[SOLVED] Introductory Question - Multi boot USB

passinthru · 10-14-2013, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

So if I understand correctly, if you just put Knoppix on the flash with persistence it works but if you try to put it and Parted Magic on the stick you lose the persistence feature of Knoppix?

Correct. In my research I have not found anything about a multiboot usb with persistence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

If you use the Knoppix software from the menu (Install Knoppix to flash disk)to create a persistent install (If I understand correctly), are you able to then create another partition by using GParted or some other similar software? or to put the Parted Magic iso in the / of the Knoppix partition?

So far, I have installed from the Knoppix bootable usb to usb, which gives me a persistent Knoppix. The process creates two partitions. The size of the "overlay" file (which is a reiserfs formatted partition) is variable. But the installation consumes the entire disk. So I set the size of the overlay at 4GB (/dev/sdb2), then shrunk /dev/sdb1 to a bit larger than the install required. Obviously, I left /dev/sdb1 at the beginning of /dev/sdb, and /dev/sdb2 and the end of /dev/sdb. This leaves me with almost 10GB of unallocated space (/dev/sdb3) between sdb1 and 2. So far so good.

I loop mounted the parted magic iso, created a pmagic directory in /dev/sdb1 and copied the files from the loop mount to the pmagic directory. I am in the process of attempting to modify the syslinux.cfg file which is apparently the bootloader of the persistent Knoppix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

What I was suggesting and what was suggested previously, was to do an actual install to the flash drive as you would do to a regular hard drive. From the Knoppix menu, go up to Knoppix and over to Knoppix HD Install. This would be a normal hard drive install and you should be able to make/save any change and install software. You would not need to worry about 'persistence'. The disadvantage is that it will take up more space on the flash than the compressed CD. Doing it this way, you could put the Parted Magic iso in the / of Knoppix and booting with Grub2 you could boot it. You could then use GParted to resize the partition on which you have Knoppix/Parted Magic and use the rest of the space for a data partition. Or you could create another partition for PMagic and a third for data, though an additional partition for PMagic isn't really necessary. If you resize, make sure you leave enough room for software installation on Knoppix. With a 15GB flash, you should have enough room to do this.

I have yet to get up the nerve to do a full install to usb. But if the attempt to boot Parted Magic from the syslinux boot loader of Knoppix fails, I may throw caution to the wind and try it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Did you create mulitple partitions prior to putting the persistent Knoppix on the flash?

Yes. I tried it before I started this thread. So far as I can tell, Knoppix uses and reformats/partitions the disk. Someone may know how to do it from the command line or something, but I have found no way to install it to a partition.

This is what I meant when I mentioned cloning. If I could mount /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb3 and move /dev/sdb1 to 3, then resize /dev/sdb1 and install grub to it, making it a boot only partition... but I've got a notion that it would mess up the Knoppix install.

At the moment, I can not get the Knoppix syslinux.cfg to even acknowledge my Parted Magic menu entry (or "label" as syslinux calls it). So I do not know if the alterations I have made to the Parted Magic path are correct... I'm in over my head again.

passinthru · 10-15-2013, 11:36 AM

Here is what I've got:

Code:

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 16008609792 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15267 cylinders, total 31266816 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0001085d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1     3074047     1537023+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2        22925312    31266815     4170752   83  Linux
/dev/sdb3         3074048    22925311     9925632    b  W95 FAT32

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="KNOPPIX" UUID="A8EE-E6DF" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="KNOPPIX-DATA" UUID="9c65fbfe-435c-4981-80ff-4fc8e2417498" TYPE="reiserfs" 
/dev/sdb3: UUID="C369-9BDA" TYPE="vfat" 

/dev/sdb1
├── boot
│** ├── grub
│** │** ├── fonts
│** │** ├── i386-pc
│** │** └── locale
│** └── syslinux
├── efi
│** └── boot
├── KNOPPIX
│** └── modules
└── pmagic
    ├── boot
    │** ├── chntpw
    │** ├── grub
    │** ├── ipxe
    │** ├── mhdd
    │** ├── plpbt
    │** ├── pxelinux
    │** ├── sgd
    │** └── syslinux
    ├── EFI
    │** └── boot
    │**     └── x86_64-efi
    └── pmagic
        └── pmodules
            └── scripts

I installed grub ("sudo grub-install --root-directory=<mountpoint> /dev/sdb"). I copied the grub.cfg file from the configuration which properly boots either the KNOPPIX or Parted Magic isos using loop.

