Because it Rocks!

[Ed_P]

(it seems so simple)

Yes, but does the copied device boot? I suspect not.

[sean]

Back in my OS/2 days (1994 - 2004) I had a friend, a smart friend :-), who worked with computers at his work. We became friends through my work, which put me in contact with him daily.

He skipped Windoze and went straight to OS/2, and I followed his every move. Eventually in 1997 I bought the identical hardware (Gateway-SCSI), took it to my friends house, where he installed his OS/2 onto my hardware. This was a long drive for 2 days in a row to do this then. But I ended up with a duplicate system, and living 100 miles apart we kept in contact, him sending me information on updates, upgrades, etc. on almost a daily basis via email.

In those days we each had 2 SCSI hard-drives of about 2.5 to 5 GiB (I still have the whole system in a storage bin, along with the original disks and license). We used the 2nd hard-drive only for a back-up purpose. The first hard-drive had 2 partitions, one for the OS and the second for "all" other programs and data.

This was in the transition period when storage was "just" starting to become reasonably priced. We were still paying a premium price, but things were beginning to look better.

He, being a rather smart fella, but not a risk taker, came up with a Zip command that would copy an entire hard-drive to one file on the 2nd hard-drive. (I still have that command in notes, "somewhere", :-) Granted, the entire process took some good amount of time, but in the end one felt pretty secure in knowing everything they would ever need was safely copied/stored in file on a separate hard-drive.

After using the command to make the zip file, we re-formatted the original hard-drive and then copied/opened the back-up zip file on it. This did 2 things, at that time, for us. It made a safe copy of our operating system (or more), and it de-fragmented the hard-drive, Wonderfully, I might add. Those were still the days when you could notice a speed change, and de-fragmented hard-drive made quite a difference.

But,............. I'm still working on duplicating a Porteus thumb drive. Does the fact that I can't seem to get the "make_iso.sh" to work have any implications? Does that particular file need updating of some sort? Has anybody else had success making an .iso of there system successfully? Actually this would be ideal, I could build a system, then duplicate it, copy it for others, and distribute it upon request.

Sean

[donald]

@sean
--> I'm still working on duplicating a Porteus thumb drive.<--
Did you try "my" way?... is it to geeky?
I'm using the cloned drive right now, and from now on, because it is a faster drive
and all custom settings (even the network Pw settings) are working.afaics.
=======================================================
When using the make_iso.sh (as root) give it a path outside of the thumbdrive to place the newly build iso.
e.g.
I made an iso of my thumbdrive (sdb1) but let the new iso being build at /mnt/sda1
Otherwise I was running out of space, and it quits.

[blue4meridian]

Salutations...

IMHO... I have been very successful for many years with .iso's and usb's using
Gparted... IsoMaster and Unetbootin all without coming within a hundred yards of a command line.
However... if mass production is what you seek... use the same apps with a usb hub.


Best Regards...

Posted by 100.1.102.215 via http://webwarper.net
This is added while posting a message to avoid misusing the service

[sean]

Hello "donald", and others,

I'm a bit pressed for time this evening here, have a dinner engagement with family. Your suggestion is next on the list to try. Should I get home with some time later tonight I will, otherwise I shall make the attempt tomorrow morning.

I have witnessed your assistance and appreciate your suggestions, we have a unique forum here at Porteus, thank you very much!

@Bogomips

Please don't feel I'm brushing you off, however I do not use Windows or Wine. I'm strictly a Linux user. I appreciate your input, I've witnessed your suggestions and considered every one of them. I am not a guru in any sense of the word, so I do appreciate any assistance offered, and I'm very glad you are here.

@blue4meridian

Please accept the same explanation given Bogomips. It is my understanding IsoMaster is a Windows application. Also, could you be a little more detailed in how I could use Unetbootin for this particular exercise? And thanks also for responding!

Truly touched by the response to this thread, International friends, "the absolute BEST!", local ones equally so, :-) Ed_P & blue4meridian, fairly close by !

Sean

[Bogomips]

@Bogomips

Please don't feel I'm brushing you off, however I do not use Windows or Wine. I'm strictly a Linux user. I appreciate your input, I've witnessed your suggestions and considered every one of them. I am not a guru in any sense of the word, so I do appreciate any assistance offered, and I'm very glad you are here.

@blue4meridian

Please accept the same explanation given Bogomips. It is my understanding IsoMaster is a Windows application.

Stock Porteus. As mentioned before: Kicker > Multimedia > Iso File Editor

[blue4meridian]

Salutations...

I have NOT used Win?dozzz in over 10 years...

USM... Gparted and IsoMaster are default Porteus apps (they ARE "Linux").
Unetbootin can be downloaded with USM and placed in the
/porteus/modules/ folder. It will appear in the menu on reboot.
Or... you can click to activate it after download @ /tmp/usm.

The use of all these apps are explained @ their respective sites (and help files).

However in a nutshell...
'USM' downloads packages and coverts them to the Porteus module extension (.xzm).
'Gparted' partitions drives.
'IsoMaster' edits .iso's.
'Unetbootin' installs .iso's on usb's.

Short of a full blown tutorial...
Your biggest hurdle will be partitioning.

My approach (which can host 3 'small' distros + 1 'large' also prevents erratic logical drive #'s) is... 8)

Use a usb (minimum 16gb's) to create an extended partition. Then in the extended partition... create a btrfs logical drive
(my favorite for "data storage" but only functional if you get the 'btrfs tools' module from USM).

Finally... create three 2048mb ext4 partitions in the unformatted area.

Best Regards...

Posted by 100.1.102.215 via http://webwarper.net
This is added while posting a message to avoid misusing the service

[Bogomips]

@blue4meridian
Tried Kicker > Applications > Porteus Installer ?

