.
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