Problems installing Porteus on hd.

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Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#1 by survivor » 23 Oct 2012, 19:52

Hi there, I'm new to Porteus.
I've a laptop with WinXp on it and I wanted to put Porteus into the windows bootloader, just wanted to leave the mbr intact.
So I found this: http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwin/step1-xp.htm
But I think I did something wrong, when I choose Start Linux in the bootloader it says there is no such partition...
I've 2 ntfs partitions where I keep windows and my stuff and 1 ext3 I made for Porteus, I've managed to install Porteus to usb and it ran fine, I've used Porteus Installer to install it onto that ext3 partition, all went fine. Then I found some files needed for the bootloader to load linux, there are grldr and menu.lst on C drive.
Proteus detected ext3 partition as sda6, so I've edited the menu.lst like that:
######################################################
# GvR Sept 30th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=0

title Windows XP Pro SP3
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title LINUX Porteus v1.2 XFCE
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda6 from_dir=/porteus noswap max_loop=150 kmap=es toroot
initrd=(hd0,3)/boot/initrd.xz
boot

######################################################

I tried to set everything right, like I said - linux detected ext3 partition to be sda6 so I've put this into the config above, changed folder names to fit my installation and still the same - no such partition... The ext3 is third partition on my hd so I don't get it how is that possible when (hd0,3) doesn't exist??
Can someone tell where is the mistake?
Thanks:)

btw this is my boot.ini file content, which I believe is correct:
[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
c:\grldr="Start Linux"

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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#2 by fanthom » 23 Oct 2012, 20:28

hello survivor,

Grub starts counting from 0 so please try (hd0,2). if that wont work then please boot porteus from USB and show me output of 'blkid' command.


btw: not sure why porteus detected your ext3 partition as sda6 (probably you have on primary and 2 extended partitions) so you may also try (hd0,5).

Cheers
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#3 by Ahau » 23 Oct 2012, 20:35

welcome, survivor!

Given that porteus detected your ext3 partition as sda6, grub will not see this as partion (hd0,3)--that would be sda4.

According to this doc: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual ... convention
the first extended partition would be (hd0,4), but given your numbering as sda6 instead of sda5, you might have another unused partition in there somewhere, so it might be (hd0,4) or, more likely, (hd0,5).

I've never used grldr, but I think it's similar (or maybe the same, without the rest of the package) to grub4dos. Try rebooting and see if there's a way to get to a grub command-prompt (in grub legacy, you can do this by hitting 'e' to edit the boot line, and 'c' to enter a command prompt). If you can get to it, you should be able to type out "root (hd0," (without the quotes) and then press TAB to see a list of all partitions that grub can see.

HTH

edit: looks like fanthom beat me to the punch ;)
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#4 by survivor » 24 Oct 2012, 01:58

Hi there, thanks for your contribution.
Here is my hard drive layout with partitions, I've always been using partition magic to manage this stuff it always worked fine n fast n without data loss:)
I'm gonna try to put different hd0, to my cfg file and let you know, meanwhile take a look at it...
http://postimage.org/image/qzqnbqvwl/

ok, here's blkid output:
root@porteus:~# blkid
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop3: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop4: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop5: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop6: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda1: LABEL="LOCAL" UUID="22681A45681A17DD" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda5: LABEL="LOCAL" UUID="2A58676058672A31" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda6: TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="MULTIBOOT" UUID="1902-1D17" TYPE="vfat"
root@porteus:~#

btw tried hd0,5 no success, gonna try hd0,4...
hd0,4 kernel: (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda6 from_dir=/porteus noswap max_loop=150 kmap=es toroot
File not found!

The Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-i486.iso has around 210mb, after I installed it onto ext3 it took 867mb of space, you can check this out on the screenshot above and I wonder isn't something wrong with it? Here is all I did - had a big ntfs partition, resized it for 20GB less, the free space that left after resizing was around 20GB which I used to create ext3 partition, ran porteus from usb and installed it onto those 20GB of ext3 partition, didn't check the MBR cause I need it intact so.... all I did is copied porteus to hd nothing more actually... Whats wrong?:) thanks

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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#5 by Ahau » 24 Oct 2012, 16:53

Hi survivor,

The "missing space" is probably attributable to ext3's overhead and reserved space (space reserved by the filesystem for use with the journal, superblock, etc., as well as free space to allow root to log in if the partition gets entirely filled up). See:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ex ... stem_Space
http://www.lisnichenko.com/articles/ext ... art-2.html

You can run some tests, for example, you could copy the Porteus iso onto the drive and check it's free space to make sure it only went down by about 210 MB, and then delete it to make sure it's recovered.

You mentioned that hd0,5 did not work, but you didn't say which error message you received. Was it "File not found!", as with hd0,4, was it "no such partition", as with hd0,3?

Based on the information you provided so far, it is seeming even more likely that hd0,5 is the correct location, as hd0,4 (sda5) would correspond with your first extended partition (which you have as NTFS) -- grub would see this as a partition, but would not find the kernel there (hence, you got "File not found!" instead of "no such partition" when you used hd0,4).
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#6 by brokenman » 25 Oct 2012, 00:18

No UUID for /dev/sda6?? A little strange.

