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Author Topic: bootloader wiki  (Read 4522 times)

Offline TraperJohn

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bootloader wiki
« on: June 17, 2009, 03:33:17 PM »
I finally got my flavor of TC working 8) with one exception, the bootloader.
My issue is that you guys did such a great job on showcasing the re-master proses but neglected to mention any thing about how to work on Grub :(.
I would like to see a section in the wiki about editing  the bootloader such as rebuilding or even as I will attempt to do setup a different one like in my case LILO.

I'm not trying to sound bash or mean, only confused as to where to look for answers ???.

I am not new to this when using an installed OS however I've yet to get around to any live system :-[ so I could use some help.
Any assistance would be great and maybe I could help with  that new section in the wiki if you guys are willing ;).

Offline linus72

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2009, 05:40:34 PM »
Hello, please explain your exact problems and it helps to know the computer type, ram, etc
I have been playing with grub alot in portable-tinycore-2.0, I am right now trying to finish
1st portable-multidistro; it's a partitioned (6, 3 p, 3 l, with swap) with 6 partitions and I made it 1.6GB so it'll fit on my 2gb stick.
so far, I got tc2.0, tinyme-droplet frugal, pupflux412 full install, tinyflux1.0 full install, MyDSL-4.4.10, webconverger-4.9,
webserverpuppy1 frugal and I'm trying to find other little frugal distro's too.

I had to install grub manually for most of those, which taught me a great deal about grubster.

I suggest you make multiple partition qemu-img, use portable qemu for windows/linux
and install some stuff and try to do grub manaually
( http://multidistro.com/downloads/portables/portables.html )

not all distro's run on a linux box, deb/ubuntu, but most others do(tc-1.4.3 doesn't but runs on windows?!)
slack, slack-based, tc-2.0, dsl,feather, tinyflux, tinyme, grml, austrumi, lots of others.
using portable you can practice hacking vhd's and "rescuing" them with pmagic/clonezilla,etc
so, check it out
also, did you use normal grub prompt
root (hdx,x)
setup (hdx)
quit
or did you use "grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/hdxx /dev/hdx"
please provide more info... ;)

Offline TraperJohn

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2009, 05:57:39 PM »
I should have been more specific I was referring to live as in live CD,
Sorry for the inconvenience.

As to you, 1st portable-multidistro it will not be as many installers from CD have that claim along with one called Circus that seems to hold the record as the most Distros on a live CD.
I have also seen a version of puppy with 10 different sfs files meant to be loaded at boot each with its own flavor.

I did happen upon the slitaz scratchbook http://www.slitaz.org/en/doc/scratchbook/#org with some info that might pertain to TC and building a new bootloader for the live CD but I still need to read on.

Offline linus72

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2009, 06:25:45 PM »
Um...I'm not talking about livecd bro, I'm talking about portable-qemu
which runs from any usb, any partition type, out of it's folder, in windows and linux.

do you know what I speak of?
i'm talking about a virtualharddrive running via portable-qemu
you got any?
dsl-embedded is an example, cept it only runs on dindows :-*

Offline TraperJohn

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2009, 06:44:46 PM »
Um...I'm not talking about livecd bro, I'm talking about portable-qemu
which runs from any usb, any partition type, out of it's folder, in windows and linux.

do you know what I speak of?
i'm talking about a virtualharddrive running via portable-qemu
you got any?
dsl-embedded is an example, cept it only runs on dindows :-*
A. Any Distro can be installed to QEMU.
B. QEMU will only run portably from Windows as linux has no portable APPs unless you count mountable images.
C. You “can” run any live CD Distro from QEMU using an iso with a command like (~# qemu -cdrom /directory of Distro/whatever.iso -m 256 -boot d) without the ().
And finally:
D. It's my question about live CDs remember.

Offline linus72

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2009, 07:00:13 PM »
I apologize, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Offline TraperJohn

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2009, 07:28:23 PM »
I apologize, you don't know what I'm talking about.
Um ya I do and you need to re-read the basics about portable APPs as in a exe that runs from anywhere on Windows, How QEMU can run any iso or installed system and finally how a multi Distro works aka installs from CD or live CD and boots from a single bootloader.
I noted some options for you to play with like Circus that has Puppy, DSL and others on a CD that all you need to do is run in QEMU with the command above and install all in your qemu.img.

I think that if you are interested in thees things you should start your own post about it as this is off of my topic.

So anyone with any thing to say about my topic in this post?
I will restate it:
Quote
I finally got my flavor of TC working  with one exception, the bootloader.
My issue is that you guys did such a great job on showcasing the re-master proses but neglected to mention any thing about how to work on Grub .
I would like to see a section in the wiki about editing  the bootloader such as rebuilding or even as I will attempt to do setup a different one like in my case LILO.

I'm not trying to sound bash or mean, only confused as to where to look for answers .

I am not new to this when using an installed OS however I've yet to get around to any ((live CD)) system  so I could use some help.
Any assistance would be great and maybe I could help with  that new section in the wiki if you guys are willing .

Offline ^thehatsrule^

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2009, 11:03:20 PM »
The install guide covers grub: http://www.tinycorelinux.com/install.html (the wiki also points to this guide)

For rebuilding, see the extensions source directory (if you mean recompiling).

Afaik qemu is available on various platforms and that using something like one that's staticly built against uclibc can help with portability for a target platform.

Offline TraperJohn

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2009, 11:25:08 PM »
The install guide covers grub: http://www.tinycorelinux.com/install.html (the wiki also points to this guide)
Ya good guide but I am building it for a live CD, not a HD install.
O and its LILO, a bit diff then Grub.
Quote
For rebuilding, see the extensions source directory (if you mean recompiling).
Only a remaster.
Quote
Afaik qemu is available on various platforms and that using something like one that's staticly built against uclibc can help with portability for a target platform.
Afaik qemu? I'd like more info for some thing els I'm working on but I don't see a home page,
any link to it?

I think that the info on the slitaz scratchbook under Boot Scripts (http://www.slitaz.org/en/doc/scratchbook/boot-scripts.html) may be a good alternative to LILO if nothing els works.

Offline roberts

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #9 on: June 18, 2009, 12:22:41 AM »
rc scripts are not bootloaders.

Live CD typically use isolinux and on some very old computers syslinux was required.
If you are looking for information on boot loaders for live CD then check out:
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/ISOLINUX

Some of the older bootloaders were limited to an emulation of a single boot floppy.
Thereby only one simulated floppy on the CD, so the
material on the initial ramdisk must fit a diskette image together with the
kernel image. The diskette image may be 1.44 Mbytes or 2.88 Mbytes.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2009, 12:28:39 AM by roberts »
10+ Years Contributing to Linux Open Source Projects.

Offline curaga

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Re: bootloader wiki
« Reply #10 on: June 18, 2009, 05:52:17 AM »
As far as I know lilo cannot be used on a cd. For info on how to use grub on a cd, see the documentation at
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM
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