I created /pmagic and copied the files from the loop mounted pmagic iso into the directory. I modified /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg with the labels between "# Parted Magic":

Code:

<-- Begin /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg -->
DEFAULT knoppix
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
TIMEOUT 100
# TOTALTIMEOUT 20
# KBDMAP german.kbd
PROMPT 1
F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
DISPLAY boot.msg
# Parted Magic 
LABEL Parted Magic (normal32)
MENU LABEL ^1. Default settings 32 (Runs from RAM)
TEXT HELP
Default mode intended for 1GB+ based systems.
* Version: 2013_09_26, (C) 2013, Patrick Verner
* Disclaimer: Author excluded from any liability.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL /pmagic/pmagic/bzImage
APPEND edd=on vga=normal vmalloc=384MiB initrd=/pmagic/pmagic/initrd.img
LABEL Parted Magic (normal64)
MENU LABEL ^2. Default settings 64 (Runs from RAM)
TEXT HELP
Default mode intended for 1GB+ based systems.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL /pmagic/pmagic/bzImage64
APPEND edd=on vga=normal vmalloc=384MiB initrd=/pmagic/pmagic/initrd.img
# End Parted Magic
LABEL adriane
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane
LABEL adriane64
KERNEL linux64
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane
LABEL knoppix
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL knoppix64
KERNEL linux64
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL debug
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 debug
LABEL debug64
KERNEL linux64
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 debug
LABEL grub
KERNEL grub.exe
APPEND --config=;
LABEL fb1024x768
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off vga=791 video=1024x768 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL fb1280x1024
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off vga=794 video=1280x1024 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL fb800x600
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off vga=788 video=800x600 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL fb640x480
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off vga=785 video=640x480 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
LABEL memtest
KERNEL memtest
APPEND foo
LABEL dos
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=balder.img
LABEL failsafe
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en vga=normal atapicd nosound noapic nolapic noacpi pnpbios=off acpi=off nofstab noscsi nodma noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 nonetwork nodhcp xmodule=vesa initrd=minirt.gz
<-- end /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg -->

KNOPPIX boots to a boot: prompt. If there is no user input, the system boots to the default KNOPPIX. If I choose the F2 option, I expect to find the pmagic labels I inserted, but they do not appear. If at the boot: prompt I enter /pmagic/pmagic/bzImage, the default KNOPPIX begins to load and then drops to a bash prompt after saying something about tty1 job canceled - and the system is unresponsive, requiring shutdown.

Is syslinux and syslinux.cfg in control of booting? Installing grub seemed to have no effect on the boot process.

I'd just forget it, but it has become a thing to me.

Any thoughts?

passinthru · 10-15-2013, 08:31 PM

If I understand this correctly, I found the answer to my questions at http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/0wn-en.html:

Quote:

After copying KNOPPIX to hard disk a GRUB bootloader can be installed. An existing bootloader will be overwritten.
If the bootloader is installed, only the KNOPPIX installation can be booted. Booting other installed operating systems or adding KNOPPIX to an existing bootloader is not implemented.

So with thanks for all of the help (I'm pleased with what I've learned with your encouragement), I'll consider this endeavor concluded and find another minimal linux (damn small linux, or create my own with arch, or the ubuntu mini, etc.), and get the utilities I like from Parted Magic (and several other well-known utility distros).

yancek · 10-15-2013, 11:32 PM

I'm not surprised by the info in your last post about dual booting Knoppix. I was messing with this today and used the Knoppix CD to install Knoppix to disk and used the default for persistence (<4GB). I booted the flash to test, it booted. I then created some directories/files and re-booted to test persistence. They were there. I then copied the pmagic directory to the / of Knoppix and also the PMagic files from /boot/syslinux except the three (memdisk, memtest and syslinux.cfg) which were already there. I put the entry from the PMagic syslinux.cfg file in the Knoppix syslinux.cfg file, saved and rebooted. Entry below. No menu shows on boot and Knoppix booted.

