ISO boot from FAT/NTFS/USB (GRUB.exe, grldr from boot.ini)

[willbrown]

Hello,

Here is a quick update.

Built a new debian server based on 504-i386 to replace the sme server and now I can PXE from a nfs share.

In line with V5.3.1 I could not PXE my laptop which has a Broadcom 4401 nic, using b44.ko.
By strace insmod b44.ko & trial and error I found that adding ssb.ko and pcmcia.ko to /modules in the expanded minirt.gz file ( and re-compressing of course etc) fixed it.
It appears b44.ko is dependent on ssb.ko, which in turn is dependent on pcmcia.ko. Although the pcmcia.ko surprised me it is definitly working and I have now used the technique to pxe from V5.3.1. as well.

Could anyone perhaps help with a better dependency check than the one I have used?

ruymbeke, if you agree with my findings would you be prepared to add them to your customised minirt.gz files? Plus, I have the bigmem version working as well now, so a BIG thankyou to ruymbeke.

Finally, I now find that machines using a bnx2.ko freeze on v6.2.1. Again they work fine on V5.3.1 and again this is on PXE only. From cd both versions work fine. I have the firmware files in my build. How does this work if there are no firmware files in the minirt.gz? Does anyone have any ideas on this?
It locks up here:

Probing network device(s) handled by bnx2.ko

I tried adding a intel nic adapter & pxe'd from that but it still locked up at the bnx2.ko stage. The broadcom is on board & cannot be disabled.

Regards,

Will

[johnrw]

The forums have changed. Links are broken now. Gilles, your VMWare links that point here are running into a "not found" error here, as well as, the links you have managed at the first post of this thread.

What genius decided to improve the forums?
What a Great Improvement!

Well, I decided to toy around with VMware, and since I could not find the vmware tools for linux guests, I thought I'd look over at VMware.com for one of your Virtual appliances featuring Knoppix 5.3.1.


Well I do have one working... but without the tools for linux guests.... it sucks.
Gilles... I am running vmware player 3.1 on XP host. Do you know where I can get the tools for linux? Even downloaded Workstation and it didn't seem to have any iso's in it... just a 300+ MB script... that after I ran, didn't have any iso's in /var Or your knoppix 5.3.1 appliance would be great too.

Best,
johnrw

[ruymbeke]

Your welcome.
Because of not enough free time and imho the previous versions of Knoppix were not as stable & robust as 6.2.0.
Best Regards,
Gilles

I don't know why you never did this with the previous 6.x versions but thanks indeed for the ISO boot for 6.2. Time to get Knoppix on my hard drive again.
Thanks Ruymbeke

[sbininit]

Hi sbininit,
You need to modify your boot.ini to add an entry for grub (practically the file grldr)
Please find below my boot.ini file as an example. Happy new Year !
Gilles

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
c:\grldr="Start Grub"

I'm not sure exactly how to get windows boot loader to boot grub in
XP. I edited the boot.ini menu time out to 5 seconds and I have a boot grub entry when it boots but it doesnt boot the menu.lst.


Thanks and Happy New year
So grub doesn't need installing in any kind of way?
Is it necessary to place the grldr on root in the C drive ?
I get a:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing
or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.


I tryed clicking the grub.exe but I get an error saying that an illegal operation has been performed.

If I understand correctly, you don't need a second partition to boot the knoppix.iso ?
I have them all booting with grub but I am curious about doing this in windows.

[ruymbeke]

Hi sbininit,
Some laptops have the recovery partition (install) as the first and active partition of the drive.
In that case or if you have multiple disk drive in your system, you may need to modify
the proposed boot.ini to match your needs. I would suggest to try increasing the partition number
from (1) to (2) for both the default and the selectable menu entry. Please let me know if this work.
Hoping this will help you, I wish you all a Happy New Year !
Gilles

Hi sbininit,
You need to modify your boot.ini to add an entry for grub (practically the file grldr)
Please find below my boot.ini file as an example. Happy new Year !
Gilles

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
c:\grldr="Start Grub"

I'm not sure exactly how to get windows boot loader to boot grub in
XP. I edited the boot.ini menu time out to 5 seconds and I have a boot grub entry when it boots but it doesnt boot the menu.lst.


Thanks and Happy New year
So grub doesn't need installing in any kind of way?
Is it necessary to place the grldr on root in the C drive ?
I get a:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing
or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.


I tryed clicking the grub.exe but I get an error saying that an illegal operation has been performed.

If I understand correctly, you don't need a second partition to boot the knoppix.iso ?
I have them all booting with grub but I am curious about doing this in windows.

I edited the boot.ini file but i get a please install

[cvevans]

Hello,
Please find below an update for the Koppix 6.2.0 ISO boot including an option for the large memory kernel (>4GB)
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx620l.zip
<snip>

Thanks for your excellent work! I am very glad to be learning your new technique.
I see in your knoppix.sh you commented out CLOOPIDX=64;
I would really like to have 64 cloops (next time you compile a kernel) please!
For non-bigmem kernels as well (.32 please?) it would be very nice.


I found in cloop source, compressed_loop.c:
#define CLOOP_MAX 8
I think
#define CLOOP_MAX 64
would allow this. If no /dev/cloop63,
for (( i=8; i<64; i++ )); do mknod /dev/cloop$i b 240 $i; done
Could you please post your kernel config and module sources you use (or put them in your cloop)?
I did not see them on K62 (K531 had them).

