Non Booting PCLinuxOS liveCD

[Old-Polack]

For lack of a better place to put this...

I just finished building a new computer for a friend, which I am running as I write this. The specs are as follows;

MB = Gigabyte GA-970A -D3 with AM3+ Socket
CPU = Amd FX 4100 3.8 GHz 4-Core
PSU = Antec BP 550 Watt Modular
RAM = 8 GB Patriot DDR3 1333 MHz
PCI Add-in Card = Syba Ultra ATA-133 IDE Controller Card
Optical Drive = TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB - SATA
Video Card = nVidia GeForce 8600GT - PCIe

This is virtually the same as my own current main machine, with the exception that this MB lacks a Firewire connector. Both have the combo UEFI/BIOS that automatically switches between which form of booting code is used, based on the size of the boot drive. Below 2.2 TB the familiar BIOS form is used; over that, the UEFI rules dominate.

There is a slight variance in the boot order settings in the BIOS. In mine I set the order as CD-ROM, USB-HDD, Hard Drive. This board would not boot to the generic CD-ROM setting, but on further inspection, I found an option to boot from the TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB device, specifically. It would seem the newer BIOS version is more precise, and therefore more picky, about how code is actually executed. That's a first for me.

With this setting I have been able to boot to a Win2K installation disk, but on trying the PCLinuxOS 64 bit Test05 liveCD, I get this error;

ISOLINUX 3.85 2010-02-20 ETCD Copyright (C) 1994 - 2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
No DEFAULT or UI Configuration Found
Boot:

Another first for me... two on the same day... how lucky. 

The same thing happens with any of the PCLinuxOS liveCDs I try on this machine.

Doing a Google search, This turns out to be a common error when using a USB stick as a booting device, (but almost unheard of from within a liveCD) with the solution being to change the isolinux directory name to syslinux, and the isolinux.cfg, and isolinux.bin file names to syslinux.cfg and syslinux.bin. Alternatively, some users report changing the USB stick format to FAT16, rather than FAT32, also works. 

In my case, this error is the result of trying to boot from the liveCD, burned at the lowest speed possible, after passing an md5sum check of the d/l image, and then a further md5sum check of the burned disk. Syslinux reports that since version 4.02 this is no longer a problem, but we are still using version 3.85, as seen in the error message.

http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/The_Syslinux_Project

http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/ISOLINUX

A while back, AS made some modifications to the mylivecd script, and I don't know if those have anything to do with this present problem, or not. It is a very real problem, though.

At the error message Boot: prompt, I can manually type this;

Boot: vmlinuz livecd=livecd initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/rd/3 acpi=on vga=791 keyb=us splash=verbose

...which is essentially the execution line of the first boot menu option from isolinux.cfg, and the liveCD boots precisely as it should. I am typing this from that liveCD.

This took me about an hour to figure out, what with Google searches and such. I highly doubt that any Linux newbie types would be that fortunate if confronted by this error. Whether this is caused by changes to the mylivecd script, or the need for an upgraded version of syslinux, or both, it needs to be fixed.

[gseaman]

I was going to say, wait until Old-Polack comes along, he'll know what to do.
Seriously, I'll try to package an update and submit it to testing. (There is a warning about gfxboot that I am going to have to research.)

Galen

[Old-Polack]

I was going to say, wait until Old-Polack comes along, he'll know what to do.
Seriously, I'll try to package an update and submit it to testing. (There is a warning about gfxboot that I am going to have to research.)

Galen

He certainly does know what to do... pass the buck to some poor overworked packager, then quietly... exit stage left. 

[jaydot]

discretion being the better part of valour, eh?

[Old-Polack]

discretion being the better part of valour, eh?

Is that a polite way of saying "lazy bugger"? I'll cop to that! 

[gseaman]

You can't call me a 'lazy bugger' today! I've upload syslinux-4.05 to Neal's dropbox.

Galen

[Old-Polack]

You can't call me a 'lazy bugger' today! I've upload syslinux-4.05 to Neal's dropbox.

Galen

Step one complete. 

Is that for 32 bit, 64 bit, or both?

[Archie]

I can just hear Galen LOL ... who's the guinea pig? 

Sorry, O-P. Couldn't resist that.

[gseaman]

You can't call me a 'lazy bugger' today! I've upload syslinux-4.05 to Neal's dropbox.

Galen

Step one complete. 

Is that for 32 bit, 64 bit, or both?

I built it on 64-bit, but it should build on 32-bit also. As soon as Neal turns it over, it's your turn. Test, test, test.

Galen

[gseaman]

syslinux 4.05 is in testing/test sections. Have fun!

Galen

[Old-Polack]

Not so good news. Trying to use mylivecd to create a new image with the new version of syslinux, I get this error message;

Creating isolinux boot:                            [ 22.22% 00:00:00/00:00:00]
install: cannot stat `/usr/lib/syslinux/gfxboot.com': No such file or directory

This is in reference to line 1168 of the mylivecd script.



Checking the older version of syslinux, there is such a file, but it does not exist in the newer version.
 
I do get an image built, but it also fails to boot, complaining about the same missing file referenced above.

[gseaman]

I'll see what I can figure out. Thanks.

Galen

[Old-Polack]

I'll see what I can figure out. Thanks.

Galen

Just FYI, I both, burned a disk to try with a real hardware boot, and tried the image directly in a VM. In both situations the failed error message was the same.

[gseaman]

Are you testing on 32-bit or 64-bit?

Galen

[Old-Polack]

Are you testing on 32-bit or 64-bit?

Galen

At the moment the 64 bit. I had just installed the 64 bit test05 on the new machine, so figured I'd stay with that. I only had an old 30 GB IDE hard drive to install on for this test run, so not enough room for a 32 bit install too.