Code:

LABEL PMagic
KERNEL /pmagic/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/pmagic/initrd.img edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw vga=normal loglevel=9 max_loop=256 vmalloc=256MiB

After spending some time with it I was able to boot PMagic or Knoppix with persistence but in a very cumbersome fashion. I'm not familiar with syslinux so that may be the problem. The way I was able to boot PMagic was to change the line at the top of syslinux.cfg from:

DEFAULT Knoppix to DEFAULT PMagic. I imagine one could boot any of the options by changing the DEFAULT line to whichever LABEL you wanted. I couldn't find anyway to see an actual menu although there are a lot of options for booting Knoppix. I tried commenting out the DEFAULT line but got a message: NO DEFAULT or UI Configuration Found, I think there was a boot prompt and hitting Enter continued the boot but I can't really remember. It was a learning experience though. Would have been simpler in your case if they included PMagic on the Knoppix CD instead of GParted.

passinthru · 10-16-2013, 05:39 AM

Up to the point of getting it to boot pmagic, I had exactly the same experience, including with commenting out the DEFAULT line in the Knoppix syslinux.cfg and getting the error message you mentioned.

Linux and Linux "experts" often leave me thinking that I am simply too stupid to use Linux. So I am glad in this case to learn that it's not just me that does not understand something. My hat's off to Mr. K*. He knows how to make it work the way he wants it to work. Someone else knows what he has done. But I have other things I want to know more about than this, so it is taking a second seat.

If I can get what you did to work for me, then I am going to install Knoppix on the usb (so that I can get persistence), resize the overlay file (which I think will work so long as I do not move it), create a partition for data, edit the Knoppix fstab (if that is the same as most linux distros I've used), create symlinks from /home/knoppix to the mounted data partition and be done with it. (This procedure works well for me on my other computers, and computers which I maintain for a few others.) And what works with pmagic would most likely work for any other live distro iso I wanted to use.

I get confused on the path to use to the kernel and initrd files; clearly do not get how that works (I used /pmagic/pmagic/... because the pmagic iso is in a child directory of the bootloader). I also know next to nothing about the "appends" you used. For now, I'm content to mimick without understanding if it works.

Anyway, it's been a pleasure. If I can get it set up the way I have it imagined, I'll post back so that others who may want the same thing can know where to find help if they want it.

Thanks again!

yancek · 10-16-2013, 11:02 AM

Quote:

clearly do not get how that works (I used /pmagic/pmagic/... because the pmagic iso is in a child directory of the bootloader)

Does that mean you have the Parted Magic iso file there? I doubt that will work as only Grub2 boots iso files directly. I loop mounted the Parted Magic iso file. This gives two directories, boot and pmagic as well as a file named mkgriso. I copied the mkgriso to the / of Knoppix which isn't really necessary, then copied the entire pmagic directory to the / of Knoppix. I copied the directories from the Parted Magic boot directory to the Knoppix boot directory with the exception of the syslinux directory. I then copied the files from the Parted Magic /boot/syslinux directory to the Knoppix /boot/syslinux directory with the exception of (memdisk, memtest and syslinux.cfg) which were already present in the Knoppix syslinux directory.

Quote:

I also know next to nothing about the "appends" you used. For now, I'm content to mimick without understanding if it works.

The appends I used were from the syslinux.cfg file in Parted Magic. I just copied it over leaving out the text section.
Two things you could do, don't have /pmagic/pmagic but rather just the pmagic directory copied directly to the / of Knoppix. This is where the kernel and initrd are and are expected to be and if they are two directories down, probably won't boot. The second is not to have the iso file there (if I understand what you said?) but rather copy the extracted pmagic file to the / of Knoppix.

Running the ls command on the Knoppix flash shows the output below for the / of Knoppix.

Quote:

ls /media/KNOPPIX/
boot efi KNOPPIX ldlinux.sys mkgriso pmagic

Below is the first part of the Knoppix syslinux.cfg file. There are numerous other Knoppix options below and I expect putting the Label for any at the DEFAULT line would boot it. Case sensitivity applies. The label I have is PMagic so if I put pmagic at the default line, it would output an error 'file not found'.

