Plop Floppy Boot Manager and AntiX 8.5 rc4 Live USB made with Unetbootin

[rokytnji]

Howdy. I am just a Linux Using Biker from West Texas trying to give back on all the help I have received on using Linux back to the Linux Communty. I have made a Plop Boot Manager Floppy using Puppy Dingo 4 Linux. It works, as far as I can tell. Floppy boots up to boot choices and also lets me cruise through setup menu

I have also made a Live USB of AntiX 8.5 using Unetbootin. The Pendrive works also on my Asus EEE PC 900. Using that pendrive. I also made a Persistent USB using a new tool in AntiX that makes a live USB which will save changes. That also works on my Asus EEE PC 900.

The goal I have in Mind. Is to enable people that have no cdrom. Bios is not capable of USB Boot. They have a floppy drive and usb 1.1. To boot up a Live AntiX USB and install to their hardrive if they so wish.  If I can get this to work. I will try to apply this with other Linux distros also.

My Test Laptop Is a IBM A22 1000 hz, 256 mb ram, 20 gig IDE HD, one 1.1 USB port, DVDROM,Floppy Drive, that dual boots AntiX 8.5 rc4 and Puppy Dingo 4. It has no USB Option for booting in bios. I installed AntiX and Puppy via the DVDROM. So If I can get AntiX to boot up Live off of Pendrive. I know it will run. Pendrives being used are 2 gig Kingston Data Travelers.

I am a tester for AntiX and am a member of their forums. I have started a thread on this that explains better than what I can post here to explain how far I have gotten. Hence I will post the link below.
http://antix.freeforums.org/using-plop-boot-manager-to-boot-antix-from-pendrive-t2248.html

I am posting this in the hope someone can see where we (another member at AntiX forum is helping me with this) went wrong. We a kinda at our wits end with this
Thanks for reading and Happy Trails, Rok

[Elmar]

hi,
i tried now antiX 8.2 and antiX 8.5beta1. both are booting without problems over usb with plop. but i have to say i did not use unetbootin. i simply copied the content of the iso to the usb drive and installed grub.

it must be a problem with the unetbootin configuration. i never tried unetbootin and i don't know what configuration steps it does.

regards
elmar

[rokytnji]

Thank you very much for taking the time out to look at my thread and post. Thank you also for taking the time out to run the experiment for me. Your feed back was all this Biker needed to get his uneducated self going. Happy Trails, Rok

[rokytnji]

Woops. Can I trouble you for one more Answer.

Hi, roky.
Do you mind asking him to post his menu.lst entry?
Would it be likehttp://redirectingat.com/?id=593X1004&url=http%3A%2F%2Fantix.mepis.org%2Findex.php%2FInstallation_Tips

I tried it and it gave the same result. Since the flashdrive booted in another pc (which isn't here anymore) and since it detects the drive fine I'm thinking it must be some kind of reading failure.

Maybe I'll install rc4 (rc3) again and see if it works.

This is from my friend in Brazil. In case you don't have the /boot/grub/menu.lst on hand. That would be understandable.

[Elmar]

i used the menu.lst from the antix cd. i attached it
antix finds itself without changing the menu.lst

best regards
elmar

[rokytnji]

  Thanks again Elmar.  I'd buy ya a beer any time.

Downloaded attachment and posted in thread for good measure. The thread in AntiX forums is half "what the heck have you tried?" and the other half is just me posting notes to remind me how to write up a how to.

