frugal install - HOW?

[BitJam]

If I delete all the f* options, there is a message "Starting fromiso" and the system comes up beautifully.

If there is any f* option besides fromiso=, there are frugal-related messages, it looks for antiX/linuxfs, and after 15 secs locks me out of the system saying it failed to find the boot device. /dev/sdb6 (which is where the ISO sits) is listed among the filtered devices.

The fromiso feature is not integrated with our live-usb goodies. It's there because some people want/need it but we didn't do backflips in the code to integrate it with our cool live-usb features. If you want the cool features then you should make a live-usb with live-usb-maker.

[frmald]

If I delete all the f* options, there is a message "Starting fromiso" and the system comes up beautifully.

If there is any f* option besides fromiso=, there are frugal-related messages, it looks for antiX/linuxfs, and after 15 secs locks me out of the system saying it failed to find the boot device. /dev/sdb6 (which is where the ISO sits) is listed among the filtered devices.

The fromiso feature is not integrated with our live-usb goodies. It's there because some people want/need it but we didn't do backflips in the code to integrate it with our cool live-usb features. If you want the cool features then you should make a live-usb with live-usb-maker.

... which is not unexpected. What I'm trying to investigate here is whether one can start a frugal install from the MX iso, in any possible configuration, with any boot params -- at all.

I thought Huckleberry Finn posted a fromiso / frugal configuration, but then promptly deleted it.

[fehlix]

Howto Frugal-Install, Frugal-Boot with ISO-Boot

Let's go through this example setup.

On /dev/sda2 , wich is a root-partition of a normal MX Linux install,

Create /ISO
Copy MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso to /ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso
Extract ISO's /antiX folder /antiX

Create ISO-Boot menu entries with /boot/grub/custom.cfg ( on /dev/sda2 )
( Note my locale, keyboard and timezone setup )

Code: Select all

# for normal ISO-boot:
# using toram and my local land and keyboard setup

menuentry "ISO-Boot MX-19.3 -- de toram" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  set gfxpayload=keep
  set iso_path=/ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso
  export iso_path
  search --no-floppy --file --set=root $iso_path
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  loopback loop $iso_path
  linux (loop)/antiX/vmlinuz toram buuid=$buuid fromiso=${iso_path} kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd (loop)/antiX/initrd.gz
}
# for normal ISO-boot with Frugal-install:

menuentry "ISO-Boot MX-19.3 -- Frugal-Install de toram" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  set gfxpayload=keep
  set iso_path=/ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso
  export iso_path
  search --no-floppy --file --set=root $iso_path
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  loopback loop $iso_path
  linux (loop)/antiX/vmlinuz frugal toram buuid=$buuid fromiso=${iso_path} kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd (loop)/antiX/initrd.gz
}

The first menu entry provides normal ISO-boot.
With the 2nd entry frugal-install is triggered.

Running the Frugal-Install entry, will list all available devices allowed for frugal-install,
so I select /dev/sda4
It will ask for changing the partition label, which I don't accept,
b/c I will have my own partition label set to "My-Frugal" later.

After frugal-install is done, a new folder "/antiX-Frugal-5.8.0-3-amd64"
on the select frugal partition is created, which contains a grub.entry file

Code: Select all

menuentry "MX 19.3_ahs (patito feo) Frugal Install" {
    search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid 55479bfb-a5c1-4883-add5-4862195e262c
    linux /antiX-Frugal-5.8.0-3-amd64/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-5.8.0-3-amd64 buuid=55479bfb-a5c1-4883-add5-4862195e262c toram fromiso=/ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
    initrd /antiX-Frugal-5.8.0-3-amd64/initrd.gz
}

We don't use this grub.entry file directly but will be modified later.

For demonstration purpose I do rename that new folder to My-Frugal
and addition I change also the label of the frugal-partition:

Code: Select all

sudo mv  /antiX-Frugal-5.8.0-3-amd64 /My-Frugal
sudo e2label /dev/sda4 My-Frugal

And this is how my /boot/grub/custom.cfg looks like:

Code: Select all

menuentry "MX 19.3_ahs Frugal Boot" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  bdir=My-Frugal
  vmlinuz=/$bdir/vmlinuz
  search --no-floppy --set=root --file  $vmlinuz
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  linux $vmlinuz bdir=$bdir buuid=$buuid toram kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd /$bdir/initrd.gz
}

menuentry "MX 19.3_ahs Frugal Boot persist_root" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  persist=persist_root
  bdir=My-Frugal
  vmlinuz=/$bdir/vmlinuz
  search --no-floppy --set=root --file  $vmlinuz
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  linux $vmlinuz $persist bdir=$bdir buuid=$buuid toram kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd /$bdir/initrd.gz
}

