Add lilo support for USB-flash

[kapral]

I've found out that the lilo boot-loader can not be installed on usb-flash by using the script /boot/Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
The script supports only installation on HD but not plugdev devices. Please correct me if I made a mistake regarding it.

You know that syslinux supports only FAT file-system, extlinux supports ext2/ext3 file-system, isolinux is good only for ISO fs.
But lilo can be a boot-loader for every FS ! (Actually lilo does not understand what FS is)

I know some tricks how to make it possible to use the lilo on plugdev devices, so the script can be improved.
If you are interested in it please let me know.

[fanthom]

I've found out that the lilo boot-loader can not be installed on usb-flash by using the script /boot/Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com

yes - it can. pleas format it with xfs for example and installer will default to LILO (cause extlinux does not support it).

The script supports only installation on HD but not plugdev devices. Please correct me if I made a mistake regarding it.

it works for removable devices as well.

I know some tricks how to make it possible to use the lilo on plugdev devices, so the script can be improved.
If you are interested in it please let me know.

please share them.

thanks

[kapral]

please share them.

thanks

On my Slackware linux I've done:

# mount -o loop porteus-ISO /mnt/tmp
# mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/hd # It's my USB-flash partition (JFS filesystem). It's marked with flag "BOOT"
# cp -r /mnt/tmp/* /mnt/hd
# cd /mnt/hd # !!!

I've added the lines below to boot/syslinux/lilo.conf

Code: Select all

lba32
append="vt.default_utf8=0"
boot = /dev/sdc
map= ./boot/syslinux/map
bitmap = ./boot/syslinux/porteus.bmp # the porteus.png image was converted to BMP beforehand. 
bmp-colors = 0,100,0,100,0,100
bmp-table = 10,8,1,16
bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255
prompt
timeout = 100

compact 

disk=/dev/sdc
bios=0x80
sectors=63
heads=128
cylinders=3810

# xfce
image=./boot/syslinux//vmlinuz
initrd=./boot/syslinux//initrd.xz
label = "XFCE"
vga=771
append = "changes=/porteus zram=50% fsck timezone=Europe/Kiev"

# ......

As you can see there are the following lines

disk=/dev/sdc
bios=0x80
sectors=63
heads=128
cylinders=3810

I got these parameters from fdisk -l . It's very important to set them to lilo.conf

Code: Select all

fdisk -l /dev/sdc

Disk /dev/sdb: 15.7 GB, 15733161984 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3810 cylinders, total 30728832 sectors

Code: Select all

# lilo -M /dev/sdc 
# lilo -C ./boot/syslinux/lilo.conf 
Added XFCE  +  *
Added Always_Fresh  +
Added Copy_To_RAM  +
Added Text_mode  +
Added PXE_server  +

[fanthom]

right - but wouldn't 'Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com' just work for this setup?
did you try to run it on your jfs formatted usb key?

please do a clean installation (reformat the drive) - > run our installer (which should work ootb) -> if you get an error then post debugging info.

thanks

[kapral]

right - but wouldn't 'Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com' just work for this setup?
did you try to run it on your jfs formatted usb key?
please do a clean installation (reformat the drive) - > run our installer (which should work ootb) -> if you get an error then post debugging info.
thanks

I tried to run the GUI installer on my jfs formatted usb key, but without positive result. I looked through the script and decided that it can not install lilo properly.
Accept my apologies.

I'll try to run the scrip to do clean installation and inform about the result.
Thanks.