Out here in  the Wild West I see all kinds of Ancient Computer Gear. I have a Notebook 6500 (yeah that is all the sticker says) P66 hz, 20 mb of ram, ? kb HD.
Windows 95 on it. Still runs (but sits in corner). Salvation Army and GoodWill stores have old Pentium 2 Towers with just a floppy and 128 to 256 mb of ram that I have seen go for 5 dollars. I  am trying in my own small way to bring Linux and Computers to some of the Hispanic Kids out here who can't afford a box or get on line.  Your PlopBootManager Floppy makes this possible. So you are in the chain of people who

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

[Elmar]

about your antix problem, post the output of 'ls -lisahR' from the mounted usb device here

[rokytnji]

Ok. This is what I tried. Firstly. My pendrive wouldn't boot up like it did before with persistent Live /boot/grub/menu.lst. Don't ask me why. It worked the other night just fine and I hadn't changed anything. Probably a Hardware thing as sometimes I would get the Grub Splash screen. Sometimes Not. Just a blinking cursor. Or a bunch of dotted lines. Or loading grub with a blinking cursor. Nothing consistent like the other night.

So to try something different. I made a backup of old persistent /boot/grub/menu.lst (which uses uid by the way in kernel line). And used the menu.lst from your previous post making a new text file in /boot/grub named menu.lst

After a couple trys, I got a  grub slpash screen. Picked default option got to

Total Memory Available: 252864 KB, Memory Free: 229092kb

Then in red text:
Can't find antiX file system sorry.
Dropping you to a  (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.

antix# ls -lisahR
ls: invalid option -- R
ls: Decompression failed
BusyBox v1.2.2 (2006.12.11-16:52+0000) multi-call binary

Usage: ls

antix#

Any typos in quote, blame it on me as I am a poke and hope 2 finger typer who is looking at one screen and hand typing outputs on another.

Will leave menu.lst alone for the moment (the modified one).
A hard reset.holding power off button for 10 seconds. Is required to get out of there. Command shutdown -h now has no effect.
If you need me to reinstate backup menu.lst and try it out again and post the output of ls lisahR again using that /boot/grub/menu.lst. Just let me know. Thanks Elmar.

[rokytnji]

Just for good measure. Here is what the original /boot/grub/menu.lst when you make a live persistent pendrive using the antix2usbgui in control panel looks like which is now called menubackup.lst

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default 0
timeout 10
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 003f7d
gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

## ISO boot
title antiX-M8.5-rc3 (LiveUSB)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz nosplash fromhd=UUID=ffd4495b-c01d-49bc-85af-de965a2a3a5c fromiso=antiX-M8.5-rc3.iso aufs  vga=791  rootfs=UUID=6b20902d-0cb2-4a04-9389-4e0f8623142f homefs=UUID=6b20902d-0cb2-4a04-9389-4e0f8623142f
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

title antiX-memtest (test system memory)
kernel /boot/memtest


[Elmar]

i think i know whats going wrong, but i have to know the directory structure and files on your drive. if you are using windows then make a screenshot of the folders. if you are using linux then mount the drive and use the ls command.

[rokytnji]

If you mean by file structure. The antix2usbgui formats drive as ext2 file system. It does not use fat32. Choices are ext2 and ext3 file system. I use ext2. Drive boots up fine on bios enabled More Modern Netbooks

if you are using windows

No. Only Linux

if you are using linux then mount the drive and use the ls command.

If you mean something like boot up my working AntiX. Then mount USB drive in pcmanfm file manager. Then right click in file manager and select open terminal here? I can do that and post ls readout for you.

[Elmar]

yes, from a running linux.

open a terminal, if your device node for the usb drive is sdb then run as root

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
ls -lisahR /mnt > dir.txt

and post dir.txt

if you dont know the device node then run dmesg to get it

If you mean by file structure. The antix2usbgui formats drive as ext2 file system. It does not use fat32. Choices are ext2 and ext3 file system. I use ext2. Drive boots up fine on bios enabled More Modern Netbooks

filesystems are irrelevant for the bios

[rokytnji]

Hope this is what you need.

