Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

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Ed_P
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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#31 by Ed_P » 11 Jan 2017, 05:20

alienbob wrote:I create the initrd for Slackware Live myself,
Wow!! I'm impressed. :) Here's what I don't get, I can boot the ISO to the point where it executes your initrd within the ISO. If initrd is executing from within the ISO why can't it, or the system, continue to read and execute other files within the ISO? Maybe the problem isn't initrd's ability to read the ntfs partition on which the ISO exist but rather my inability to understand how the livemedia parameter works.

For example, within grub2 to access the initrd file I'm specifying /boot/initrd.img preceded by (loop). Not /dev/sda5/ or /mnt/sda5/. The ntfs path is being handled by grub2 and it's loopback function. The same thing with /boot/generic. (loop)/boot/generic. So why with the livemedia parameter isn't it acceptable to specify (loop)/liveslak? Why doesn't livemedia=(loop):/liveslax or livemedia=(loop)/liveslax:/liveslax or livemedia=(loop):(loop)/liveslax work?

I hope I'm not boring you but you are the first person I have met who has created an initrd and I don't understand how the livemedia parameter works. :(
If you want to use this feature of booting off the ISO on a filesystem, you can debug the issue and provide me with patches. What's most likely the case (based on later posts in this thread) is that the NTFS filesystem you are using is not supported in the initrd. I only added support for ext2/3/4, and for (v)fat. Trivial to fix that, if you consider that the NTFS partition only needs to be read,
The ISO only needs to be read. The partition on which it resides only needs to be read. I will debug the issue any way you want, just ask. As for providing you with patches I'm afraid I can't. This is way over my head. I struggle writing basic bash scripts. :oops:
IMO The ability to boot ISOs is a very effective way to get Windows users to try Linux. :good:
Then let them write the ISO to a USB stick. Or install VMWare Player, works even better.
:D Well being just after the holidays a USB stick may be an option but the rest of the year not so much. And many of us that use ISB sticks have them configured to multi-boot with other systems already on them. And even my USB sticks boot ISOs. As for VMWare and VirtualBox and QEMU they work, if you have the RAM and processor power to use them. On my 1GHz 2GB machine it's a struggle at best.
Again, I did not have the same design in mind as Porteus, it would be a waste of time to create a second Porteus. It's evolved into something sufficiently different from Porteus that we should have a different userbase anyway.
I'm not looking for a Porteus competitor. I'm just curious how connected Porteus is to the native Slackware. And since I am using the Cinnamon version of Porteus it should be an interesting comparison. I am looking for as comparing of a son to a father.
alienbob wrote:..and if you are adventurous, you can checkout liveslak from git, and generate an ISO yourself that should have NTFS support, with this commit: http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/ ... 74ad3f7ec4
Wow!! Thank you alienbob. :friends: But that is so far over my head. I can follow it right up to the first ----- line. :D

Thanks for getting back to me. :beer:
Ed

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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#32 by alienbob » 11 Jan 2017, 20:17

The "(loop)/boot/generic" syntax is internal to GRUB. There is a whole lot of code in GRUB to support this kind of simplification of pointing to a file on a disk.
GRUB will therefore retrieve the kernel and the initrd without any problem using this (loop) syntax but once GRUB loads and executes the kernel and the initrd, GRUB says bye-bye and is out of the picture.
Once the Linux kernel boots, it loads the filesystem inside the initrd into RAM. The init script inside the initrd can not use GRUB code, so there is no way to use (loop) syntax in the initrd unless I would write a program that makes it possible. The init script inside the initrd is a pretty straight-forward shell script, and when the kernel executes that script, nothing is known about what disks, partitions and files we have available. So the init script has to find it all out for itself using regular tools that you can also find in your Slackware installation (mount, blkid, findfs).
If the init script needs to read a file on a filesystem on a disk partition, then the kernel needs to make that possible by providing the drivers to access the disk, as well as the filesystems on that disk's partitions. My initrd (as I said before) currently lacks the support to mount and read NTFS filesystems. Grub does not lack that support. That is why you do not see GRUB failing to loop-mount the ISO file on NTFS filesystem, but you see the init script of the Live OS failing to access that same ISO file.

Once I have time to build a new set of Plasma 5 packages it's also time to release a new version of liveslak and with it, a new set of ISO images. The initrd inside those new ISOs will have support for NTFS filesystems. Due to busy schedule (temporarily doing the work of 2 persons in my new job) it may take several weeks before I get to that.

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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#33 by Bogomips » 11 Jan 2017, 20:25

Nice tutorial. :) Actually if I remember correctly, in the live pre 14.2 linuxrc, also included were some hints on constructing the initrd, possibly authored by Volkerding.
Linux porteus 4.4.0-porteus #3 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jan 23 07:01:55 UTC 2016 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) 140 Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430] (rev a2) MemTotal: 901760 kB MemFree: 66752 kB

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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#34 by Ed_P » 11 Jan 2017, 23:48

alienbob thank you for the explanation of how the Linux booting process works. :)
alienbob wrote:The init script inside the initrd is a pretty straight-forward shell script,
:shock: This I wasn't expecting.

OMG!! I just stopped and opened the ISO and found that 7-zip can open the initrd file. :shock: And what I am seeing in this file is hardly what I would call a "shell script". It's a whole operating system!! :shock:

I will wait for your next release. :)

I have experience in booting ISOs with initrd and vmlinuz files outside the ISO so if you want someone to test your revised initrd file before creating new ISOs I am happy to volunteer to do that.
Ed

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Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#35 by Evan » 10 Feb 2017, 08:24

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Last edited by Evan on 17 Feb 2018, 07:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#36 by tome » 10 Feb 2017, 15:32

No - different kernels.
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Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#37 by Evan » 10 Feb 2017, 23:29

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Re: Alien Bob slackware minimalist live version

Post#38 by fulalas » 11 Feb 2017, 00:32

Evan, which version of Nvidia you want? We have a lot of effort here in this forum regarding Nvidia drivers modules for Porteus :)

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