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[Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 01 Mar 2013, 20:59
by Payoon
Hi folks,
while I'm new to Porteus, I have so far used Puppy Linux. But I like the module concept of Porteus and so I'm willing to give it a try. After installing it to my harddisk (Porteus 2.0 64bit) I have encountered one difficulty though: It seems, that Porteus ingnores my cheatcodes in porteus.cfg.
After first boot I went (as root) to /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg and changed the LXDE section as below (Everything else untouched):



LABEL lxde
MENU LABEL Graphics mode (LXDE)
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz lxde changes=/porteus kmap=de login=root copy2ram
TEXT HELP
Run Porteus the same as above.
Lightweight LXDE to be
launched as default desktop
ENDTEXT


But when rebooting I come to the same splash screen like before and if I select LXDE => ENTER I'm logged in as user Guest and also without copy to RAM and without German keyboard. When I pass the cheatcodes manually by using the TAB key everything works like I thought.
I have also tried this by using the 32bit Edtion with the same result. (A recheck showed that LXDE porteus.cfg really looked like above).
What I expected was that after modifying Lilo I will be booted into a login screen or line, enter the root password (or even without that) and then continue boot straight to LXDE.
I'm sure this is not a bug, but that I rather have overlooked something. But what? Who can help me?

Thanks in advance.
Payoon

Re: Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 01 Mar 2013, 21:20
by fanthom
hello Payoon,

what's the filesystem type you are installing to?

asking cause if you are installing to xfs or reiserfs then LILO bootloaded is used by the installer (rather than extlinux).
in this case you have to edit /boot/syslinux/lilo.conf (rather than porteus.cfg) and run 'Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com' again as LILO needs to reload it's configuration.

LILO is less user friendly than extlinux so you have to edit lilo.conf (not lilo.menu) every time when you want to change it's config and run 'Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com' again.

hopefully extlinux get xfs support one day and we will drop LILO completely.

if this is not the problem for you then i would advice to reformat your stick with ext4 and repeat installation so you could take advantage of extlinux features (graphical menu, editing of porteus.cfg can be done "on the fly" and does not require repeating of the installation)

Re: Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 01 Mar 2013, 21:37
by Payoon
Hi fanthom,
thanks for that highspeed answer. Initially I used ext4 (with the results above) but I have also tried ext3 and ext2, but now,as you mentioned it: The installer claimed that he was falling back to LILO because the original porteus bootloader couldn't handle ext4 ( and after I reformatted same message for ext3 and ext2 ). Tomorrow I will install again and post the exact words and also modify lilo.conf. But I'm sure You have singled out the cause of the problem.
BTW: I stumbled over Porteus about a year or so ago, but somehow had no time and lost sight of it. After revisiting now I'm very very impressed.
Thanks again and nice vacation.
Payoon

Re: Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 01 Mar 2013, 21:47
by fanthom
The installer claimed that he was falling back to LILO because the original porteus bootloader couldn't handle ext4 ( and after I reformatted same message for ext3 and ext2 ).
that's very strange because extlinux supports ext* family very well.
are you sure you are installing to correct partition?

if you are really installing to ext4 then please show me a screenshot and i'll find the reason.

Re: Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 02 Mar 2013, 13:58
by Payoon
Hi
I couldn't make a screenshot, but I have typed word by word what was shown during install as follows:

flushing file system buffers....
.porteus_installer-2.0/installer.com:line 102 [:too many arguments
The default Porteus bootloader (extlinux) does not support the "ext4" filesystem
Falling back to LILO
.porteus_installer-2.0/installer.com: [:=: unary operator expected

Installation finished successfully.
You may reboot............................................................

That install was on a harddisk.
Then I tried to modify lilo.conf but also without positive results.
At the end I tested 3 different harddisk each with 64bit and 32bit Porteus. All showed the same message and the cheatcodes were ignored.
I took a brandnew USB Stick formatted to ext4 and every thing worked fine.
That made me think it is not about Porteus but about the harddisks. They all had in common, that there was Puppy Linux Frugal (grub on MBR ) installed before. So I wrote a new MBR on the harddisk and now erverything works like it should. No message during install and the cheatcodes are remembered.

What can we learn from this? Puppy Linux and Porteus are not good bedfellows. Something to keep in the notebook.