Code Select Expand

root@biker:/home/harry# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist
root@biker:/home/harry# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2432 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf048567a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         660     5301418+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2            2341        2432      738990   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3             661        1329     5373742+   5  Extended
/dev/hda4            1330        2340     8120857+  83  Linux
/dev/hda5             661        1329     5373711   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sda: 3957 MB, 3957325824 bytes
122 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7564 * 512 = 3872768 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xfa1e7fcf

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          88      332785   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              89        1021     3528606   83  Linux
root@biker:/home/harry# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
root@biker:/home/harry# ls -lisahR /mnt > dir.txt


[Elmar]

ok, i see the problem. there is another way too, but if you want that it works i suggest to do the following

open a terminal and do the following as root

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mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
cd /mnt
mkdir iso
mount -o loop antiX-M8.5-base-rc2.iso iso
cp -ar iso/* .
umount iso
rmdir iso
cd
umount /mnt


if you will be asked to allow overwriting some files then say yes. now try to boot from usb and it will work

[rokytnji]

if you will be asked to allow overwriting some files then say yes

Never got that far Elmar. Got a bit sidetracked. I had a guy stop over and I needed to work on his motorcycle for a bit. At least I can fix his problems .Tried it on my rc2 persist. Didn't work. So I blew that away thinking I may have borked something. And made a New USB  with the newer release candidate iso. Since that is what I am running anyway. Thought maybe rc2 might be different enough to not boot. I might be over thinking it or paranoid or just plain tired and making mistakes.

So I tried again and hit the same stumbling block with the newly made pendrive. That was why I started over from scratch.

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root@biker:/home/harry# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
root@biker:/home/harry# cd /mnt
root@biker:/mnt# mkdir iso
root@biker:/mnt# mount -o loop antiX-M8.5-rc3.iso iso
root@biker:/mnt# cp -ar iso/*
cp: target `iso/version' is not a directory
root@biker:/mnt#  

The directory text file below is a new directory text file. That is why the line
root@biker:/mnt# mount -o loop antiX-M8.5-rc3.iso iso
says what it says. I included directory text file because I know I can be confusing about this. I don't mind redoing this over and over again, That is how I learn. The Hard way. I don't have the rc2 persistent usb anymore. It is now rc3.

While typing this out. It just hit me. On the line
root@biker:/mnt# cp -ar iso/*
where the * is on iso/*
should I have put
antiX-M8.5-rc3.iso

[Elmar]

you wrote "cp -ar iso/*" instead of "cp -ar iso/* .", you forgot the space and the dot.

[rokytnji]

Well. I had to make another persist usb as sda1 default size is 572 mb. This time a doubled sda1 size to 1.42 gig to leave room for the commands to run ok. After finishing up. Checked sda1 and sda1 filled up to 999 mb so I must have done it right. Made sure to include space and "." and waited some minutes before it quite writing. Never got a query about

if you will be asked to allow overwriting some files then say yes.

So end result I get is when USB starts to boot i get

Grub Loading stage 1.5

Grub loading please wait....

Wait for 5 minutes. Nothing but a flashing cursor under message.

[Elmar]

grub does not load because you reconfigured the partition

lets install grub again
run the command grub
to check what device your usb drive is we search the file "version" in the root directory
run on the grub command prompt:
find /version
you will get something like (hd1,0)
now use your values with the 2 commands:
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd1)

then try to boot again

regards
elmar

[rokytnji]

Ok. Tried it out. Rebooted.

This time I was dropped to a grub prompt
grub>

So I tried
grub> kernel /boot/vmlinuz quiet nosplash vga=791

It left me with a blinking cursor. Thats it.

[Elmar]

and you used the correct (hd) values?

[rokytnji]

Another Question. I have tried copying AntiX Iso files after extracting iso to a 2 gig usb extra drive I have. Running grub>

grub> find /version
(hd1,0)

grub> root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is  fat, partition type 0xb

grub> setup (hd1)
Checking if  "/boot/grub/stage1" exists ..... no
Checking if  "/grub/stage1" exists ...no

Error 15 File not found.

When you made your successfull boot usb by copying files over to USB. Was the USB formatted as Fat32 or Ext2? Maybe that makes a difference for this other drive I am trying to boot.

