USB boot by passing the BIOS

[melodie]

Hi,

I have been trying and using the software from plop.at to boot on a machine where the bios does not allow booting to USB. More recently, I used again Plop on CD to boot to a machine which probably can, but I bypassed the bios anyhow  because I found it faster to insert a CD and a usb stick and just press the power button, than discovering the bios of a machine I don't know.

I both cases I have been able to boot PCLinuxOS from USB stick.

Now what is new is that there are 2 different programs at plop.at which allow that, one is GPL'ed, and built with a recent kernel, and the other is not GPL'ed, written in assembler and available at no cost as well for personal than commercial use. So as long as the plop.at website is mentioned on the distributed CD or floppy, it becomes easy to get more people happy with more pclinuxos'es booting !

Unfortunately, I have the former plop made in assembler, that is less free (for personal use only) and it works perfect, so I don't have much will to upgrade to the newer and at the moment not enough time to try the newer programs. However I know many people here could be interested, so I bring the exact infos in case some of you want to give a try to these tools. Here are the relevant pages:
Pages to visit:
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/licence.html

The plopKexec GPL'ed program:
http://www.plop.at/en/plopkexec.html

The plop boot manager non free:
http://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpbt-5.0.14.zip

The zip contains the iso, the img and more.

Have fun !

[Just17]

PlopKexec is a boot manager for auto detecting and chain loading Linux distributions on USB drives.

I am still reading from that link, but I have not found any reference to it having the capability of booting USB devices in a PC without BIOS support for booting USB devices.

Maybe I have not come across that yet ....... ?

EDIT
          All that I read indicated it is a boot manager which auto-detects OSs on a USB drive and it does not have the USB drivers that PLOP has.

[melodie]

Hi,
Maybe, or maybe not. I have exchange a pair of mails with the dev, trying to convince him to think of a gpl license for his plop boot manager program. I got the information about plopKexec from him. Maybe will you find the info elsewhere in his doc, or on his forum ?

Regards,
Mélodie

[Just17]

Hi,
Maybe, or maybe not. I have exchange a pair of mails with the dev, trying to convince him to think of a gpl license for his plop boot manager program. I got the information about plopKexec from him. Maybe will you find the info elsewhere in his doc, or on his forum ?

Regards,
Mélodie

Nothing I read so far indicated to me that there are USB drivers built into plopKexec  .......  if you have info to the contrary I would be delighted to receive it, or if you try it on a PC without BIOS support for USB booting.
I don't have a suitable PC here.

[melodie]

Nothing I read so far indicated to me that there are USB drivers built into plopKexec  .......  if you have info to the contrary I would be delighted to receive it

Here ?
http://www.plop.at/en/plopkexec.html#intro

or if you try it on a PC without BIOS support for USB booting. I don't have a suitable PC here.

I don't know how to install syslinux on a usb stick (anywhere btw).

[Just17]

From PLOP site

The Plop Boot Manager is a small program with unbelievable many features.

Here is a list of features, but you can do more...

USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI)
CD/DVD boot without BIOS support (IDE)

From plopKexec page

USB Host support:
USB 1.1: UHCI, OHCI
USB 2.0: EHCI
USB 3.0: xHCI (linux experimantal)

Do they mean the same thing? I don't think so .....  but would be happy to be wrong.

I do not see anywhere that it clearly states "USB boot without BIOS support" as it does on the PLOP page.

As you are in touch with the developer maybe you could ask?

[melodie]

Hi,

I read first on that page:
"Introduction

PlopKexec is a boot manager for auto detecting and chain loading Linux distributions on USB drives. It fits on a 1.44MB floppy. Its also possible to start plopKexec from CD or any Linux loader/boot manager. "

It looks to me like it is the aim. At same time, he says this works with a Linux distribution having syslinux for boot manager.

Regards,
Mélodie

[Just17]

Then you interpret it differently than I.

[melodie]

Hi,
If you want to try any PC fits, configured or not for USB. I can't write again to that dev just for that, he was not in a good mood after I tried to convince him gpl was better. He is angry because people didn't even send 5 euros to him, and since then he removed his paypal button.

I don't know what is expects from people apart from a little money and he seems to not understand the philosophy and principle about FOSS. His work will be lost after his death, or if he decides to stop taking care of it... :-/

Next time I will write to him it will be to try to provide something that might interest him (such as a pledge) ?

So if you have all PC which can boot to usb you can still try if you have a little spare time to grab a CD and burn it with the new images. What it takes is have them not set for this purpose and you can try as if they were not able to. I have done it on the laptop of a lady who is my friend recently (with the former plop boot manager on CD).

Regards,
Mélodie

[melodie]

Hello,

Just18, I just received a mail from the developer of the Plop programs, and I sent a mail back to him with the promise I will paste it here, because he could not get through the registration process at the forum to answer himself.

I like his answer, very full with common sense. I hope you will also like the tech information in that one answer of him:

From: Elmar Hanlhofer AT ...
To: melodie AT ...
Subject: pclinuxos
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:53:46 +0100
X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.2

hi,

by luck (or not) i saw your thread
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=103293.0
i tried to register to the forum but it says i am a spamer. however,
please post the below without my email address.


1) you post "Unfortunately, I have the former plop made in assembler,
that is less free (for personal use only) and it works perfect"

5.0.14 is also free for commerical use.


2) plopkexec supports usb booting without bios usb.


3) your post "I don't know what is expects from people apart from a
little money and he seems to not understand the philosophy and principle
about FOSS."

to clearify it: i absolutely understand foss philosophy and principle!
however, you dont understand that big companies should contribute and
pay some money when they use software. they are also expecting money
when the sell their stuff, or? is it really such a bad thing to expect
from big companies that the pay for software? i also buy software and
support foss with donations when i heavily use it and i am not a big
company. and the plop boot manager was always free for private use, so i
dont understand what problems you have with the 1 year time span where
the commercial use was not free.


4) your post: "His work will be lost after his death, or if he decides
to stop taking care of it... :-/"

thats not really a problem. today every pc has usb boot support, so
every boot manager (even old boot manager software) can use the bios to
provide booting from usb. and for old pc's without bios usb boot is the
plop boot manager already working. and the boot manager is available in
the web even when my page should no longer exist. so dont be frightened.



best regards
elmar

--
Web: http://www.plop.at

Elmar when you will read here again, you can be sure I will burn a CD and a floppy with the 5.0.14 version next. It's just that I prefer not to throw away a good CD when there is no hurry to do so...

And thank you very much for this mail of yours, it has been very kind of you.

Regards,
Mélodie

[Just17]

If I have read the email correctly plopkexec includes the USB drivers as well as the 'search' function for OSs on the USB device.

I wonder if PCLOS could distribute those utilities?

They would make useful additions to the repository IMO.

Maybe Elmar will be in contact with you again .....