[francois]

(it seems so simple)

Yes, but does the copied device boot? I suspect not.

Then to make the usb bootable he just has to run porteus-installer-for-linux.com on the targetted device.

[Ed_P]

Then to make bootable he just has to run porteus-installer-for-linux.com on the targetted device for porteus on usb to boot.

Apparently not with good results.

@Ed_P, thanks for replying. I've tried this several times now and the system will boot, but parts are totally unresponsive.

[blue4meridian]

Salutations...

@ Bogomips only with drive installs... which I no longer do or trust.
Also I want to avoid saving the current state as a default as it would derail my incremental default 'dir'.
The installer also can't transfer the 'boot' .iso emdedded in the 'install' .iso I use with the cheatcode.
I guess I prefer to impose the default state with the .iso. I got into that habit with Slitaz. I'm also buying a lockable usb on the 1st.
The memory management and boot strategy for the 1u dual mitx rack2tower cluster (2 nodes) I'm using now is... "diskless".

I suppose I'm just paranoid

Best Regards...

Posted by 100.1.102.215 via http://webwarper.net
This is added while posting a message to avoid misusing the service

[francois]

@sean:
There is also rsync and the porteus-installer-for-linux.com on the targetted device. 8)
http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?id=1295
-rsync for formating and moving data from one partition to another (here from sdax to sday):

Code: Select all

rsync -av --delete /mnt/sdax/ /mnt/sday

Are we talking about a usb with a linux filesystem or fat32. Porteus is linux and linux prefers linux.

[blue4meridian]

Salutations...

I guess a tutorial is in order

Best Regards...

Posted by 100.1.102.215 via http://webwarper.net
This is added while posting a message to avoid misusing the service

[Bogomips]

francois, why not make a nice tutorial? This topic seems to crop up again and again, and IMHO you seem to be the best suited for the job.

Edit: Mon Jul 20 13:16:09 UTC 2015

Would also be interested to know what answer can be given to the following question. Iso downloaded, usb just bought, and the steps to take, should it be possible to boot from usb without unpacking the iso, the way one can from CD/DVD?

[Ed_P]

For starters for those adding Porteus to a Windows system.

On older versions of Windows modify the boot.ini file as such.
Before

Code: Select all

[boot loader]       
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS   
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 

After

Code: Select all

[boot loader]       
timeout=30          
::default= C:\grldr
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS   
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 
C:\grldr="Grub4Dos" 

On newer versions of Windows modify the BCD using this CMD script.

Code: Select all

@echo off
:: http://diddy.boot-land.net/bcdedit/files/examples1.htm#grub4dos
:: Removed /store parms for system with BCD on hidden partition.

setlocal

:: Do not use spaces in paths and do 
:: NOT wrap in quotes

set BCDEDIT=%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\bcdedit.exe
set BCDSTORE=C:\Boot\BCD

::___________________________________

BCDedit

echo.
echo Press Enter to update the BCD
pause > nul

for /f "tokens=3" %%A in ('%BCDEDIT%  /create /application bootsector') do set guid=%%A

%BCDEDIT%  /set %guid% device partition=C:
%BCDEDIT%  /set %guid% path \grldr
%BCDEDIT%  /set %guid% description "grldr menu - Porteus options"
%BCDEDIT%  /displayorder %guid% /addlast

BCDedit

endlocal
echo.
pause

To get the grldr file one downloads a grub4dos 0.4.5c zip file, extracts the grldr file from it and places it on the C: partition/drive. Then adds a menu.lst file to the C: partition/drive similar to this.

Code: Select all

# http://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-chenall/downloads/list
# Grub4DOS 0.4.5c 2013-03-03

# splashimage=/splashimages/mback.xpm.gz 
splashimage=(hd0,2)/Porteus/porteus3.bmp

# color <foreground/background> [hilite-fg/hilite-bg] [helptxt-fg/helptxt-bg] [hdg-fg/hdr-bg]
# colors:                black       blue       green       cyan       red       magenta   brown    light-gray
#   foreground only: dark-gray light-blue light-green light-cyan light-red light-magenta   yellow   white

# color white/blue yellow/blue
color white/blue black/light-gray yellow/blue blue/yellow

# ****ground rrggbb   000000=black  ffffff=white  8-f = bright
# blue text with gray txt on blue background hilite
# <<<< Be sure there are NO SPACES/BLANKS following the hex codes. >>>>>

foreground ffffff
background 0000cc
                        
timeout 600                   
default 0                    
fallback 1  

map --unhook 
            
title Porteus 2.1 - changes=    \n 195MB\n Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso
find --set-root                     /Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso (0xff) 
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz  from=/Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso  changes=EXIT:/Porteus/porteussave.dat extramod=/mnt/sda3/Porteus/modules
initrd /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz

title Porteus 2.1 - Always Fresh\n 195MB\n Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso \n Use to check space usage of porteus.dat file.
find --set-root                     /Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso (0xff) 
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz  from=/Porteus/Porteus-RazorQT-v2.1-i486.iso   
initrd /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz

title   \n
root ()

# A clever approach from Steve6375.  (And not possible in Legacy grub) 

iftitle [if exist (hd0,1)/ntldr || if exist (hd0,0)/ntldr] Windows XP\n\n Boot from hd0,1 or hd0,0 ntldr
if exist (hd0,0)/ntldr root (hd0,0)
if exist (hd0,1)/ntldr root (hd0,1)
chainloader /ntldr

title Reboot
reboot  

What's left to add Porteus to the system, why simply downloading the Porteus ISO you desire, save it in a folder named /Porteus and editing the menu.lst to match the name of the ISO you downloaded.

Have fun.