Installing from a hard drive partition using grub.

coltson · 09-16-2012, 01:09 AM

I read an article to install linux directly from the hard drive, where it says:

Quote:

From the terminal enter these commands

sudo mkdir /distro
sudo chmod `whoami`:`whoami`
cp MYLINUX.iso /distro/distro.iso

Now extract Linux_kernel & Ram_disk to /distro#

Open /boot/grub/menu.lst

#ADD NEW ENTRY#
title Install Linux
root (hdX,X)
kernel /distro/Linux_kernel
initrd /distro/Ram_disk

Reboot and select "Install Linux" from grub.

So, I decided to use it to install the latest Slackware.
Copied the kernel from kernels/huge.s/bzImage and the ramdisk from isolinux/initrd.img

However,when I rebooted,I received this:

Quote:

Booting Install Linux
root (hd0,6)
Filesystem Type unknow, partition type 0X82
kernel /abaco/distro/bzImage

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

So what I am doing wrong?

Thanks for the help

yooy · 09-16-2012, 03:19 AM

Are you sure that your grub supports isos? I think that this wasn't supported in the past.

EDDY1 · 09-17-2012, 11:17 PM

Try using unetbootin it is supposed to be able to support booting from hdd. Its intertwined in Installation & Screenshots.
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

coltson · 09-18-2012, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yooy

Are you sure that your grub supports isos? I think that this wasn't supported in the past.

Well, that it is what the article says

Quote:

Try using unetbootin it is supposed to be able to support booting from hdd. Its intertwined in Installation & Screenshots.

And Unetbootin doesn't work on my system.

EDDY1 · 09-21-2012, 12:49 AM

I was wonderinfg do you have a bootable system, I just installed debian from a working os using debootstrap, was wondering if you wanted to try that.

coltson · 09-21-2012, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

I just installed debian from a working os using debootstrap, was wondering if you wanted to try that.

Can you give me more details? Never heard about it before.

Quote:

I was wonderinfg do you have a bootable system

Yes, in my case Unetbootin doesn't work because I don't have libstdc++.so.6

Now I am almost certain that the problem is due to what yooy said: old grub that doesn't support ISO booting. I will try to install grub 2 and see how things go on.

EDDY1 · 09-21-2012, 06:19 PM

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...st-4175428305/

coltson · 09-22-2012, 03:35 AM

I am following the guide that you mentioned in http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds03.html but I found a problem during the

Quote:

D.3.3. Run debootstrap

stage

Quote:

I: Extracting xz-utils...
I: Extracting zlib1g...
W: Failure trying to run: chroot /abaco mount -t proc proc /proc
W: See /abaco/debootstrap/debootstrap.log for details

In the debootstrap.log file I saw this:

Quote:

/usr/sbin/debootstrap: line 903: chroot: command not found

I have chroot on my system and also there is the newer version that debootstrap did install

What I should do now?

EDDY1 · 09-22-2012, 11:42 AM

Are you running commands as root?
This post has all of the mounts with the exception of devpts
http://daemonkeeper.net/668/how-to-b...-linux-system/
You have to configure devpts the same way that you do inpost above this line
http://sdn.vlsm.org/share/LDP/lfs/chapter06/proc.html
Iused a combination of the 3 links to get working.

colorpurple21859 · 09-22-2012, 01:01 PM

You might have a corrupt slackware iso file.
you did extract and copy initrd.img from slackware/isolinux and bzImage, System.map.gz from slackware/kernels
your grub entry did look like this?

Code:

title Install Linux
root (hdX,X)
kernel /path to linuxkernel/bzImage
initrd /path to initrd/initrd.img

EDDY1 · 09-22-2012, 03:53 PM

http://wiki.debian.org/Debootstrap

Habitual · 09-22-2012, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yooy

Are you sure that your grub supports isos? I think that this wasn't supported in the past.

grub2...can do it I think from what I've read.

coltson · 09-24-2012, 02:58 AM

Yes, the problem was with chroot outside the path. After putting its directory in path (and also ldconfig) I was able to successfully install the base system.

However:

Quote:

MAKEDEV generic

bash: MAKEDEV: command not found

this came up. I searched the internet and found this:

http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-b...msg135436.html

So, the bug was supossed to be fixed by now? Should I reopen it?

And what about these options?

Quote:

bind mount /dev from your host system on top of /dev in the target system; note that the postinst scripts of some packages may try to create device files, so this option should only be used with care

Debian warns about this option, but the guy from the blog used it:

http://daemonkeeper.net/668/how-to-b...-linux-system/

Linux from scratch first recomends:

Quote:

mount devpts /dev/pts -t devpts

and if doesn't work, then this

Quote:

mount -t devfs devfs /dev

EDDY1 · 09-24-2012, 06:10 AM

MAKEDEV command is not there udev takes care of it. You just have to mount proc sys dev devpts accordingly.

This 1 works.

Quote:

mount devpts /dev/pts -t devpts

It appears that you are doing well.
Like I said I used all 3 of those posts to get a working system.
While Daemonkeeper.net helped me with mount commands, D3. help me get locales & everything else configured.
Glad to know you have atleast gotten base system in.
Oh btw when you've finished & have your system configured don't forget that you still have everything sitting in /mnt just taking up space. You can remove it.