lilo?[SOLVED]

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quotaholic
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lilo?[SOLVED]

Post#1 by quotaholic » 09 May 2015, 02:25

Hi All,

Building up a Porteus image for that old Geode hardware I tinker with now and again. Thank you Guys for including all the odd input kernel modules in your kernel that I need. That being said I see that Porteus installer defaults to syslinux. Have not been able to use syslinux on this hardware for half a decade. Is there anyway to easily convert to lilo or to flip the installer in to putting down lilo instead of syslinux? I know that lilo still works as Porteus-1.2 boots like a charm from usb on the target hardware. Hey wait... Could I just install 1.2 to a usb drive and then replace all the payload due to your consistent naming conventions through releases? Then re-run installer in /mnt/sdx/boot... ?

I did read somewhere that xfs gets lilo automatically however when I tried this I could only get error code 2 from the Porteus-installer for both Linux and Win.


**EDIT It worked ...almost

Installed Porteus-1.2 via copying mounted iso to freshly formatted mounted usb. Then ran installer, selected 6 for lilo. Rebooted to test. Works as expected.

Back to non usb linux os

Mounted freshly remastered Porteus ISO and mounted USB. Copied all of /porteus from ISO to /mnt/usb/porteus (after deleting contents of old usb porteus)
Copied /iso/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz to /mnt/usb/boot/vmlinux
Copied /iso/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz to /mnt/usb/boot/initrd.xz
Copied all of /mnt/iso/boot/syslinux to /mnt/usb/boot/syslinux (for porteus.cfg and other files)
Reboot to see Porteus 3.0 booting with lilo.

Now I cant seem to run liloconfig to be able to take out the no timeout aspect of default config. I have a tablet with no button input until x loads and want to set a default timeout. Seems os-loader is not installed. Ill try that and see if it works. Installing os-prober lets liloconfig run but upon

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lilo -C /mnt/sdd1/boot/lilo.conf -M /dev/sdd
I get an updated bootloader indication however on reboot I get a quick error as it blows past the usb stick with "no boot signature in partition".

Copied over checkbase.sh from v1.2 and still get the same.
Any lilo experts know how to update this the proper way?

Tried to use extlinux but only get kernel panic. Reverting back to lilo results in no boot signature in partition. Is there any way to use the current installer and designate a lilo installation or a extlinux install VS a syslinux default? Tried using xfs formatting but only got error code 2 from installer. It would be nice to have the option as the old installer seems more capable in this capacity. Well in part...

In trying the opposite approach (getting new ISO and then installing old bootloader) I have two usb sticks with fresh msdos - ext4 fs that both result in error 2 on running Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com. Three tries on both usb sticks with fresh partition tables each try. Tiny core from cdrom installs to the usbs and they boot and this is my only breadcrumb.

Can I copy the old lin-start-here.sh installer over to a new ISO and have it work somehow?

Thank you in advance
quotaholic
Last edited by quotaholic on 23 May 2015, 23:55, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: lilo?

Post#2 by tome » 09 May 2015, 21:34

You have mind and feelings. Be wise and clever.

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Re: lilo?

Post#3 by quotaholic » 10 May 2015, 17:23

Thank you tome. Tried it twice. First time I just rm -r'd everything off the ext4 usb drive and ran liloinst3.sh. Reboot indicated no operating system on my dell vostro tower. Second attempt was with a new partition table in msdos and with ext4 again. On reboot I got a continuous beep.

If there is an exe file there can I use from windows? I have seen grub4dos working on this hardware in the past so I am very interested. At current lilo on porteus 1.2 will work on the hardware but grub-0.97 and ext/syslinux have both failed.

Not sure I completely understand how this sets up as most of the dialog is in german. How do we troubleshoot?

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Re: lilo? [SOLVED]

Post#4 by quotaholic » 11 May 2015, 02:43

Solved this one.