Thanks again for the help

Payoon :)

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 02 Mar 2013, 21:37
by fanthom
must have been damaged partition table or something.
too bad that you have wiped your MBR as i was going to request the output of 'blkid' command (and possibly fix the installer for such cases).

anyway - glad that porteus is booting for you :)

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 03 Mar 2013, 06:39
by Payoon
Sorry I didn't think about that, when overwriting MBR. Anyway, now Porteus is my new number one workhorse (after 4 years of puppy linux, which is also avery good distro). I think it will take a year to understand all the possibilities Porteus offers.
Thanks again for this wonderful distro.
Payoon :)

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 03 Mar 2013, 08:36
by Payoon
Good Morning Fanthom
On the other hardisk I didn't wipe MBR so here is what blkid said:


root@porteus:~# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="5ecc0e33-b500-4b32-8904-84fc7946799b" TYPE="ext4"
/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/loop7: TYPE="squashfs"
root@porteus:~#

On this harddisk first was Puppy Linux, than reformatted with ext4 and now the 32bit Porteus is installed ( which also shows the same problem).

Hope it helps.
Payoon

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 03 Mar 2013, 09:13
by fanthom
hello Payoon,

'blkid' output looks correct so i have a couple of additional questions:
a) are you performing installation from Porteus or other linux? if other please post it's name-version
b) please post a full path where partition is mounted, also
c) post output of 'fdisk -l' command
d) enter /boot directory of unpacked porteus ISO and post output of 'df -h .' command
e) could you make a screenshot of a failure message or just copy everything from terminal (use mouse to mark everything -> right mouse click -> copy) and paste here

i have pushed updated installer to fix another issue (whitespaces in folder name) so please try this version and report if it works for you:
http://ponce.cc/porteus/x86_64/testing/ ... -Linux.com

thank you

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 03 Mar 2013, 13:50
by Payoon
Hi fanthom
Ok this post will be a little long, but I want it clear for You.

Question a)
Starting point was a netbook with a 1000GB Seagate harddisk.On this was installed a Lucid Puppy 528 as a frugal install. Grub legacy bootloader was written to MBR.
I took the Puppy Linux Live CD ( Gparted is on the CD) booted it to RAM and formatted the drive with Gparted as a single partition sda1 with ext4. I plugged in a USB Stick and copied the folders from the extracted Porteus 2.0 32bit.iso to the harddisk. Than I ran the installer. During installing I got the following messages:

flushing file system buffers....
.porteus_installer-2.0/installer.com:line 102: [:too many arguments
The default Porteus bootloader (extlinux) does not support the "ext4" filesystem
Falling back to LILO
.porteus_installer-2.0/installer.com: line113: [:=: unary operator expected

Installation finished successfully.
You may reboot............................................................



But because at the end the installer said "finished successfully", I didn't think of it further.
After rebooting several times I appended the cheat codes, but found that they were ignored.

The rest You know.

Question b)

The folders porteus and boot are in mnt/sda1

Question c)

root@porteus:/# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 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
Disk identifier: 0x6c796c79

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1953523711 976760832 83 Linux
root@porteus:/#

Question d)

root@porteus:/mnt/sda1/boot# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
aufs 1.2G 760K 1.2G 1% /
devtmpfs 1008M 0 1008M 0% /dev
/dev/sda1 917G 430M 870G 1% /mnt/sda1
root@porteus:/mnt/sda1/boot#


Question e)

The screenshot:

I have tried, but failed to insert a picture here, in fact it shows the exact text, that I have written under a) starting with " flushing filesystem buffers.....





Last point:

The new installer that You provided works well. No Error messages like above, but the cheatcodes are still ignored.

Sorry it a little long, but I had to do a lot of plugging and unplugging to receive the information.

Everything I have done was with Porteus 2.0 32bit Version on the MSI netbook.

