[SOLVED] Slack-live halts at grub prompt

mknix · 09-21-2021, 03:17 PM

Hello, I tried two different isos, slackware64-live-current and slackware64-live-xfce-current, but the same thing happens on both.

I used the 'dd' command to create a live usb but when I tried booting from it I get this:

Code:

Minimal BASH-line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. 
Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions.

grub>

Then hitting TAB gives a list of possible commands, from a-t, but nowhere do I see any option to boot live.

So where to from here? I should stress that I just want to run it live. I'm not ready to attempt an install yet as I have to transfer all my files to another drive and that will take some time. TIA.

EDIT: Forgot to say that it never got to the point described here,

"This is a demonstration environment, with the purpose of getting you acquainted
with Slackware, remember? Therefore you will first see all these intimidating
kernel messages scrolling across the screen while booting the OS.
Then you need to login manually."
https://download.liveslak.org/

It never displayed "messages scrolling across the screen". It simply displayed the above and stopped right there.

camorri · 09-22-2021, 05:39 AM

A little more information would be helpful.

What type of system do you have? A BIOS system, or UEFI?

How did you select where to boot from?

Could you post the exact dd command you used to create the boot stick.

I would advise you to have a read through this link -->https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:liveslak

The parts on BIOS vs UEFI. I have cerated bootable dvd's using the script iso2usb.sh. There are very useful examples of how to create a live USB stick, or dvd. Give that a try and see what happens.

It appears your system got you to a grub prompt. I'm not sure why, do you have another linux using grub installed on your system?

mknix · 09-22-2021, 05:40 PM

Thanks for the reply.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri

A little more information would be helpful.

What type of system do you have? A BIOS system, or UEFI?

UEFI

Quote:

How did you select where to boot from?

On this system either Esc or F2.

Quote:

Could you post the exact dd command you used to create the boot stick.

Code:

dd if=/..path to../slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso of=/dev/sdb

1433600+0 records in
1433600+0 records out
734003200 bytes (734 MB, 700 MiB) copied, 139.507 s, 5.3 MB/s

Quote:

I would advise you to have a read through this link -->https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:liveslak

The parts on BIOS vs UEFI. I have cerated bootable dvd's using the script iso2usb.sh. There are very useful examples of how to create a live USB stick, or dvd. Give that a try and see what happens.

I'm a total newbie when it comes to compiling/running scripts.

Quote:

It appears your system got you to a grub prompt. I'm not sure why, do you have another linux using grub installed on your system?

Yes, but I've run several other distros from a live usb and never had this problem.

Thanks for your help.

camorri · 09-22-2021, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Create a USB version of Slackware Live, where the USB stick is known to the system as '/dev/sdX. Note - the value for the output parameter is the device name of the stick and not one of its partitions!

# ./iso2usb.sh -i ~/download/slackware64-live-14.2.iso -o /dev/sdX

This is an example of writing the USB stick with the script.

The # sign indicates you need root privliges. If you need more help that this, explain what you do not understand.

mknix · 09-23-2021, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri

This is an example of writing the USB stick with the script.

The # sign indicates you need root privliges. If you need more help that this, explain what you do not understand.

So I made a text file with

Code:

./iso2usb.sh -i ~home/..path to../slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb

and saved it as sc.sh

Then when I open a terminal as root, same directory, and type sc.sh I get the error, command not found

I also tried replacing the '~' with a '/' but same result.

Thanks for your patience.

camorri · 09-23-2021, 08:38 AM

Have you got the file iso2usb.sh ? There is no need to put the command inside another shell script.

The contents ( the text ) that goes inside the file iso2usb.sh is found at -->http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/tree/iso2usb.sh

Go to that link, you will see the text of the file. To create the file locally, mark all the text, and copy it.

On your system, open your favorite plain text editor ( I use nano ) with a command line this: nano iso2usb.sh .
Now paste the copied text into this new file. Save it to you disk. It will not be executable. To change that, use the chmod command. It will look like this : shmod +x iso2usb.sh and then list the command, it should be executable.

It will look like this :

Quote:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 cliff users 32K Sep 23 09:26 iso2usb.sh*

Notice the x on the left.