Mounted Porteus-v1.2 in loop via mount -o loop Downloads/Porteus-1.2-i486.iso /mnt/iso
Mounted target usb stick as /mnt/porteususb

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cp /mnt/iso/boot/syslinux/liloinst.sh /mnt/porteususb/boot/syslinux/

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cp /mnt/iso/boot/syslinux/lilo /mnt/porteususb/boot/syslinux

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cp/mnt/iso/boot/syslinux/lilo.conf /mnt/porteususb/boot/syslinux

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nano /mnt/porteususb/boot/syslinux/lilo.conf 
match boot parameters to your target in what hard drive it will mount as in (/mnt/sd?1) throughout options. Save.

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nano /mnt/porteususb/boot/syslinux/liloinst.sh
comment out the lines before and during the chkinst.sh script near the top. Different xzm's, doesnt make sense to check. Save

had to install os-prober but after doing so I was able to install lilo to a usb and boot porteus to ancient hardware that syslinux will not support. With:

as root

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./liloinst.sh
Basically this copies over the lilo specific of the installer script(s) that were included in Porteus-v1.2 and allows for one to install a modern porteus to ancient hardware that wont boot via syslinux.

BTW Porteus absolutely flies with JWM, available from Salix in USM. With SVKBD, conky and a few hacks its like going back in time.

quotaholic

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Re: lilo?

Post#5 by brokenman » 11 May 2015, 15:59

Great job. Thanks for posting your solution.
How do i become super user?
Wear your underpants on the outside and put on a cape.

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Re: lilo?

Post#6 by quotaholic » 11 May 2015, 18:22

Need to correct myself in that since the liloinst.sh file actually makes the lilo.conf file that we need to edit liloinst.sh file to have the values we want the lilo.conf file to have.

Not sure whats going on but on my gentoo box I cant get porteus installer to work. I can only use lilo or I get error code 2 on all recent iso's.

Thanks
Daryl

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Re: lilo?

Post#7 by quotaholic » 11 May 2015, 21:17

Off topic
Just curious

Has anyone seen a flashing xterm window that wont let x start up all the way? I installed JWM on top of base, kernel and xorg modules and when I startx I get an xterm window that says "login" at the top and if I close it the window manager shuts down. Other times I cheat code to desktop from boot and it flashes and shuts its self off and back on and off and back on. The x window system that is.

Assuming that I need a login manager to properly utilize ck-session but I was hoping for less fat. Could I get in to /etc/rc.X to adjust the startup of the default scripting for default WM?

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Re: lilo?

Post#8 by quotaholic » 19 May 2015, 00:05

OK,

Tried three things and I am open to suggestions. Simply stated I can not get the porteus installer to work. Tome thank you for offering your solution but I cant get anything to install lilo. Tome, what is the exe file for?

I just made an xfs formatted usb stick on a dos partition table to try to force lilo as seen in a previous post.

Ran installer and received error2. I mounted iso to /mnt/iso and the usb stick was mounted on /dev/sdd1

Tome, I tried your dos / lilo solution first on a fat32 filesystem and although it indicated it finished I rebooted to see the broken lilo that I somehow managed to install. Tried plop but it said the kernel was big. And stopped.

Debug:

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Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1  *          63 30489290 30489228 14.6G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdd2       30489291 30489353       63 31.5K ea unknown
bash-4.3# ls
Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com    chkbase.sh  docs
Porteus-installer-for-Windows.exe  debug.txt   syslinux
bash-4.3# cat debug.txt
device: /dev/sdd
partition: /dev/sdd1
partition number: 1
partition mount point: /mnt/sdd1
installation path: /mnt/sdd1/boot
subfolder: 
filesystem: xfs
bootloader: lilo
error code: 2
system: Vostro 3.18.11 x86_64
mount details: /dev/sdd1 /mnt/sdd1 xfs rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota 0 0
full partition scheme:
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2094ca70

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *          2048     206847     204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2           206848 1324621511 1324414664 631.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       1324621823 3907008511 2582386689   1.2T  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       1324621825 1328816475    4194651     2G 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6       1328818176 1412708800   83890625    40G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       1412710400 3907008511 2494298112   1.2T 83 Linux





Disk /dev/sdc: 1.4 TiB, 1500301910016 bytes, 2930277168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xd2beaba6

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *       63 2930273500 2930273438  1.4T  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x000a4397

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1          63 3907024064 3907024002  1.8T  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT



Disk /dev/loop0: 437.7 MiB, 458895360 bytes, 896280 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/sdd: 14.6 GiB, 15610576896 bytes, 30489408 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00041e68

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1  *          63 30489290 30489228 14.6G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdd2       30489291 30489353       63 31.5K ea unknown

bash-4.3# 


Whats curious to me is that the partition is labeled both fat32 and xfs depending on where one looks. On the first line and near the end its considered fat32. However within debug.txt it shows as xfs?????