Quote:

DEFAULT PMagic
#APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1
#DEFAULT adriane
TIMEOUT 100
# TOTALTIMEOUT 20
# KBDMAP german.kbd
PROMPT 1
F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
DISPLAY boot.msg

LABEL PMagic
KERNEL /pmagic/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/pmagic/initrd.img edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw vga=normal loglevel=9 max_loop=256 vmalloc=256MiB

LABEL adriane
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane

When I reboot, I get the Knoppix boot logo and a boot prompt. When I hit the enter key, it boots Partition Magic when it is set to DEFAULT . If I change the DEFAULT to Knoppix, it boots Knoppix.

With knoppix set as the default, you should get a boot prompt (boot

when you boot the flash. You should then be able to boot any option by typing it in at the boot prompt prior to the timeout. If you boot and aren't watching to make an entry, it will boot whatever the default is. I have Knoppix adriane and several different options. If I have knoppix as default and at the boot prompt I type adriane, it boots adriane. If I type PMagic, it boots Parted Magic. I haven't tried all the options but this should work.

I also had to manually mount to see the / of the Knoppix directory when booting Parted Magic. The file manager in Parted Magic opens to /root and there is a Media link there. My flash drive was there, in this case it was sdc1 so I manually mounted it: mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /root/Media/sdc1. I was then able to view all the Knoppix directories/files.

passinthru · 10-16-2013, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Does that mean you have the Parted Magic iso file there? I doubt that will work as only Grub2 boots iso files directly. I loop mounted the Parted Magic iso file. This gives two directories, boot and pmagic as well as a file named mkgriso. I copied the mkgriso to the / of Knoppix which isn't really necessary, then copied the entire pmagic directory to the / of Knoppix. I copied the directories from the Parted Magic boot directory to the Knoppix boot directory with the exception of the syslinux directory. I then copied the files from the Parted Magic /boot/syslinux directory to the Knoppix /boot/syslinux directory with the exception of (memdisk, memtest and syslinux.cfg) which were already present in the Knoppix syslinux directory. [...] Two things you could do, don't have /pmagic/pmagic but rather just the pmagic directory copied directly to the / of Knoppix. This is where the kernel and initrd are and are expected to be and if they are two directories down, probably won't boot. The second is not to have the iso file there (if I understand what you said?) but rather copy the extracted pmagic file to the / of Knoppix.

I did copy the extracted pmagic iso files to the pmagic directory, but then for some reason put the /pmagic iso in the /pmagic directory I created (making it /pmagic/pmagic). So what you say makes sense, and it's no wonder it could not find the kernel and initrd.

And I think I follow the rest of what you said. I'm excited to retry it when I get the time. Thanks a million!

yancek · 10-16-2013, 02:34 PM

I shrunk the Knoppix/Parted Magic partition and created a second FAT32 partition for data. I booted Knoppix and opened the /etc/fstab file which showed all drives/partitions including sdc1 and sdc2 which were the partitions on the flash drive. They all also showed under the /media directory but were all empty. I manually mounted one of the partitions on an internal drive and the directories/files all showed. I created a Test directory under /media/sdc2 and rebooted and the sdc2 directory was not there.

EDIT: Curiously enough, I rebooted the Knoppix flash and again created a test directory and file under /media/sdc2 without mounting it. I rebooted and this time both were there. I had expected to have to mount? Curious because the /etc/fstab entries all show noauto but I could access the various partitions. I don't know why it works now and didn't before as I made no changes to fstab.

I then went to the /UNIONFS/media sub-directory, created an sdc2 directory with a Test sub-directory and a testfile and rebooted. The directory and file were there so it should be usable for data. The UNIONFS directory is the 4GB persistent file I created when installing Knoppix to the flash.

Putting an entry in the /etc/fstab for the data partition could be problematic using it on different computers as some may have only one hard drive and others may have several drives. In my example, the flash showed as sdc but on a computer with only one drive it would be sdb. Manually mounting should not be much of a problem.
.

passinthru · 10-16-2013, 10:30 PM

It took some doing, but I got it to work exactly as you said. I now have a 15GB flash drive which has persistent Knoppix, live Parted Magic, and 10GB of storage. Just what I wanted.

