Live install on SD card won't boot up on EeePC.

[BJF]

Dear Forum,

The machinery: EeePC 701 4G with 512Mb RAM. Note: As standard these things have a SSD, a card slot, and 3 USB ports.

The OS: LXDE 2009.

The Story So Far: (Succinct version. I could dribble on for ages given the chance)
-LXDE 2009 .iso downloaded around 4 weeks ago from "Downloads" PCLOS. Version unknown, not updated.
-Installed same on my laptop. Very happy with it.
-Made a Full install from the Live CD to a 4Gb SD card for the EeePC. This booted up without comment when placed in the Eeep's card slot.
-Proceeded to pimp install with "useful things". Left only 300Mb vacant for future expansion. Very happy with OS, even the battery monitor works, so decided to remaster to 8Gb SD.
-As the reader will no doubt realise, witchcraft is involved in remastering off a drive with too little space to create an .iso upon, and so I failed as I have read that I should have expected to.
-Read and admired Johnboy's tutorial on making a Live usb install. Easy to back up the Changes file in case it all goes pear-shaped, and easier (?) to remaster.
-Put 8Gb SD into a usb card writer, plugged it in, and created a Johnboy Live Install.
-Placed said card in card slot. Boot stops at starting udev and finally times out with a page of errors. As this represents about 30 minutes of two-finger typing to reproduce I have not yet done this. I can view the screen and answer questions though, when we get to that bit.
-Put card back into card writer. Fired up the Full install and checked the Live one. Noticed that there was a Changes file. Since there was no indication to me that it was valuable, I deleted it. Shut down, removed the 4Gb Full SD and rebooted the 8Gb Live in the card writer. It booted all the way to the desktop but would not retain any changes made, ie no Persistance.
-Put 4Gb Full card back in card slot, booted, and examined the 8Gb SD in the writer. No Changes file present. Shut down, replace 8Gb card in card slot, reboot. Still hangs at udev but on the way there it creates a Changes file!
-Compare menu.lst in both 4Gb Full and 8GB Live installs. They are radically different. Johnboy's is as per his instructions, the Full one looks like, well, a Full one should, with no fromusb and those long number strings that identify drives instead of /boot/grub/menu.lst

I have concluded that whilst I may make functional Live SD's of other Eeep distro's with a LiveCD and a card writer there is something LXDE 2009 deeply resents about that card slot. I can make Full installs it seems (unproven yet on the 8Gb SD until the Live install idea cannot proceed) but LXDE 2009 sees the card slot as a non-usb drive and chokes. And yet it plays nicely from the usb card writer, persisting and all. I just don't like things hanging out of usb ports as I go about.

Please, would any of you really clever members (OP?) who are willing to step up to the plate mind giving your opinion on how I might:
Remaster my 4Gb SD either on to the SSD and then off to the 8Gb SD, or directly to it,
-or, make a new bootable Live 8Gb SD that will boot up in the card slot.

I would like to avoid an install on the SSD because it is only 4Gb and those things have a finite write-to life.

Thank you for listening,
John.

 
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[Neal ManBear]

2009 is dead; i.e. no longer supported. It has had no updates in more than half a year.
Try 2010.1. You should have better results.

[BJF]

Thanks Neal, but until the battery monitor bug in 2010.1 on laptops gets dealt to, I'm limited to 2009. Guess I'll just go with a Full install and make the best of it.

[Was_Just19]

Please, would any of you really clever members (OP?) who are willing to step up to the plate mind giving your opinion on how I might:
Remaster my 4Gb SD either on to the SSD and then off to the 8Gb SD, or directly to it,
-or, make a new bootable Live 8Gb SD that will boot up in the card slot.

Not that I fall into the category you are addressing, but here is a suggestion ....

Make a live USB on a flash drive.
Wipe the 8 GB card
Place the 8 GB card in the internal slot of the PC.
Boot using the USB flash drive.
Copy the install on the 4GB card to the 8GB card using Rsync.
Make the 8GB bootable by installing Grub to its MBR, using the 8GB card as Grub's root.

You should then have a duplicate of the present 4GB card install on the 8GB card.
Boot from the 8 GB card.

Second suggestion ....  which I have never tried and have no idea how well it might work -- or not .....
Boot from the 4GB card, with the 8GB card inserted into the internal slot.
Install draklive-install through Synaptic into the running OS.
Install the running OS onto the 8GB card
Boot from the 8GB card

I have no idea if draklive-install is capable of doing the above installation ....  but I would try it, as the only loss would be the live install on the 8GB card, which could be re-done easily enough if needed.

Maybe someone with some knowledge of this might comment?

If it works then it should give the same result as the first option using Rsync.

EDIT  Forget that ....  it won't work ...  needs a live OS.