Is it possible to ask for some advice in coding in a flip switch to the existing installer allowing one to specify lilo for the bootloader?

This is what I have looked at the last 6 times I have tried to install porteus to a linux partition across 3 linux operating systems (debian jessie, Slackware-current-5/18/2015, and Sabayon 15.04) and with 5 times on dos partitions and one time on gpt.
Installation failed with error code '2'.
Please ask for help on the Porteus forum: http://www.porteus.org/forum
and provide the information from /mnt/sdd1/boot/debug.txt

Exiting now...
Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 5 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
cat: /mnt/sdd1/boot/syslinux/lilo.menu: No such file or directory
If anyone is working on upgrading the installer may I please test?

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Re: lilo?

Post#9 by quotaholic » 19 May 2015, 00:19

Just to make sure I am not nuts I went through steps a second time to see the same results:

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bash-4.3# df -Th /mnt/sdd1
Filesystem     Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sde1      xfs    15G   33M   15G   1% /mnt/sdd1
bash-4.3# cp -Rrp /mnt/iso/* /mnt/sdd1
bash-4.3# cd /mnt/sdd1/boot
bash-4.3# ./Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com 
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Porteus Installer......

                             _.====.._
                           ,:._       ~-_
                               '\        ~-_
                                 \        \.
                               ,/           ~-_
                      -..__..-''   PORTEUS   ~~--..__

==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--

Installing Porteus to /dev/sde1
WARNING: Make sure this is the right partition before proceeding.

Type 'ok' to continue or press Ctrl+c to exit.
ok
Flushing filesystem buffers...

Installation failed with error code '2'.
Please ask for help on the Porteus forum: www.porteus.org/forum
and provide the information from /mnt/sdd1/boot/debug.txt

Exiting now...
Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 5 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
cat: /mnt/sdd1/boot/syslinux/lilo.menu: No such file or directory
bash-4.3# 
debug:

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bash-4.3# cat debug.txt
device: /dev/sde
partition: /dev/sde1
partition number: 1
partition mount point: /mnt/sdd1
installation path: /mnt/sdd1/boot
subfolder: 
filesystem: xfs
bootloader: lilo
error code: 2
system: Vostro 3.18.11 x86_64
mount details: /dev/sde1 /mnt/sdd1 xfs rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota 0 0
full partition scheme:
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2094ca70

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *          2048     206847     204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2           206848 1324621511 1324414664 631.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       1324621823 3907008511 2582386689   1.2T  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       1324621825 1328816475    4194651     2G 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6       1328818176 1412708800   83890625    40G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       1412710400 3907008511 2494298112   1.2T 83 Linux





Disk /dev/sdc: 1.4 TiB, 1500301910016 bytes, 2930277168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xd2beaba6

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *       63 2930273500 2930273438  1.4T  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x000a4397

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1          63 3907024064 3907024002  1.8T  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT



Disk /dev/loop0: 437.7 MiB, 458895360 bytes, 896280 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/sde: 14.6 GiB, 15610576896 bytes, 30489408 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00041e68

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sde1  *          63 30489290 30489228 14.6G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sde2       30489291 30489353       63 31.5K ea unknown

bash-4.3#

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Re: lilo?[SOLVED]

Post#10 by quotaholic » 23 May 2015, 20:06

After a few attempts at trying to force a lilo install I have found another way:

http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?t=145&p=611

This worked perfectly on Porteus 3.1 and has me booting legacy, seriously old hardware.

Ironically I installed x86 version of Slackware 14.1 on PC and Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com worked in setting up USB for syslinux. Downloaded script from above forum link and voila.

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