FYI: On my K62 boot disks, I add to every linux entry in isolinux.cfg:
max_loop=64
for 64 loops;
for (( i=8; i<64; i++ )); do mknod /dev/loop$i b 7 $i; done
makes them work (/dev/loop/$i is neater) (Very easy, unlike cloops).

Thanks!
Charles

[ruymbeke]

Hello Charles,
Done yesterday in the plane on my way back from Europe.
Please find below the link to an update with two new init ramdisk with 64 entries (0..63) for /dev/cloop & /dev/loop:
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx620m.zip
My next step is to finish the persistence (as for 5.1.1 & 5.3.1) which is half way done...
Hope this works for you and please provide some feedback.
Best Regards,
Gilles

PS: the change was a little bit more complicated than I thought originally because of the script knoppix-autoconfig
which recreate /dev from /KNOPPIX/lib/udev/device and do not use the /dev from the init ramdisk
( cd /lib/udev/devices ; cp -a null zero init* console tty[1-9]* fb* isdn* capi* loop* vbox* kqemu* /dev/ 2>/dev/null )

Hello,
Please find below an update for the Koppix 6.2.0 ISO boot including an option for the large memory kernel (>4GB)
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx620l.zip
<snip>

Thanks for your excellent work! I am very glad to be learning your new technique.
I see in your knoppix.sh you commented out CLOOPIDX=64;
I would really like to have 64 cloops (next time you compile a kernel) please!
For non-bigmem kernels as well (.32 please?) it would be very nice.


I found in cloop source, compressed_loop.c:
#define CLOOP_MAX 8
I think
#define CLOOP_MAX 64
would allow this. If no /dev/cloop63,
for (( i=8; i<64; i++ )); do mknod /dev/cloop$i b 240 $i; done
Could you please post your kernel config and module sources you use (or put them in your cloop)?
I did not see them on K62 (K531 had them).

FYI: On my K62 boot disks, I add to every linux entry in isolinux.cfg:
max_loop=64
for 64 loops;
for (( i=8; i<64; i++ )); do mknod /dev/loop$i b 7 $i; done
makes them work (/dev/loop/$i is neater) (Very easy, unlike cloops).

Thanks!
Charles

[cvevans]

Hello Charles,
Done yesterday in the plane on my way back from Europe.
Please find below the link to an update with two new init ramdisk with 64 entries (0..63) for /dev/cloop & /dev/loop:
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx620m.zip
My next step is to finish the persistence (as for 5.1.1 & 5.3.1) which is half way done...
Hope this works for you and please provide some feedback.
Best Regards,
Gilles

Thanks for the marvelous speed of your work! I hope to have time to try your init soon.
I hope you will be able to fix the persistence so we can save the knoppix ramdisk image file to
a partition other than the one with the KNOPPIX directory (as it was in Knop4).

When you have time, could you please help us kernel newbies with a walkthrough tutorial?
I would like to learn your method so I can do my own custom kernel settings next time I make a custom boot disk.
(My first experiment would be to turn on ACL and XATTRs for the tmpfs ramdisk, then a 686 version).
(I have built many packages from source, but not a modern kernel.)

Thanks again
Charles

[ruymbeke]

Hello,
Please find below an update for the Koppix 6.2.1 ISO boot including an option for the large memory kernel (>4GB)
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx621d.zip
This also include the Network ISO boot option via NFS or SAMBA and the various combination of these options (cf menu.lst sample).
Please note that for the large memory kernel (>4GB), the kernel modules are patched at boot time using a custom cloop and the unionfs.
Have fun, and as usual please provide some feedback...
Best Regards,
Gilles

MD5: 3096aadff124d760cc522159a40ef1a5 *knx621d.zip (104'155'010)

PS: This mechanism allows me to also include at boot time the nvidia (proprietary) drivers and
have vmware workstation pre-installed and ready to use with a guest OS, all from a USB dongle.
Is there a better way to travel without a laptop ?

title Network Samba ISO Boot Knoppix 6.2.1 from 10.0.0.1 + bigmem > 4GB
kernel /c2_linux nfsdir=//10.0.0.1/home/samba  bootfrom=iso/k621/*.iso nodhcp myconf=scan cloop=c2_k2631,c2_vmt227600 lang=us ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init apm=power-off nomce vga=791 quiet hostname=auto-clock nolapic_timer vt.default_utf8=0 nomce loglevel=0 tz=localtime noprompt
initrd /c2_minirt_621a.gz
boot

FYI: I have added some more loop & cloop devices and integrated the persistent home fix from tjacyno.

Old file: http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/knx621c.zip
(with a bug in the knoppix.sh file preventing nfs boot to work properly)
MD5: c2a01307c6d9b58bd92792d4a3b34dec *knx621c.zip (104'154'993)

[ruymbeke]

Hello,
Please find below the new VmWare Workstation 7.0.1 or Player 3.0.1 (build 227600) virtual machines:
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/vmk621_227600.zip (99.2MB) for Knoppix 6.2.1
Please note that this last vm contains a new kernel & kernel modules patching at boot time the official
Knoppix CD or DVD iso using a custom cloop and the unionfs allowing the use of more than 4GB of Ram.
Cf: VmWare appliances listing link: http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/417623
Have fun, and please provide some feedback...
Best Regards,
Gilles

md5: 2e7f1c21f0320c435586968e0c06f79e *vmk621_227600.zip (104'026'49