Edit:  I should also say I looked inside the USB and /boot/grub folder has those files in it.

[rokytnji]

and you used the correct (hd) values?

Yes. when I ran
grub> setup (hd1)

It found
Checking if  "/boot/grub/stage1" exists ..... yes
Checking if  "/grub/stage1" exists ...yes

[Elmar]

grub> kernel /boot/vmlinuz quiet nosplash vga=791

"quiet" means no kernel messages, thats not the best choice if you try to fix a problem

[rokytnji]

Ok. Will try again Later. My eye is killing me. Recovering from Cataract surgery. Thanks for all the reponses Elmar.

[Elmar]

ok

which linux do you use to run commands in the terminal?

[rokytnji]

Everything is being done on AntiX 8.5 rc3 installed on IBM A22 as far as making persistent USB and running your commands in Rox Terminal on the same Operating system and Laptop .

Trying to keep this consistent.

Tried (when booted up to grub prompt)
grub> kernel /boot/vmlinuz nosplash vga=791

Still ended up with just a flashing cursor. So taking out quiet gave no change. Tried using verbose in place of quiet. It gave me a invalid device string. Using Tab was useless also.


Talking with other Forum Members (AntiX). They have had success using PLOP boot Floppy with AntiX USB but with USB 2.0 interface. When they try it on their usb 1.1 computer. They also get dropped down to a limited root shell prompt. antix#.
So it is looking like the main problem is usb 1.1 interface maybe.

[Elmar]

Talking with other Forum Members (AntiX). They have had success using PLOP boot Floppy with AntiX USB but with USB 2.0 interface. When they try it on their usb 1.1 computer. They also get dropped down to a limited root shell prompt. antix#.
So it is looking like the main problem is usb 1.1 interface maybe.

your problem is currently different. the problem of the antix forum users is simple. antix has not the uhci and ohci controller drivers (they are for usb 1.1) compiled into the kernel. only the ehci (= usb 2.0) usb driver is in the kernel. so it cannot mount the usb device during booting and this ends in the busybox shell. the solution for your forum users is, if they want to boot form usb 1.1,  to create a kernel that has the uhci and ohci driver compiled into the kernel.

don't you have any contact to an antix developer in the forum? i have seen this at the first look, and i never used antix (or mepis linux) before.


your problem is that grub does not startup correct. i don't know why. i would clean the mbr, create a new partition (fat or ext2/3), format the partition, copy the files again on the usb device and install grub again. but forget this.
if you came with the untebootin installation as far as the antix forum users, then forget my installation steps and use unetbootin again. then you only have to solve the kernel driver problem like the others.

we did the installation by hand, because i was on the wrong path, its difficult if i am not in front of the machine. but at least it would not change anything, because you will hang at the kernel driver problem too. the hint with the usb 1.1 problem made all clear.

best regards
elmar

[Elmar]

i was reading in the other forum that you asked how to create the plop floppy under windows. you find this info for dos, linux and windows here http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#runflp

for the harddisk installer its here http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#flpinst

regards
elmar

[secipolla]

Hi Elmar. Thank you for solving this.
antiX uses a i686 MEPIS kernel and some time ago there was a talk about Warren Woodford (the MEPIS developer who builds the kernel) making a i486 kernel for antiX so it would be usable in very ancient computers. I don't know if it's going to be so or not but I will point anticapitalista (antiX creator) to this thread so if this i486 kernel will be built then they compile uhci and ohci drivers in it. Or maybe just compile these drivers in the current i686 kernel.

[Elmar]

hi secipolla,

a hint:
i assume, all antix programs are compiled for i686. so if you want to run antix on an i486, then more changes are requred than only creating a kernel for i486. all antix programs and libraries must be compiled for i486. if not, then every program and every library will crash that is using instructions that the i486 processor don't understand.

best regards
elmar