There is also the matter of trying to get the present live install to work from the internal slot.
First of all a new menu.lst entry would be needed apparently.
Other than that it should work as before ........  unless there is some hardware reason that I would be unaware of.
Maybe the first thing to do would be to delete the "fromusb" boot option and then try booting.
The second of course would be to post the errors that are thrown up when it is attempted.


regards.

[BJF]

Johnboy: Thanks for the response. I had gone to bed wondering if since I had a six-month-old OS I was on my own!

Will consider the typing involved and try and post the errors. She Who Must Be Obeyed types faster than I, perhaps I could involve her.

I'll find a moment or three to try the Liveusb idea with Rsync. Watch this space.

Oh, and I tried removing fromusb already. No change in the card slot.

Thanks.

[kjpetrie]

I seem to remember towards the end 2009 ran into problems with booting from liveusb-type devices. It was something to do with mklivecd not creating the right initrd.img to allow USBs to boot. It all got superceded by 2010, but I don't think it was ever fixed in 2009.

[Texstar]

It has been a while since I installed minime on a 4 gig sd card on my eee-pc but I seem to remember having to edit grub and change it from (0,x) to (1,x) something so it would boot from the sd card instead of the internal xandros.

[kjpetrie]

That's certainly true with a real install, as the devices change when the liveusb is unplugged. However, this appears to be a poor man's install on the SD card which won't boot. I recall having real problems with booting 2009 liveusbs on all machines. They would either stop at udev or be unable to mount the compressed image. I solved it for myself by copying the kernel and initrd from the official minime of the time instead of using the ones produced by mklivecd, and then by moving on to 2010 and mylivecd when those came out.

[Was_Just19]

It has been a while since I installed minime on a 4 gig sd card on my eee-pc but I seem to remember having to edit grub and change it from (0,x) to (1,x) something so it would boot from the sd card instead of the internal xandros.

Yes that should do it while omitting the "fromusb" boot code.
I don't have such a device, but it seems the first internal SSD cannot be 'shifted' in the listing, so the internal slot should be (hd1) at all times, except when using "fromusb".

If the BIOS allowed the internal slot to be numbered before the SSD it should theoretically be (hd0).

It is difficult to know without having a device to play with. 

[BJF]

Perhaps, (tongue in cheek here), fixing the laptop battery monitor bug in 2010 might be the easier?
Meanwhile it looks like a Full install of 2009 is shaping up to be the only option.

Johnboy: I have a formatted thumbdrive ready to go. Give it a try during lunch today at work.

Thanks.

[Was_Just19]

Using the liveUSB mount the two partitions ----  the source being on the 4GB card and the destination being on the 8GB card.

# rsync   -av    /<source-mount-point>/   /<destination-mount-point>/

be sure to use the trailing " / "  on both mount points. Although in this case I doubt it would make any difference.

You MAY have to install rsync .....  I am not sure if it is already on the ISO.

If the fstab uses UUIDs then you need to edit the entries to point to the new device/partition rather than the 4GB one.
You can use either /dev notation or preferably give the partition/s a Label and use the Label/s in the fstab file on the 8GB drive.

Next you should install Grub to the MBR of the 8GB using the Grub files on the 8GB drive.

Hopefully I have not left out anything and that should work for you ......  if not then the liveUSB stick can be used to make any corrections needed.

regards.

[pags]

Perhaps, (tongue in cheek here), fixing the laptop battery monitor bug in 2010 might be the easier?
Meanwhile it looks like a Full install of 2009 is shaping up to be the only option.

Johnboy: I have a formatted thumbdrive ready to go. Give it a try during lunch today at work.

Thanks.

Could you supply details about this bug?

While I haven;t had a chance (yet) to install on the 701 (want to get a 16G SD card), I've run it from Live USB, and USB HD OK, and I'm running on a Dell D520 without issue, also...


Thanks.

[BJF]

Pags: We're heading off-topic here.

See: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,74726.0.html
  and: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,74876.0.html

My expectation is that somewhere there is an If-Then that gets conflummoxed by voltage levels outside a range, and 9.6v in an Eeep must rate right up there. We need the attention of a Grown-up to sort it.

[kjpetrie]

I don't use the battery monitor when I log my 2G surf into LXDE, but I normally run KDE. Takes an extra couple of minutes to start up but the battery monitor is fine in KDE. Were you running in live mode or a real install? If live was persistence working?

I have a real install on a 16 GB card and I find it's much snappier than running in live mode. Presumably the lower overhead from decompressing and combining the Union FS components is responsible for that.

Don't forget the eeePC has an amber light that flashes when the battery gets to 7%, so you don't really need on-screen warnings, though I realise it's nice to have more detailed information at times.