New user's USB Porteus install experience

Post here if you are a new Porteus member and you're looking for some help.
hockeykong
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New user's USB Porteus install experience

Post#1 by hockeykong » 05 Sep 2018, 22:36

Hi,

I have just downloaded the Porteus ISO file, and I'm about to install on a 16 GB usb thumb drive.

I have partitioned the thumb drive in two (2):
1) sdc1: fat32 for the EFI_System (ESP) - 300 MB
2) sdc2: ext4 - what's left

Following the instructions I am now here:
source:
http://www.porteus.org/component/conten ... guide.html

Guide -> Installing Porteus to a USB flash drive -> From Linux

STEPS TO INSTALL:
...

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/sdb1 
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 
2) Copy the files /boot and /porteus from the Porteus .iso file ...

> QUESTION: Does the /boot dir go into sdb1, and the /porteus into sdb2 ?

I just want to be certain.

Thanks.

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Post#2 by Ed_P » 06 Sep 2018, 04:20

Within the ISO there is a file named USB_INSTALLATION.txt that you might want to review. It's more current and answers your question.
Ed

hockeykong
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Post#3 by hockeykong » 06 Sep 2018, 16:14

@Ed_P Thanks, will do.

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Post#4 by hockeykong » 06 Sep 2018, 18:52

If I may ask, what would be a good size for the system partition, everything I need to keep from boot to boot, for the system, including a few small added packages/librairies (@500MB) ? Whatever files I want to keep on the flash drive will be on the 2nd partition (ext4).

Let's say it is 1GB. Since it is the first partition on the flash drive, and it is vfat formatted, it would also be the "ESP" (efi system partition) if it contains the necessary boot files in the right/std dir structure, right ?

I'm asking, mainly out of curiosity, because I've always seen references to the ESP as being 100-350MB, very small by today's standards. Also I've had problems with my motherboard booting devices, and my internal hd, in UEFI vs BIOS modes, so I want to be cautious. I think that technically the ESP does not have a maximum size, it only needs to be vfat and the first partition, and hold the boot files in the right/std directory structure. I'm trying to keep everything UEFI/gpt only.

Perhaps needlessly I'd rather also avoid modifying the partitions after the data is on them.

Thanks again.

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Post#5 by Ed_P » 06 Sep 2018, 19:29

Well, my 32GB USB is using 1.4 GB for EFI, boot, changes (335MB), modules (294MB) and porteus plus some assorted files. But it's all a single vfat partition. :happy62:

Others have different opinions. linux usb key that will boot and be recognized in window 10
Ed

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Post#6 by hockeykong » 10 Sep 2018, 08:51

Ok. so I have this:

Code: Select all

sdc1 (/mnt/usb-1):	fat32	 2 GB
sdc2 (/mnt/usb-2):	ext4	14 GB
/mnt/loop is used to mount the Proteus ISO file from which
all the files & directories are copied:

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sdc1: 	/EFI
	/boot

sdc2:	/porteus
I have edited the /mnt/usb-2/porteus/porteus-v4.0-x86_64.cfg file, by
adding the following line:

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from=/mnt/usb-2/porteus
I then executed the script from /mnt/usb-1/boot:

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sudo sh Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
And this is the output I got:

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Installing Porteus to /dev/sdc1
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/usb-1/boot/debug.txt

Exiting now...
cat: /mnt/usb-1/boot/syslinux/lilo.menu: No such file or directory
So, here I am. I welcome any suggestion.

Thanks in advace.
Last edited by hockeykong on 10 Sep 2018, 19:25, edited 1 time in total.

hockeykong
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Post#7 by hockeykong » 10 Sep 2018, 09:12

debug.txt:

Code: Select all

device: /dev/sdc
partition: /dev/sdc1
partition number: 1
partition mount point: /mnt/usb-1
installation path: /mnt/usb-1/boot
subfolder: 
filesystem: vfat
bootloader: lilo
error code: 2
system: machine 4.4.0-134-lowlatency x86_64
mount details: /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb-1 vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 0
full partition scheme:
Disk /dev/loop0: 285 MiB, 298805248 bytes, 583604 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/sda: 111.8 GiB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 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: gpt
Disk identifier: 2F6AA269-A91C-4940-B377-AC21586A99FF

Device         Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048   1107967   1105920  540M EFI System
/dev/sda2    1107968   1370111    262144  128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3    1370112  92608511  91238400 43.5G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4   92608512  93530111    921600  450M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5   93530112 206170111 112640000 53.7G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda6  206694400 233916415  27222016   13G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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: gpt
Disk identifier: 75CF6B85-D900-41BA-B58E-6EF99074A8F4

