Porteus

I did a frugal install on usb pendrive (bootable by syslinux). On booting, however, there is kernel message line, followed by initrd message line, then the screen goes blank and stays like that..... I have to press reset button (control-alt-delete does not work). I have tried this on 2 computers. The commandline is essentially same as that for hard disk frugal install, which works perfectly. Can someone help me solve this problem?

Sorry , it is not an installation method.
And , you don't post a lot of infos about your "issue"

5. Choose a good subject - Do not make your subject say just "Help porteus newbie" nobody wants to hear this. Describe your problem briefly in your subject, then you can describe your problem in greater depth in the body of your article. Repeat the subject in the body if it will make things clearer. Avoid "subject says all" etc. A better subject might have been "X Windows crashes whenever I run program foo."

What's the version of your Porteus?
Have you checked your md5sum ?
What's the model of your computer?
What's the error at boot just before the blank screen?
Have you tried to start with 'nomodeset' cheatcode ?

Sorry , it is not an installation method.

I posted this here because it fits what is written on the Board Index:

Installation methods (HD, usb sticks, card readers, etc...) Here you can post about non standard installation methods and problems with it.

Note the "non standard"

Choose a good subject:

I think this is a reasonable subject line.

Do not make your subject say just "Help porteus newbie" nobody wants to hear this

I did not say this

Describe your problem briefly in your subject

I did exactly this

then you can describe your problem in greater depth in the body of your article

: I did this

Avoid "subject says all"

I did not say that.

Even then, if you feel this will be better at some other place in the forum, have it moved.

Have you tried to start with 'nomodeset' cheatcode ?

I did not. I will try it.

Bye.

Sorry , it is not an installation method.

I posted this here because it fits what is written on the Board Index:
It is an issue with "your" installation method. If you're using a stable version. Please report your bug in bug report of your architecture.

Installation methods (HD, usb sticks, card readers, etc...) Here you can post about non standard installation methods and problems with it.

Note the "non standard"
Sorry, by default , we install Porteus with frugual method (copy all content of iso on a device)

I think this is a reasonable subject line.
You can add more infos same as

USB frugal install problem boot issue

Do not make your subject say just "Help porteus newbie" nobody wants to hear this
I did not say this
I know , but your subject is similar , if someone use the search function , he can't know if he has the same issue as You with the title.

Regards,

Nomodeset cheatcode had no effect. At boot, there are 2 warnings: "unrecognized partition table - please rebuild using Microsoft compatible FDISK (err=4) (kernel ....)" and same warning with "(initrd ...)" after 2nd warning. Then the screen goes blank. It is porteus V1RC1, which is working on 2 other computers. I tried to boot this usb on 2 computers and same problem is there. The usb is formatted fat-32 (vfat).

@rnport
"I posted this here because it fits what is written on the Board Index:"
"Installation methods" is a category separated from HOWTO's to be easily notable on the board. you should post your problems only in a reference to certain HOWTO. for example francois posted his problems with grub4dos here:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=145
cause grub4dos is not included in Porteus.
if you are using standard porteus installation tools than your post should go to "Bug reports" for 32/64 bits.

Possible solution for your problem:
try to re-format your usb stick under windows first and if it wont help then linux is next.

(Hamza - pls move this thread to proper place once you find out the arch)

It is 32 bit version.

Posted after 4 hours 22 minutes 27 seconds:
Even after formatting the usb pendrive from windows, same problem is persisting. I think I saw a similar post on this forum earlier but I am not able to find it now.

If you have failed with using a FAT32 partition, can you please try to format the partition with ext2 or ext3. This can be done using a variety of linux boot disks. The command you will need (as root) is: mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdxy
I would recommend gparted for formatting partitions.

You can also use fdisk or cfdisk to create the partition.
Then copy the boot and porteus folders onto the ext3 partition. Go into the porteus folder and run lin_start_here.sh

Be sure when formatting that you wipe the partition table. If this occurs using the same USB device you may also want to try another USB device. It could have a corrupt sector at the start. If you suspect this is the case you can try running fsck, but if it was me, i would throw it out and replace it. They are cheap these days.

Ok. I will try these steps and let you know.

Posted after 34 minutes 15 seconds:
To check the need for partition format etc I put slax on the pendrive. It gives the same error messages (partition not being Microsoft compatible...) from kernel and initrd. But then (instead of screen going blank at this stage in porteus) there is further message: Probing EDD (edd=off to disable).. Decompressing linux.. and it starts and works all right. Same porteus files are working fine from hard disk frugal install.

I will try the proper recommended method on a different usb and let you know.

If your frugual installation works on HD and not on the USB Device ,it is because , you have an issue with your usb device. Try to reproduce this bug on another usb device.

Try formatting the device under windows disk management. If still not working try with an ext file system.