Now you run the command as indicated in the previous post. Do not put the the iso2usb.sh inside another shell.

mknix · 09-24-2021, 12:12 PM

Ah ok, I misunderstood. I was thinking iso2usb was another Unix program like dd or rsync. Will try that, thanks.

mknix · 09-25-2021, 04:34 AM

So after I used the chmod command it looks like this:

Quote:

-rwx--x--x 1 ... iso2usb.sh

Which is different to yours but when I right click > Properties > Permissions the box next to Allow this file to run as a program is checked so it is showing as executable.

That's good I thought so I carried on. Both these files are on the desktop. But when I open a root terminal on the desktop and run it this happens:

Code:

 # ./iso2usb.sh -i ~home/user/Desktop/slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb
-bash: ./iso2usb.sh: No such file or directory

No such file or directory? But the list command says they're both there:

Code:

ls
 firefox.desktop   iso2usb.sh  'New File'  'New Filef'   sc.sh   slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso

VicFer · 09-25-2021, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mknix

So after I used the chmod command it looks like this:

Which is different to yours but when I right click > Properties > Permissions the box next to Allow this file to run as a program is checked so it is showing as executable.

That's good I thought so I carried on. Both these files are on the desktop. But when I open a root terminal on the desktop and run it this happens:

Code:

 # ./iso2usb.sh -i ~home/user/Desktop/slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb
-bash: ./iso2usb.sh: No such file or directory

No such file or directory? But the list command says they're both there:

Code:

ls
 firefox.desktop   iso2usb.sh  'New File'  'New Filef'   sc.sh   slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso

I think the path to the iso file is wrong and the "No such file or directory" comes from the script. Try with the absolute path to the .iso

Bye

colorpurple21859 · 09-25-2021, 08:59 AM

The path to iso is wrong, either /home/user/Desktop/… or ~/Desktop/….

mknix · 09-26-2021, 08:29 AM

Thanks but neither worked:

Code:

 # ./iso2usb.sh -i /home/user/Desktop/slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb
-bash: ./iso2usb.sh: No such file or directory

# ./iso2usb.sh -i ~/Desktop/slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb
-bash: ./iso2usb.sh: No such file or directory

Then I got an idea and tried this:

Code:

# cd /home/user/Desktop/

# ./iso2usb.sh -i /home/user/Desktop/slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdb

And this time it worked:

Code:

#
# We are going to format this device (erase all data) - '/dev/sdb':


...


The operation has completed successfully.

I can't see why that should make a difference. I was already in the Desktop directory before I typed cd - I had first right clicked on desktop > open terminal here, and of course 'Desktop' was in the prompt - but for some reason it made all the difference. Perhaps someone can shed some light on that.

So then a reboot took me straight into Slack-live Xfce. Many thanks to all. What a helpful forum this is.

Now I wonder why 'dd' wouldn't work.

0XBF · 10-08-2021, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mknix

Now I wonder why 'dd' wouldn't work.

I've found that slackware-live isos that are copied to a flash drive using 'dd' or 'cp' do not boot properly on my uefi laptop as well (legacy booting a disk made this way is still fine).

It has to do with the $prefix and/or $root variables in grub not pointing to the correct location for the grub menu, so you get dropped down to the console. You can get it to boot if you navigate around in the grub console to where the grub.cfg files are and either start it manually or re-define those variables and exit, at which point it will load the menu. I wouldn't recommend this though.

When you use the iso2usb.sh script, it repartitions the disk and the grub setup works properly with uefi booting. For the record this started happening after a liveslak commit in late 2019 and I emailed Eric about the problem when I caught it sometime last year. There are ways to make it work if you want to edit the grub configs but the better/easier way is to just use the iso2usb.sh script. Plus you get persistence when you set it up that way.

mknix · 10-16-2021, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 0XBF

I've found that slackware-live isos that are copied to a flash drive using 'dd' or 'cp' do not boot properly on my uefi laptop as well (legacy booting a disk made this way is still fine).

It has to do with the $prefix and/or $root variables in grub not pointing to the correct location for the grub menu, so you get dropped down to the console. You can get it to boot if you navigate around in the grub console to where the grub.cfg files are and either start it manually or re-define those variables and exit, at which point it will load the menu. I wouldn't recommend this though.

When you use the iso2usb.sh script, it repartitions the disk and the grub setup works properly with uefi booting. For the record this started happening after a liveslak commit in late 2019 and I emailed Eric about the problem when I caught it sometime last year. There are ways to make it work if you want to edit the grub configs but the better/easier way is to just use the iso2usb.sh script. Plus you get persistence when you set it up that way.

That's nice to know, thanks.