SOLVED: multilple porteus os on the same partition

[francois]

I read somewhere that there could be only one os per partition, is that true.

Is is possible to boot multiple os on the same partition?

For example, is there a way to install frugal installations of porteus 32-bit and porteus 64-bit on sda2 using grub as bootloader.

Lets say that we start with porteus 32-bit v 1.0 frugal install on sda2 and that the grub bootloader is already functional. How would one go from here?

[fanthom]

Is is possible to boot multiple os on the same partition?

a) add two standard entries to your grub config (one for 32bit and second one for 64bit porteus)
b) unpack porteus ISO's to subfolders ie, /mnt/sda2/port32 and /mnt/sda2/port64
c) use "from_dir=/port32" and "from_dir=/port64" cheatcodes respectively

read /boot/docs/cheatcodes.txt for more info and additional improvements.

Cheers

[francois]

Thanks for your reply. I have read the docs on the cheatcode. But need to know why the following menu.lst does not work, I get the grub error code 15 (from my memory) for both porteus edition:

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title porteus v01_32 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot from=/mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10 autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256  changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus32rc1cfg 
initrd=(hd0,1)/boot/initrd.xz
boot

title porteus v01_64 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot from=/mnt/sda2/porteus64bit_v10 autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256  changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus64v1cfg 
initrd=(hd0,1)/boot/initrd.xz
boot

The following instructions work perfectly, given that /porteus and /boot are located in sda2:

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title porteus v01_64 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256  changes=/porteus64v1cfg 
initrd=(hd0,1)/boot/initrd.xz
boot

[Ahau]

looking at your configuration, it appears you are trying to use the same kernel and initrd for both installations. This will not work. Please try putting the 32 and 64 bit kernels and initrds into the respective subfolders, and point your bootloader's kernel and initrd references to the subfolders. It's been a while since I've used grub, but I think you should be using the from_dev and from_dir cheatcodes as well, instead of root= and from=. IF you have only one installation on your drive then the kernel/initrd will search your drive for the porteus data, regardless of how it is referenced in your bootloader config file, so that might be masking a faulty set of instructions in your second example.

Try modeling your bootloader configs after those in the howto that I put together for syslinux:
http://porteus.org/info/docs/37-install ... ition.html


I hope this helps -- if not, I'm sure we'll get it sorted out soon

[francois]

Thanks Ahau for the lead. It seems that from_dev might do a better job than from as a cheatcode. And in addition providing the right folder for the kernel should have done the job. However menu.lst entry:

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title porteus v01_32 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz from_dir=/mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256
changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus32rc1cfg 
initrd=(hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/initrd.xz from_dir=/mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10 
boot

yield the following error message:

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Searching for porteus v-1.0sgnfile...
... porteus data not found

[Ahau]

hrm...

try this:

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title porteus v01_32 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda2 from_dir=porteus32bit_v10 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256
changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus32rc1cfg 
initrd=(hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/initrd.xz  
boot

If your grub install is not on /dev/sda2, I think the kernel may not find the sgn file in /dev/sda2/porteus32bit_v10/, because it's on a different device. I also don't think it will find what it's looking for in /mnt/sda2/, because I don't think it has created that mountpoint yet (you could check by booting with the debug cheatcode, and poking around the directory tree). 'from_dev' provides the correct device (not mountpoint), and then 'from_dir' will point it to the folder. 'kernel (hd0,1)/porteus/32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz' will tell grub where to find the kernel, but it won't tell the kernel which device/directory it came from (the kernel is loaded into memory without instructions from the bootloader as to where it came from, which is why the from_dev cheatcode is still needed). Once you've passed the from_dev and from_dir information to the kernel, I don't think you need to pass it to initrd as well. I'm also not familiar enough with grub to know that the initrd statement you have will work, or if it would be better to set it up with a root (hd0,1) statement first, and then run kernel point it to the kernel and initrd without the (hd0,1) part... maybe more to try if the lines above don't work.

[francois]

Right on target.

Thanks a lot.

Posted after 2 days 14 hours 31 minute 7 seconds:
Everything is fine, except for one feature with:

Code: Select all

title porteus v01_32 on sda2
kernel (hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda2 from_dir=porteus32bit_v10 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256
changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10cfg
initrd=(hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/initrd.xz 
boot

the save changes folder does not work.

Note: Here I have changed the name of the save folder from porteus32rc1cfg to porteus32bit_v10cfg, so that it makes more sense.

Would you have a cue for that?

[Ahau]

Hi francois! Glad we're heading in the right direction!

A couple things to try for using saved changes --

try using /dev/sdb2/... instead of /mnt/sdb2/..., and see if that helps.

Also, is there already a folder on /mnt/sdb2/ called porteus32bit_v10cfg? If not, try creating it first.

If that doesn't work, maybe try using UUID instead of /dev/sdb2. More info on that is in /boot/docs/cheatcodes.txt

In all cases, if they don't work, try running them with the 'debug' cheatcode, so that you can watch and see what is output on the sceen while it's attempting to find and mount the changes folder. It should find it and check for posix compatibility.

[francois]

There already a folder on /mnt/sdb2/ called porteus32bit_v10cfg. I am trying your suggestions now.

[Ahau]

fanthom just picked up on this -- you need to have your changes= cheatcode on the same line as all of the other cheatcodes. No line breaks between. Try that as well

[francois]

All on the same line with dev:

kernel (hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda2 from_dir=porteus32bit_v10 changes=/dev/sdb2/porteus32bit_v10cfg ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw toroot

Coming up with /mnt

[fanthom]

@francois
are you sure that porteus32bit_v10cfg folder is created on /dev/sdb2 and not /dev/sda2 ?
so far i have seen /dev/sda2 used for storing changes in this thread....

[Ahau]

Shoot -- that one would be my fault. I think I wrote sdb2 instead of sda2 in the last post. sdb2 is where everything goes on my porteus install, I'm so damn used to typing it!

[francois]

@Ahau:
Frankly, I should have read before writing it. I thought I was the one who mix with it. I so often write sdbx.
@Fanthom:
This was it. Using sdax as much as with /dev as with /mnt will work.
Thanks a lot.

Here is the final code of the menu.lst:

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title porteus v01_32 on sda2/porteus32bit_v10
kernel (hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda2 from_dir=/porteus32bit_v10 changes=/mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10/porteus32bit_v10-2 toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256
initrd=(hd0,1)/porteus32bit_v10/boot/initrd.xz 
boot

Note: One can note that my changes folder was relocated in the /mnt/sda2/porteus32bit_v10 folder. As fanthom pinpointed, ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw are the standard commands for porteus, so they were removed.

[brokenman]

Strange ... Doesn't work for me.

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title Porteus v1.1 32bit
kernel (hd0,4)/os/porteus-dev/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda5 from_dir=/os/porteus-dev
initrd=(hd0,4)/os/porteus-dev/boot/initrd.xz
boot

I get 'porteus data not found'.

This entry for v1.0 works fine.

Code: Select all

title Porteus v1.0 32bit
kernel (hd0,4)/os/porteus1/boot/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw from_dev=/dev/sda5 from_dir=/os/porteus1 autoexec=xconf;telinit~4
initrd=(hd0,4)/os/porteus1/boot/initrd.xz
boot

Also booting with from_iso cheatcode works fine.