Anyone tried grub2 to boot of an iso?
 

Hi

Has anyone tried and has been successful in installing grub2 to boot of an iso .
I read that it is possible but could not get it to work.
I am just wondering if its even possible to boot an iso from a flash drive using grub2.

I haven't tried it, but here's a recent set of directions someone made that appears to work.

Hopefully drive lettering changes don't cause a problem. I assume grub2 will be referencing the USB drive regardless of whether it is /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc, etc.

Well this helped me a lot but the only thing i could not figure out why is the linux and initrd entry different for each iso
What i mean is how should I figure out that ?
Should i put the same thing that is there in isolinux.conf file?????

Yes
that's basically right
you gotta copy the kernel and initrd from the iso to usb
whereever the kernel/initrd are at in the iso, then re-create that same folder

like, if kernel initrd is in /boot folder
then put kernel initrd in /boot folder of usb

to see which kernel/initrd are in the iso
make a folder to mount the iso on named "mnt"
make a folder to copy the kernel intrd, etc to from iso, named iso
become root and
mount the iso

"mount -o loop name-of-iso.iso mnt"
now you can llok in the folder "mnt" and the contents of the iso will be there

to copy kernel/initrd from iso
"cp -a mnt/kernel-name iso"
copy kernel to folder iso

just remember to UNMOUNT the mnt folder
"umount mnt"

yes yes yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got it to work man
I tried it with ubuntu ISO and it worked

Now i am going to try with the iso i have hopefully that will work too
this sounds pretty awesome

Thanks to this forum now i atleast know that this is possible

I still might need ur help below is the isolinux.cfg file content of my iso


default linux
prompt 1
timeout 600
display boot.msg
F1 boot.msg
F2 options.msg
F3 general.msg
F4 param.msg
F5 rescue.msg
label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img
label text
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img text
label bnc
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/bnc.cfg
label rdc
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/rdc.cfg
label local
localboot 1
label memtest86
kernel memtest
append -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I know this is pretty complex but how can i get this to work ?
or can i get this file itself to boot??

lol
so that's good huh?

You wanna try a distro that will boot from iso using grub or grub2?
?

so, what do you wanna know about the isolinux.cfg?

you using a fat32 usb or ext3?

i get error saying "you may need to load the kernel first"
my grub.cfg looks like this

menuentry "nirav rpd" {
loopback loop /boot/iso/rpd_nirav.iso
linux (loop)/isolinux/vmlinuz --
initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
}

what iso is it?
some distro's won't run from usb

where are the "append" options??

i am using grub2
how do i get the exact same option od isolinux.cfg into grub
i mean when i boot from grub it should appear as if i have booted for a bootable dvd made from the iso

i m using ext3 usb

ok
to CONVERT a isolinux.cfg entry to a menu.lst grub entry


puppy isolinux.cfg entry
puppy grub menu.lst entry

you must move the "append" line in isolinux.cfg to the kernel line in menu.lst
so, replace

with this

and then place the "kernel options/bootcodes" at the kernel line
not the initrd line

isolinux.cfg kernel line

grub menu.lst kernel line

dig?

its a RHEL distro with my software in it
Also did u see my isolinux.cfg file its just kernel line and in append line it has initrd = initrd.img


Also where if i use menu.lst how can i use the loop option for iso that i absolutely want.

?????????????

booting Ubuntu 10.04 iso using grub2
 

I use this in grub.cfg to boot an Ubuntu 10.04 iso
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04 Live ISO" {
loopback loop (hd0,4)/ISO/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ISO/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso file=(loop)/preseed/ubuntu.seed quiet splash --
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}