Cannot boot debian live iso from usb using grub2

widget · 02-28-2012, 10:05 PM

OK, you buggers finally got me going. Been at it for a about a week now.

Haven't booted a damned thing yet.

I am not booting from a stick, haven't got one.

Don't think Multiboot is going to help me here unless I shift to my external enclosure. Don't want to do that because I am a hard headed grumpy geezer.

My other images are here on the internal drive, on the OS I use all the time, and that is where I want Debian images to be too.

This is not too much to ask. One of the first images to ever boot from grub-pc was Gparted Live. It is based on Debian. Why can't Debian boot?

I can see one of k3lt01 's entries as possible on this drive. That path has got to be defined. Haven't tried it or the modifications yet.

Have been fooling with some ideas of my own, all bad, and the menu entry for Gparted Live from drs305 from the UFs.

That gparted live entry will not work. There is no initrd file of any sort in the /live directory of the image.

So digging around it the bugger I find there are 2, different sized initrd files in different locations in /install.

Have only tried one modification and it took 3 days between modifying the entry and trying it today;

Code:

menuentry Zenix 2 ISO on sda7 {
loopback loop (hd0,7)/etc/aa/zenix-2.0-amd64.iso
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=isolinux config union=aufs noswap noprompt ip=frommedia findiso=/etc/aa/zenix-2.0-amd64.iso toram=filesystem.squashfs
initrd (loop)/install/initrd.gz
}

This can't be called a complete failure, just close to that. It did try to boot and somewhat made it.

I basically got the start of the Debian text install. Got through language and keyboard settings. Then it was looking for my installdisk and could not find it. I tried the option of trying to mount the install disk again. Didn't work.

Got a menu as to what to do next, basically the install menu anyone that has used the text install knows. Used the abort install option and it shut down properly.

Have no idea what most of that instruction string is about but left it in and I don't think it hurt anything, no errors reported.

I think I need to modify the initrd line to point to a file deeper in /install. Can't hurt to try anyway. If it gives me another "install" experience I am not sure what to do.

Will just have to dig around in the files some more and play with the stuff you guys are using. Would really like to whip this.

As you can see I am using the Live CD for Zenix2 which is based on Squeeze.

k3lt01 · 02-29-2012, 02:37 AM

Hey Widget, good to see you giving this a go.

It seems to me that this is a very hit and miss affair with DebianLive. I don't mean you Widget I mean DebianLive. For some reason it will work on some hardware but not on others. It takes a phenominal amount of time to get the code correct so it will work but you can try the exact same code on another piece of hardware (e.g. a different usb drive) and in theory all you need to do is change the UUID but it just wont work.

If Multisystem would work on Debian, which is also a very hit and miss affair I've only had it work once on Debian when I made my Multiboot usb for fixing Windows problems, we wouldn't need to "fart ass" around doing this. I really don't want to have an Ubuntu install so I can make a Multiboot DebianLive usb but it looks like I am just going to have to bite the bullit and install 10.04 again on my little old Acer (it's bad enough I have to have Windows on the poor things so I can do my uni studies).

widget · 02-29-2012, 11:58 AM

Kind of busy today and don't know if I will work on it today or not.

It is kind of fun but I really think the Debian Live folks could cure this problem pretty easily. You need the right hooks in the files for grub compatibility.

I remember thinking that Ubuntu took way to long to fix their Live CDs to boot with grub. Still think they took to long for the first major distro to go to grub-pc.

Just can't believe that the Debian folks would have a lot of trouble getting this to work with their system.

At least two of you guys have had some success in booting Debian images in one way or another. I have had partial success.

This shows that there is no huge change that needs made.

Gparted Live at least used to boot with grub. Based on Debian Live. I find it hard to believe that they did a massive rebuild of the base Debian system requiring rewriting a lot of the Debian Live Build scripts.

Has got to be something simple from that end.