I had to install Knoppix using the reiserfs overlay option, and set the size to the minimum 400mb. Then I shrunk the bootable partition to 4GB and created an ext2 partition of the unallocated space (approx 10GB). I could not copy the extracted pmagic iso to the bootable partition choosing the first overlay option from the Knoppix install to flash menu.

I discovered what you did regarding editing the fstab file. The entry remained in the file, but it did not mount. From what you explained, I'm glad it did not work. As you say, it is no big deal to manually mount the data partition. I will probably write a script to do the mount, and put (or see if it would work) to include it at start up.

I most certainly do not understand the whole Knoppix file system. I looked at it using mc (which is my file browser of choice) and simply do not understand things like UNIONFS, /mnt and /mnt-user and /mnt-system... But for the moment, it is working as I want and I'm happy.

It's no big deal, but why doesn't the PMagic boot option show up in the menu when I press F2 at the first and main Knoppix screen?

Well, I can now say this is solved for me. Can't thank you folks enough for your patience and help. Best wishes.

yancek · 10-16-2013, 11:01 PM

I think the UNIONFS is the overlay file as on my flash it is the same size as what I created for overlay/persistence. I'm not really familiar with it and don't know what mnt-system does put see during boot that it is being mounted or used.

I don't know why the Parted Magic doesn't show with F2 and since it doesn't, why it is able to boot. The magic of computers. Glad you got it working.

yancek · 10-17-2013, 10:30 AM

Quote:

It's no big deal, but why doesn't the PMagic boot option show up in the menu when I press F2 at the first and main Knoppix screen?

I'm not sure why that is the case so I tried removing the Knoppix syslinux.cfg file and replacing it with the Parted Magic syslinux.cfg and copied the Knoppix entry from its syslinux.cfg to the Parted Magic syslinux.cfg. I then saw both the Parted Magic and Knoppix entries in the boot menu and was able to boot both. The MENU LABEL line isn't necessary and just aligns it with the other entries.

Quote:

LABEL knoppix
MENU LABEL ^7. Knoppix
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane

passinthru · 10-17-2013, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

I'm not sure why that is the case so I tried removing the Knoppix syslinux.cfg file and replacing it with the Parted Magic syslinux.cfg and copied the Knoppix entry from its syslinux.cfg to the Parted Magic syslinux.cfg. I then saw both the Parted Magic and Knoppix entries in the boot menu and was able to boot both. The MENU LABEL line isn't necessary and just aligns it with the other entries.

Here is what I did that made it work (following what I thought you said you did):
1) mounted /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1
2) loop mounted the pmagic iso and ran "sudo rsync -arvz /<mountpoint>/pmagic /mnt/sdb1/". This copied only the pmagic directory from the pmagic iso root to /dev/sdb1 and nothing else from the pmagic iso root.

So following what I thought you said above, I:
1) "sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1"
2) "sudo mount -o loop ~/Downloads/iso/<pmagic iso> /mnt/isoloop"
3) "sudo mv /mnt/sdb1/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg k-syslinux.cfg"
4) "sudo cp /mnt/isoloop/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg /mnt/sdb1/boot/syslinux/"
5) "sudo vim /mnt/dev/sdb1/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg" and inserted

Code:

LABEL knoppix
MENU LABEL ^7. Knoppix
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane

so that the syslinux.cfg now looks like this:

Code:

DEFAULT menu.c32
F1 /boot/syslinux/F1.txt
F2 /boot/syslinux/F2.txt
F3 /boot/syslinux/F3.txt
F4 /boot/syslinux/F4.txt
F5 /boot/syslinux/F5.txt
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 200
ONTIMEOUT normal32

MENU DEFAULT normal
MENU TABMSG Press <TAB> to edit options or <F1> for more information
MENU AUTOBOOT Automatic boot in # second{,s}...
MENU TITLE Parted Magic - Partitioning, Cloning, and Rescue Software
MENU color title   1;36;44    #ffffffff #00000000 std
MENU color sel      7;37;40    #FF000000 #FFC0C0C0 all
MENU color hotsel   1;7;37;40  #FF000000 #FFC0C0C0 all
menu color scrollbar 1;7;37;40  #FF000000 #FFC0C0C0 all
MENU MARGIN 5
MENU ROWS 12
MENU HELPMSGROW 21