# for normal ISO-boot:
# using toram and my locale, lang and keyboard setup

menuentry "ISO-Boot MX-19.3 -- de toram" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  set gfxpayload=keep
  set iso_path=/ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso
  export iso_path
  search --no-floppy --file --set=root $iso_path
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  loopback loop $iso_path
  linux (loop)/antiX/vmlinuz toram buuid=$buuid fromiso=${iso_path} kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd (loop)/antiX/initrd.gz
}
# for normal ISO-boot with Frugal-install:

menuentry "ISO-Boot MX-19.3 -- Frugal-Install de toram" {
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod part_gpt
  insmod ext2
  insmod ntfs
  set gfxpayload=keep
  set iso_path=/ISO/MX-19.3_ahs_x64.iso
  export iso_path
  search --no-floppy --file --set=root $iso_path
  probe -u $root --set=buuid
  loopback loop $iso_path
  linux (loop)/antiX/vmlinuz frugal toram buuid=$buuid fromiso=${iso_path} kbd=de kbvar=nodeadkeys kbopt=caps:backspace lang=de tz=Europe/Berlin quiet
  initrd (loop)/antiX/initrd.gz
}

HTH

[pianokeyjoe]

Thankyou Fehlix, for this link! While this does not solve my DD imaged ISO partition on internal drive boot, it is great for booting an iso file and a frugal install which may have to be the ultimate end solution for me and others here who want an Embedded MX LINUX setup. I have copied all the required code snippets to edit to my situation! Danke!

[anticapitalista]

Unless I'm missing something, it is not possible to run frugal via fromiso.
For the frugal 'cheat' to work, it needs to find linuxfs, initrd.gz and vmlinuz, which it cannot do if booting fromiso because the iso is not decompressed.

[fehlix]

Unless I'm missing something, it is not possible to run frugal via fromiso.
For the frugal 'cheat' to work, it needs to find linuxfs, initrd.gz and vmlinuz, which it cannot do if booting fromiso because the iso is not decompressed.

You missed something: The fromISO part within the above post is being used to create a Frugal installation.
With the shown example menu: I have added 2 Frugal boot menu entries, and kept the "non-frugal" ISOboot menu entries, the later can be removed, if isoBoot is not required anymore.
Sure you can boot from LiveUSB or LiveDVD, but as it appears it might not in detailed shown somewhere how to do this from a LiveISO fromISO-boot.

[anticapitalista]

Sorry, but if user does not have any frugal installs, how can booting fromiso extract the needed files from the isoboot?

Or does it only work if the iso file is on / and not any other partition?

[pianokeyjoe]

Well sirs, I used the grub menu entries above and adjusted them to my computer. It booted, but with lots of errors. The time and date America/New York is not found or invalid and I can not find a "you set time and date like this" instruction on the net so I had to guess at it. My isofile is in sda1 in / on a fat32 file system. The insmod lines were all wrong and says part.mod not found, so I was able to boot and am here now in the booted iso but the boot process DID extract and frugal install the iso to ram instead since I did specify toram. So it kinda works? But I am not in Germany so I needed America/New York time zone which since it failed to pass that option I am 5 or 6 hours behind on my clock now. Once I find a solid way to boot from iso that is simple and error free, I will post it as a new topic for the benefit of those wanting a fast simple setup. The frugal install and the location of the grub boot loader issue is now pretty easy to accomplish as Fehlix pointed out a solution here. But from my errors, there are more arguments or heck, less arguments that need to be passed or omitted to avoid errors and hangups.

[fehlix]

Well sirs, I used the grub menu entries above and adjusted them to my computer. It booted, but with lots of errors. The time and date America/New York is not found or invalid and I can not find a "you set time and date like this" instruction on the net so I had to guess at it. My isofile is in sda1 in / on a fat32 file system. The insmod lines were all wrong and says part.mod not found, so I was able to boot and am here now in the booted iso but the boot process DID extract and frugal install the iso to ram instead since I did specify toram. So it kinda works? But I am not in Germany so I needed America/New York time zone which since it failed to pass that option I am 5 or 6 hours behind on my clock now. Once I find a solid way to boot from iso that is simple and error free, I will post it as a new topic for the benefit of those wanting a fast simple setup. The frugal install and the location of the grub boot loader issue is now pretty easy to accomplish as Fehlix pointed out a solution here. But from my errors, there are more arguments or heck, less arguments that need to be passed or omitted to avoid errors and hangups.

Well, sure that was an example not to be copied "blindly" , e.g. like timezone settings.
Not sure about this

Code: Select all

part.mod not found

there are two statements about

Code: Select all

insmod part_msdos
insmod part_gpt

which shall not generate error if you have normal grub install.
And both where meant to cater whether user has a partition table of GPT or MBR/BIOS "msdos"
And on vfat/fat partition a line like

Code: Select all

insmod fat

would help.
+++EDIT+++
Ooops, I meant "insmod fat" not "insmod part_fat"

[fehlix]

Sorry, but if user does not have any frugal installs, how can booting fromiso extract the needed files from the isoboot?

Or does it only work if the iso file is on / and not any other partition?

The ISO can be put on any partition (except on the potential frugal-install partition),
as long as the Grub-menu entries are adjusted, accordingly.
In my example I let grub search for /ISO/iso-filename.iso
Yes, frugal-installs need a boot loader helper.
So the prerequisite of the post was to have Grub-install, in order to add the corresponding
Grub boot menu entries.
I have not specified how a user can copy the iso onto the /ISO path,
nor how to extract the /antiX folder.
So even if user would only be able to boot fromISO,
a simple copy from /life/iso-file/antiX would suffice,
and would allow to run after reboot the fromiso with frugal install.