Ventoy and your custom grub!

[PDP-8]

Bummer, wrote a 20 page writeup on how to do it, and the server barfed.

Ok, so you are a Ventoy user, perhaps booting the TinyCorePure64 iso on a modern uefi machine to act as a front end to boot.

The problem of course is that when booting an iso like this, you only have temporary editing facilities for grub for each session and can't edit grub.cfg permanently.  There is a way around that as Ventoy details here:

https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_bootconf_replace.html

Nothing to "plug in", just make a /ventoy directory, and put two files, ventoy.json, and whatever filename you want to make as your replacement grub you can edit.  I simply called my replacement grub file TC64.cfg  More or less a copy n paste of the existing one from the TC iso with some small additions I got tired of keying in every time I booted.

My /ventoy/ventoy.json file

Code: [Select]

{
    "conf_replace": [
        {
            "iso": "/TinyCorePure64-13.0.iso",
            "org": "/EFI/BOOT/grub/grub.cfg",
            "new": "/ventoy/TC64.cfg"
        },
        {
            "iso": "/ubuntu-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso",
            "org": "/isolinux/txt.cfg",
            "new": "/ventoy/ubuntu.cfg"
        }
    ]
}
My TC64.cfg is just a copy of the original grub.cfg from TC, but additions like showapps, changing resolution, etc - anything I got tired of keying in every time I booted.

One other nifty thing you can do is you can download and install onboot the fuse-exfat.tcz, and now have access to the exfat partition where this information is stored by Ventoy and edit from within TC itself.

Pretty handy and simple if you use Ventoy.

[curaga]

The latest two releases should support exfat natively, with filesystems-, no need for fuse.

[PDP-8]

Awesome!  But I may be noticing some incompatability running in this environment.

What threw me off before loading fuse, was that from a fresh install, I couldn't mount exfat, nor would the mnttool recognize it as mountable.  (I normally put my tinycore data on a separate physical device)

However, when I tried TCE-SETDRIVE, it worked, but it seemed to burp at first.  I had to be patient and wait a few seconds before I saw the notification when selecting the exfat partition.

Code: [Select]

mount: mounting /dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 failed, no such device.

Your TCE drive, /mnt/sda1/tce is now enabled.

So, i know this is an officially unsupported environment.  Maybe I'm witnessing some sort of incompatability.  I'd sure like to not have to rely on fuse-exfat after the fact.

[PDP-8]

Actually now the easiest thing for me to do is to reformat the 1st large Ventoy partition from exFAT to something natively recognized like ext4, and put the TC64 iso back on it.

Making your Ventoy disk from linux itself makes that an easy task afterwards to replace the TC64 iso, and any custom grub replacement as described above.

And followed by the fromISOfile command to pick up the embedded gui.  Whatever.

Where there's a will, there's a way with TC64 and Ventoy.  Nothing will stop it, not even the most modern of rigs.

[gadget42]

was reading some on openzfs:
https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Bullseye%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html

and followed a link referencing grub:
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?46700

and noted this specific thread post:
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?46700#comment12

since we have discussed using ventoy to aid in booting operating systems it seemed appropriate to add it to threads mentioning ventoy and booting
(yes i posted this in two different threads...hated to put it in just one)

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[PDP-8]

Whatever filesystem floats your boat!

Unfortunately, most discussions about them end up like most editor-wars (vi vs emacs etc) do.  Bike-sheds that go nowhere - especially if those touting it are not running with enterprise-level risks.

If you are doing that with TC, that's a big no-no.

[gadget42]

re: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,25542.msg164671.html#msg164671

just wanted to provide all the background for this quote regarding 4Kn drives, grub, and uefi:

Installing on a drive which presents 4 KiB logical sectors (a “4Kn” drive) only works with UEFI booting. This not unique to ZFS. GRUB does not and will not work on 4Kn with legacy (BIOS) booting.

from: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Bullseye%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html

also, re: "filesystems"...as per the quote "not unique to zfs"

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