Device          Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1        4096     409599    405504   198M EFI System
/dev/sdb2      409600    7925759   7516160   3.6G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb3     7925760   69365759  61440000  29.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb4    89845760  110325759  20480000   9.8G Linux swap
/dev/sdb5   110325760  929525759 819200000 390.6G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb6  1093365760 1421045759 327680000 156.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb7  1421045760 1830645759 409600000 195.3G Microsoft basic data




Disk /dev/sdc: 14.5 GiB, 15606349824 bytes, 30481152 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: gpt
Disk identifier: 17B13D12-6D19-4FCE-8AA1-D20C2840FA92

Device       Start      End  Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdc1     2048  4098047  4096000    2G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdc2  4098048 30480383 26382336 12.6G Linux filesystem


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Post#8 by Ed_P » 10 Sep 2018, 15:38

hockeykong wrote:
10 Sep 2018, 08:51
Installation failed with error code '2'.
:o

I don't know what to tell you neighbor. :hmmm: I see you named your porteus folder Porteus not porteus and you changed the from to /mnt/usb-2 rather than /mnt/sdc2 where you installed the porteus folder but I don't think those caused the error code '2'. And I don't have a lilo.menu file in my /boot/syslinux folder either.

If I get a chance I will reinstall Porteus on my USB drive this afternoon and see what I get. I certainly don't remember the drive being referred to as usb-1 but I don't remember what I had for breakfast. :D
Ed

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Post#9 by Ed_P » 10 Sep 2018, 18:11

Until I get a chance to do a reinstall try changing the 2 things I noted previously. Porteus to porteus and usb-2 to sdc2 and retry the install.
Ed

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Post#10 by hockeykong » 10 Sep 2018, 18:49

Than you for the reply.

The "Porteus" folder is actually called "porteus" in the ISO flle. I copied it using cp. The Installation Guide also says "porteus" with a small 'p'.
(2) Copy the files /boot and /porteus from the Porteus .iso file (or from a Porteus CD) to your flash drive.)
I tried changing /mnt/usb-1 and /mnt/usb-2 to /mnt/sdc1 and /mnt/sdc2, but as I expected it didn't change anything.

The "usb-1" and "usb-2" directories are mount points for /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sdc2 respectively. I thought I could name them whatever is most useful for me. I always do it this way. I don't want to confuse device with dir. The device name will change from boot to boot, depending on what thumb drive(s) or other devices is/are connected. The directory name in /mnt/ will not change.

Also note that the "USB_INSTALLATION.txt" at the base of the ISO says:
FOR EFI SYSTEMS:
Ensure the first partition is of type FAT32.
a) Copy the EFI, boot and porteus folders onto the FAT32 partition.
You may create a second partition with a linux filesystem for the porteus folder.
If you do so, you need to add the from=/mnt/sdb2 cheatcode to the porteus-v4.0-x86_64.cfg file.
This file is located in the porteus folder.
That's the only place I know of where there's a reference to /mnt/something and I have changed

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from=/mnt/sdb2
to

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from=/mnt/usb-2
in the porteus-v4.0-x86.cfg file, so the system knows where it is.

By the way, in case I did not make it clear earlier, this is meant to be a EFI only device, and I am making it using a Xubuntu (on hd) EFI only system.

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Post#11 by hockeykong » 10 Sep 2018, 19:29

I edited my #6 post: changed "sdc: /Porteus" to "sdc: /porteus". That probably was what caused the confusion.

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Post#12 by Ed_P » 11 Sep 2018, 03:34

I didn't encounter the error you did hockeykong.

Code: Select all

Installing Porteus to the USB drive - from the Live system?
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Porteus Installer......

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

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

Installing Porteus to /dev/sdb1
WARNING: Make sure this is the right partition before proceeding.

Type 'ok' to continue or press Ctrl+c to exit.
ok
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/sdb1/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg file.
I didn't change the .cfg file before the install.
Ed

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Post#13 by hockeykong » 11 Sep 2018, 03:52

OK, thanks. I'll wait a bit more.

Maybe I'll try with a single partition... ext4.

Anyone else has any suggestion?

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Post#14 by Ed_P » 11 Sep 2018, 05:00

Ext4 won't boot on an EFI system.
Ed

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Post#15 by hockeykong » 14 Sep 2018, 03:51

Sorry, I've been working on other things.

I reformatted the flash drive, recreating the same two partitions, but when I was doing it I saw the "gpt" option when creating a partition table in gparted. I think I had not selected that in my first attempt, so I retried the same partitioning scheme, but added that "gpt" bit and the "boot" flag for sdd1--the identifier changes because of other devices that get seen before it at boot time, like my external usb hdd which is not always connected. The result was the same as before.

I then tried to have all three (3) directories in the same volume: sdd1. sdd2 (ext4) is empty now. I tried the installer again but got the same result again.

I'll wait a few more days and if no new info comes in I'll try another distro/live flash drive.

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