Payoon

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 04 Mar 2013, 08:35
by fanthom
@Payoon
thanks for the info - i think we are close :)

i have updated installer so please download it once again from here (and make executable):
http://ponce.cc/porteus/x86_64/testing/ ... -Linux.com

new feature:
- if installation fails then installer will produce a debug log (/boot/debug.txt) which can be pasted on the forum.

in your case installation does not fail so please run installer with '-d' switch:
'./Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com -- -d'
and paste content of /boot/debug.txt in this thread.

also: if installer fallbacks to LILO then you have to make tweaks (add/remove/edit cheatcodes) in /boot/syslinux/lilo.conf file instead of /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg as porteus.cfg is used by extlinux.
remember: every time you update /boot/syslinux/lilo.conf you have to run installer once again
remember2: you must update /boot/syslinux/lilo.conf and not /boot/syslinux/lilo.menu

btw: you can upload screenshots to external sites like tinypic.com and paste links only.

please try it -> post debug.txt -> i'll give you an answer why cheatcodes are ignored

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 04 Mar 2013, 15:41
by Payoon
Hi fanthom,
did the install with the installer that you linked to in your last post, but it crashed. Just for clarification : I have two machines : a PC where the MBR was ovewritten by me and that works now. The second is a Netbook, where the "cheatcodes ignore" Problem still perists and the MBR was untouched (at least by me). Everything is done on the netbook with 32bit Porteus.

Here is what the installer said:

sh-4.1# ./Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com -- -d
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Porteus Installer......

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

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

Installing Porteus to /dev/sda1
Make sure this is the right partition before proceeding.

Press Enter to continue or Ctrl+c to exit.

Flushing filesystem buffers...

The default Porteus bootloader (extlinux) does not support the filesystem.
Falling back to LILO.

Installation failed with error code '5'.
Please ask for help on the Porteus forum: http://www.porteus.org/forum
and provide the information from /mnt/sda1/boot/debug.txt

Exiting now...
sh-4.1#


And here is the text of the debug file:

device: /dev/sda
partition: /dev/sda1
partition number: 1
partition mount point: /mnt/sda1
installation path: /mnt/sda1/boot
subfolder:
filesystem:
bootloader: lilo
error code: 5
system: 2.6.33.2 i686

I hope You find the necessary information inside. Kernel 2.6.33.2 is that from Puppy Linux Live CD.


Regards
Payoon

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 04 Mar 2013, 16:23
by fanthom
very good :)

i see that filesystem was not discovered properly and this could be the reason. other things seems to be ok.
please boot Puppy and show me output of 'blkid /dev/sda1' command.

please also try new installer (while running Puppy) where i updated filesystem discovery function (uses 'cat /proc/mounts' instead of 'blkid /dev/sdXY'):
http://ponce.cc/porteus/x86_64/testing/ ... -Linux.com

if installer still fallback to LILO then please post content of /mnt/sda1/boot/syslinux/lilo.conf and /mnt/sda1/boot/syslinux/lilo.menu
please post also new /boot/debug.txt as i want to make sure that filesystem was discovered properly with new 'cat /proc/mounts' function.

i hope that i'm not bothering you too much,
thank you

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 04 Mar 2013, 17:48
by Payoon
Hello fanthom,
good news I think. What I can see, You solved the problem.

Firts the blkid:

sh-4.1# blkid /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1: UUID="0ec7db61-6339-471e-8e85-e087511c7dbb" TYPE="ext4"
sh-4.1#

Here is what the installer said:

sh-4.1# ./Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Porteus Installer.........

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

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

Installing Porteus to /dev/sda1
Make sure this is the right partition before proceeding.

Press Enter to continue or Ctrl+c to exit.

Flushing filesystem buffers...

Using extlinux bootloader.

Installation finished successfully.
You may reboot your PC now and start using Porteus.
Please check the /boot/docs folder for additional information about
the installation process, Porteus requirements and booting parameters.
In case of making tweaks to the bootloader config,
please edit: /mnt/sda1/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg file.

Press Enter to exit.



Now the debug.txt:

device: /dev/sda
partition: /dev/sda1
partition number: 1
partition mount point: /mnt/sda1
installation path: /mnt/sda1/boot
subfolder:
filesystem: ext4
bootloader: extlinux
error code:
system: 2.6.33.2 i686


That all looks promising and to verify I rebooted added my cheatcodes and it works! Congratulations!
I will use this installer from now on.
My question: Why do other users not have this problem? Grub( fromPuppy in my case) is very common.

One more thing: You do not bother me. Just the opposite. I'm glad to help (in this case in my own interest).
I like Porteus and want it to be successful.

Thank You very,very much and if I can do some more let me know.
Payoon

Re: [Solved] Cheatcodes in porteus.conf ignored?

Posted: 05 Mar 2013, 09:48
by fanthom
Why do other users not have this problem?
not sure but at least now i know where to point them :)

thanks once again.