PCLinuxOS Openbox Bonsai 2010.11<s>.13</s> who wants to test ?

[jlf001]

FYI,

copy2ram works for me from the live cd, with the exception of the old HP, as it only has 384 megs of ram.  My other test machines have at least 1gig of ram.

Jeff

[Was_Just19]

FYI,

copy2ram works for me from the live cd, with the exception of the old HP, as it only has 384 megs of ram.  My other test machines have at least 1gig of ram.

Jeff

Just to confirm ......  that is the openbox-base iso?

I must go back and give it another run through .....  maybe I had a glitch when I tried it ......

[melodie]

What makes live usb allow to start with copytoram ? In the live usb done by hand on  Fat32 partition you had shown me that I had not got it working.

I have never used FAT filesystems for the live media, but would not have expected that to intefere.
I use Grub boot manager ......  do you?

The menu.lst file has an entry like this for the copy2ram on live flash stick ....

title   OpenBox Copy2RAM
kernel (hd0,0)/isolinux/vmlinuz livecd=livecd fromusb copy2ram root=UUID=280a794b-b417-48b4-bee3-9b3584d5fda5 acpi=on vga=791 splash=verbose
initrd (hd0,0)/isolinux/initrd.gz

That is from the working Openbox full OS.
Of course you would need to change the UUID as you know.

The livecd.sqfs and isolinux directories remain unchanged.

The REAL difficulty with this is that a live media will use the first livecd.sqfs file it finds .....  and maybe that is not the one you want.
If that happens then you might try using the
nocd
nohdd
boot codes. I have not tried those as yet but intend to do so shortly.

If they works as I 'think' they were intended, then the optical media and the HDDs should not be searched for the loop file.
As I said I do not know ......  I only came across those two today when looking into the copy2ram situation.
Much testing to be done on that!  

BTW ......  I have a script I am edotong anf testing, from which I did the liveUSB for the full Openbox with Copy2RAM. If you want to give it a try there let me know.

regards.

Hi,

I have given details about the method here yesterday:
http://mypclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=2830.msg25369#msg25369

About the block text "copytoram" I had tried this way until you told me that it was not possible and advised me to boot verbose in order to see the message error:

title PCLinuxOS Openbox Copy to RAM
  kernel (hd0,0)/isolinux/vmlinuz livecd=livecd copy2ram fromusb root=/dev/rd/3 keyb=us acpi=on vga=788 splash=silent
  initrd (hd0,0)/isolinux/initrd.gz

I do use Grub. I install Grub by hand with it's own set of commands. (here with the hardware setup I have it is "root (hd1,0)" and then "setup (hd1)" to install it to usb stick mbr, and the file used are just stage 1, stage2 and fat_stage1_5 + the above shown block texts in menu.lst)

All is in the boot/grub directory at the / of the usb stick. I may use the options you are telling about next, I didn't know about "nocd" and "nohdd" options.

PS: what does "I have a script I am edotong anf testing" mean please ?

[jlf001]

FYI,

copy2ram works for me from the live cd, with the exception of the old HP, as it only has 384 megs of ram.  My other test machines have at least 1gig of ram.

Jeff

Just to confirm ......  that is the openbox-base iso?

I must go back and give it another run through .....  maybe I had a glitch when I tried it ......

Yes, OpenBox Base 20101107.  I've got a couple of other machines I can test it on also.  I'll be back.

Jeff

Edit:  I'm 5 for 6 in using copytoram from the live cd.  Only the old HP didn't work.

[Was_Just19]

I have to report that I was wrong about the new ISO not booting to RAM.
I must have had some glitch or maybe something wrong with the file copy.
I copied the files again and it copies to ram perfectly from the USB device.
Suspend also works perfectly while running from RAM.

All good ......  sorry about the false report earlier.    

PS: what does "I have a script I am edotong anf testing" mean please ?

 

It means I cannot type correctly    

"I have a script I am editing and testing"

I have had no visible signs of nocd & nohd having any effect.     ***Note: I mistyped it first time

I would ask why you are using that root boot option?
What does it do that you need?


regards.

[melodie]

I have to report that I was wrong about the new ISO not booting to RAM.
I must have had some glitch or maybe something wrong with the file copy.
I copied the files again and it copies to ram perfectly from the USB device.
Suspend also works perfectly while running from RAM.

All good ......  sorry about the false report earlier.    

I am happy you have mistaken, because that lets me with the information that it works, which is very good news.

PS: what does "I have a script I am edotong anf testing" mean please ?

 

It means I cannot type correctly    

LOL!!

"I have a script I am editing and testing"

I have had no visible signs of nocd & nohdd having any effect.

Is that so ?

I would ask why you are using that root boot option?
What does it do that you need?