It wouldn't hurt to format the partition after booting from your Porteus USB.

Code: Select all

umount /dev/sda6
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda6
Check that it received a UUID again. If not then generate one using: uuidgen -r /dev/sda6
Check it again: ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
If you got one then use the cheatcode: from_dev=UUID:STrING-0F-ChARACtERS

Here is my menu.lst booting from /dev/sda5

Code: Select all

title Porteus v1.2-final
kernel (hd0,4)/os/porteus-v1.2/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda5 from_dir=/os/porteus-v1.2/porteus
initrd=(hd0,4)/os/porteus-v1.2/boot/initrd.xz
boot
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#7 by francois » 25 Oct 2012, 01:14

The answer is that your method has only been adapted for a few distributions. Porteus is not included:
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwin/step1-xp.htm
Citation:
...
Obviously the Lin'N'WinNewB Project has to restrict the choice, because it cannot support every distro (version of Linux). The Lin'N'WinNewB Project has initially made two choices, but may include more as time goes on.
...
...
The Lin'N'WinNewB Project has chosen Puppy (v.1.0.9CE, v.2.17.1, v.3.01, v.4.2.1/v.4.3.1 and Series 5 - Lucid 5.2.5, Wary 5.1.2, Lighthouse 5.0.3) as the Linux system to be fully supported. It also supports Knoppix (CD v.4.0.2) on an 'as requested' basis.
...
As you really want to keep the windows bootloader and not to change it for another one, I suggest that you use the following window program called unetbootin:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

The instructions given on that web page are the most recent one. The number of distributions covered by unetbootin is great. Slax is included and is almost the same as porteus. If you are not sure, I will test it for you before you try it. But not before the coming weekend.

An example of the use of unetbootin is given in this thread (its old but it seems to still be good) :) :
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ntID=48540
Last edited by francois on 25 Oct 2012, 13:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#8 by francois » 25 Oct 2012, 01:21

I knew, there was a few references to unetbootin on porteus. Hamza explains the use of unetbootin:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... ootin#p351

Wayne has used unetbootin for a usb install on the porteus forum:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... tin#p11192

But maybe the best thing is for you to keep on working the usb key. When you will be ready and more familiar, and this should come up within a few week. You could use another bootloader that will work with no risk to your windows installation. There is for example gruconfig:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... grubconfig

If you are not familiar enoug with linux, just take your time. You can even try to install the bootloader to your usb mbr in addition to making partition only on the usb key. Including accessing your window system from the usb key. This would make you more at ease the day you will come to install porteus on your hard disk drive (hdd). Usb key should be faster than your hdd.

Hope there is not too much information here. 8)
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#9 by survivor » 25 Oct 2012, 02:22

hi there again,
well you guys are right - the correct partition is hd0,5 it didn't work for some reason, I was looking for every menu.lst file I could find on the net to make sure mine is correct and there was one difference... I had a "/" just before porteus and boot folder names in my menu.lst, not sure if this makes any difference but I changed it, and first of all I did as Ahau said, while in grub I get to the command line and typed root hd0 [TAB] and it found that porteus is on hd0,5 so I just changed everything for that.
The main reason I want it running from hd is that the usb installation works extremely slow, like there was a cueue for reading/writing files/settings to flash drive, it sometimes takes even a 10minutes to f.e. edit desktop settings while downloading packages/converting and saving all changes it's just a pain in ass well I thouth the usb installation is somehow faster and more flexible but after I started using it with persistent file it just not what I need, maybe there is no support for intel usb 2.0 interface or something but for an emtec's 16gb micro usb 2.0 flash drive its hell of a slow... in the end wished all distros work as fine as their live versions...
ok I have it installed to the drive but cant do enything valuable, tried to install something, downloaded packages from slacky/converted/installed/activated when I run some program it does nothing, when I run the same as root it says it's not found while the program is installed correctly I believe... It has its executable file but nothing happens when I run it manually.... anyway sorry for a little off-topic I think my problems with running from hd are over now, once again thank you for your patience and good will:)

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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#10 by brokenman » 25 Oct 2012, 12:27

Firstly porteus was designed to run from portable devices and something is wrong if an action takes 10 mins. I would suspect the hardware.

Please use the Porteus package manager to download a package and notice how it downloads dependencies for each application. Porteus is a very lightweight distro and as such you will probably need to download other required packages (dependencies) when you download a slacky package and convert it. Without these deps the application won't run. Try running the executable from a terminal to see the first library that it complains about as being missing.

You can see which libraries are missing from a terminal using: ldd /usr/bin/myexecutable|grep "*ot found"

Then you need to hunt down the packages that contain these libraries. Welcome to linux dependency hell. This is why package managers were invented.
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Re: Problems installing Porteus on hd.

Post#11 by francois » 27 Oct 2012, 02:28

@survivor:
It would be nice that you provide succinctly the solution to the problem that you had. After all, many people made some efforts to help you.

Would you do so? :)
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