LABEL knoppix
MENU LABEL ^7. Knoppix
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane 

LABEL normal32
MENU LABEL ^1. Default settings 32 (Runs from RAM)
TEXT HELP
Default mode intended for 1GB+ based systems.
* Version: 2013_09_26, (C) 2013, Patrick Verner
* Disclaimer: Author excluded from any liability.
ENDTEXT
LINUX /pmagic/bzImage
INITRD /pmagic/initrd.img
APPEND edd=on vga=normal vmalloc=384MiB

[continuing with the remainder of the pmagic labels]

But when I boot I get a message that the menu.c32 kernal or initrd (can't remember) could not be found, and a boot: prompt. I can enter "knoppix" and it loads knoppix - did not reboot and try anything else.

Should I replace 'DEFAULT menu.c32' with the knoppix or some other label?

passinthru · 10-17-2013, 12:36 PM

Replaced "DEFAULT menu.c32" with "knoppix" and it booted straight to knoppix. I don't see or follow the sequence.

(And, btw, I'm posting this using Iceweasel from the Knoppix on my flash drive.)

passinthru · 10-17-2013, 01:29 PM

After further testing, I changed prompt to 1, set default to knoppix, and changed the label for pmagic from normal32 to pmagic. Now I can enter "pmagic" and boot Parted Magic, enter "knoppix" and load Knoppix, or let it time out and it loads Knoppix. None of the "F" keys returns anything; not ideal - limited to two options or editing syslinux.cfg prior to boot if I want some of the other Knoppix or PMagic options.

yancek · 10-17-2013, 04:47 PM

I just opened the flash with Knoppix/Pmagic and moved the syslinux.cfg file to the / of the filesystem. Then loop mounted the PMagic iso and used the filemanager to copy the syslinux.cfg file to the knoppix /boot/syslinux directory.

Quote:

But when I boot I get a message that the menu.c32 kernal or initrd

Do you have the menu.c32 file in syslinux directory? I copied all these files from PMagic to this directory. Don't know any other reason that would happen.

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Should I replace 'DEFAULT menu.c32' with the knoppix or some other label?

Did you have a 'DEFAULT' line in the PMagic syslinux.cfg file? There is a MENU DEFAULT normal line near the top but no the 'DEFAULT' line. I don't have it in mine but I think I'm using an older version. Here is the top part of my syslinux.cfg file, copied from PMagic with a Knoppix entry:

Code:

UI /boot/syslinux/menu.c32
F1 /boot/syslinux/message.txt
F2 /boot/syslinux/message2.txt
F3 /boot/syslinux/message3.txt
F4 /boot/syslinux/message4.txt
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 200
ONTIMEOUT normal

MENU DEFAULT normal
MENU TABMSG Press <TAB> to edit options or <F1> for more information
MENU AUTOBOOT Automatic boot in # second{,s}...
MENU TITLE Parted Magic - A Free Partitioning Tool
MENU color title   1;36;44    #ffffffff #00000000 std
MENU color sel      7;37;40    #FF000000 #FFC0C0C0 all
MENU color hotsel   1;7;37;40  #FF000000 #FFC0C0C0 all
MENU ROWS 12
MENU HELPMSGROW 21

LABEL knoppix
MENU LABEL ^7. Knoppix
KERNEL linux
APPEND lang=en apm=power-off initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1

The F1-F4 entries above point to files (message.txt) in the syslinux directory and are from PMagic. You might change those from the message.txt entries to just F2 and F3 and make sure the F2 and F3 files are there for Knoppix. These files contain the various options and I'm not sure if they will work if you are not using the Knoppix syslinux.cfg. Do you have all the Knoppix files from the syslinux directory present. I believe the only duplicates for Knoppix/PMagic were memtest, memdisk and of course the syslinux.cfg.

I see a menu when I boot with several PMagic options and just the one Knoppix as that's all I put there. Initially, I did not have the MENU LABEL line for Knoppix and the only difference was that the menu entry was not aligned, it still booted. The ^7 doesn't have any effect on booting, there were just 6 entries already. I have only added two Knoppix entries and they both booted. I will say the Knoppix boot screen looks a lot better. Might be better off just going back to that if you can't get this to work.

Good luck.