I told you at mypclinuxos.com forum : it's the "append" that is found in the /isolinux/isolinux.cfg file : in the isolinux directory which is in the iso.

1) extraction by mounting to on loop
2) opening the isolinux/isolinux.cfg file with an editor
3) writing a menu.lst with theses information
4) adding the relevant files to the /boot/grub directory
5) install grub to the usb stick mbr

Whenever you want, "cp -Ra isolinux livecd.sqfs /media/disk" if your stick is mounted to /media/disk.

All this in no time if you already have an all made menu.lst ready somewhere. The settings are always the same, just to have to change the title. (I tried the multiboot with pclinuxos, but as I also have several other distros on the same stick it was starting to be confusing).

Here is the first block text for booting a live cd, in a isolinux.cfg file:

label LiveCD
    kernel vmlinuz
    append livecd=livecd initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/rd/3 apci=on vga=788 keyb=us vmalloc=256M splash=silent

In menu.lst this block text is reused and changed to:

title PCLinuxOS Openbox
  kernel (hd0,0)/isolinux/vmlinuz livecd=livecd fromusb root=/dev/rd/3 keyb=us acpi=on vga=788 splash=silent
  initrd (hd0,0)/isolinux/initrd.gz  

(just should now add "vmalloc=256M", but up to now it works).

[Was_Just19]

I asked only about why you use that particular boot option
root=/dev/rd/3
When using a USB device, which is 'seen' as an attached HDD, it is hardly appropriate to use such a boot option.

I suggest you copy and paste the boot stanza I posted earlier, without change, to your menu.lst file and on the next boot try that boot stanza. (don't forget to change the UUID)

If it fails you should at least see what the error message is.

You can always delete the entry again if it does not work.

regards.

[melodie]

Hi,

I could probably get the uuid also by doing a "blkid" as root. I just don't see why I should use this root stanza : do you think the copy2ram option might be available with it ?

PS:
blkid returns:

Code: [Select]

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="" UUID="BDA8-6B2D" TYPE="vfat"

[Was_Just19]

Hi,

I could probably get the uuid also by doing a "blkid" as root. I just don't see why I should use this root stanza : do you think the copy2ram option might be available with it ?

PS:
blkid returns:

Code: [Select]

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="" UUID="BDA8-6B2D" TYPE="vfat"

Yes use that UUID.

I just don't see why I should use this root stanza

You have failed to say why you use the one you have ........  why use it?
Just because it is used on some other booting scheme and for a CD?
You would have similar results, quite likely, if you omitted it when booting from USB.

'root' should point to the location of the files .......  which is the partition.

I have no idea what will or will not work when using VFAT ......  but I see no obvious reason why it won't, if the correct boot codes are used.

regards.

[melodie]

You have failed to say why you use the one you have ........  why use it?

I do not have the precise technical reason for that : all I know is that this setting being the one written to the isolinux.cfg file, this is how the initrd is built. This setting changes from one distro to another. I also use the same method for Gparted live, Clonezilla, and many more.

I have been using it since several years with success after I was explained how to set it up. My companion has show me how to do that. A few years ago he read the doc at the website of a small distro that it was something possible to do. He experimented the method on many distros since, often with success.

Just because it is used on some other booting scheme and for a CD?
You would have similar results, quite likely, if you omitted it when booting from USB.

I am curious, so I just gave it a try with the uuid found with blkid : I just ended an an ash shell. The error message is:

"ERROR: Unable to mount the livecd

Dropping you to a limited shell."

Loading /initrd.bin/ash

/initrd/bin/ash: can't access tty; job control turned off
$

I'll come back in a minute to copy the content of menu.lst here.

[melodie]

Hi,

The try I did just before was with copy2ram option. Now I just tried with normal first option boot, and it worked.  I just realized that there is a wrong option in the kernel command line, that is there since a test for multi-boot I did where I had used that same menu.lst. I'll correct it and will retry.

[melodie]

Hi,

It found the squashfs file and did the copy to ram. It was fast. Now it is prompting for keyboard map. I'm in the session. I check if it's mounted : console and pcmanfm seem to say it's not. I pull the stick off.

[melodie]

Now I am posting from within the live ram session started with this usb stick, on fat32...

Just19 just made me discover the secret for copy to ram from within as usb stick live on fat32. Great !

Would it also work with persistence ?

[melodie]

No it won't.

Error : label LiveOS need to be a Linux filesystem.

:]

[Was_Just19]

No it won't.

Error : label LiveOS need to be a Linux filesystem.

:]

Yes it should ........  if you use the "changes_file=" option in the boot stanza.

You first need to create a file and then put a Linux filesystem in it. After that pointing the changes_file=  to it should allow persistence.
That is rather limiting though ......  as the file size is preset beforehand and cannot be enlarged.

A much better option is to use ext for the partition fiesystem and then persistence will work.

regards.