TinyCore does not boot after installation

[jazzbiker]

In fact TinyCore is the only Linux really designed for nomadic use. I mean that You don't install it to some box, but You install it to some drive (USB flash or USB HDD) and it works anywere it is possible. I've chosen TinyCore few years ago in order not to carry laptop, but carry USB flash drive. I keep it in my wallet, it is much handier :-) Laptops and desktops are spreaded over the environment almost everywhere. Chose the one You like and use!
What is Your opinion about such a concept?

[CentralWare]

The unit IS in fact UEFI (which is what CSM support is all about - to allow a UEFI device offer legacy options to older operating systems and/or hardware devices.)

Here's what I see:
1. You have legacy (CSM) enabled - this is likely a requirement for Windows, but you may need to disable it for sys/extlinux and possibly grub
2. You have boot0 and boot1 which are VERY likely boot partitions from the original Windows installation - this we may have a slight problem with
3. For unknown reasons, you have your USB device (sda) double-partitioned (sda1 = Partition 1...  which is then re-partitioned as sda1p1)

@jazzbiker: The eMMC isn't configured like a RasPi so piCore references aren't really helpful here.  LOL, plus it's an Intel, not an ARM processor.
With RasPi, the system doesn't usually come preconfigured with multiple hardware partitions. With EC-9100, it does - which requires a compiled boot-loader.

The closest guess I'd be able to offer is that we'll need to install GRUB onto boot# and have IT point to mmcblk0p1.  "Logic" tells me this should have been boot0, but it's looking like boot0 may not have "space" to put a boot-loader in.  Let's find out, shall we?

@newbieCore: Please boot the laptop and at the shell type in fdisk /dev/mmcblk0boot0 [ENTER]; once in, press "P" to get a layout.  Specifically, we want to see what it's SIZE is.  (Screen shot likely helpful!!)  Press "Q" to exit, then repeat the process for /dev/mmcblk0boot1 - again, a screen shot may be useful here, too, of the "P" screen.

If boot0 has "size" and enough to cram GRUB into it, that's our goal.  If it doesn't, I cannot fathom why it exists in the first place.  For Windows, it needs a boot partition of a few MB to install a boot loader and a menu - normally this is a single partition.

Once we have that information, reboot the laptop and go into settings -- this time, turn off CSM -- reboot again and go back into settings; you may now have new boot options.  If so, please send along a screen-shot of this, too.

[CentralWare]

@jazzbiker: I don't keep TC in my wallet - it wouldn't fit. Instead I have a box of flash drives and cards set up for "live cd" types of environments and another set for installation media. There are four of these boxes at the office which are used for road trips (service calls) and blu-ray boxes with USB, uSD (and adapter) and CD, DVD and/or BD media dedicated one box per release for use IN the office when PXE isn't possible or efficient.  They do make credit card sized flash drives, though -- I've had a couple of these for the last couple decades back mainly used when Win9x was being weened out.

and it works anywere it is possible.

If you load all of the firmware files, wireless support, etc. and you have a boot loader with a menu for a few different scenarios, then yes - it's a portable "live" operating system that's not dedicated to anything the fits within its hardware platform.  (x86 and x64 can both reside on the same flash... just not really x86/64 and ARM)

[jazzbiker]

Thinking around the drive names - mmcblk0, mmcblk0boot0 and mmcblk0boot1 - I suspect they are areas of the same flash chip, flash chips of big capacity often (if not always) includes protected (potentially) areas. I would propose not to try install bootloader immediately, but try write and restore these mysterious drives  before actually installing something into them. They may be write protected, or changing their content may cause BIOS to go mad. Maybe someone who has experience with such eMMC-based laptops will say a word. In ambiguous conditions better not to be in a hurry.

[jazzbiker]

@newbieCore: Please boot the laptop and at the shell type in fdisk /dev/mmcblk0boot0 [ENTER]; once in, press "P" to get a layout.  Specifically, we want to see what it's SIZE is.  (Screen shot likely helpful!!)  Press "Q" to exit, then repeat the process for /dev/mmcblk0boot1 - again, a screen shot may be useful here, too, of the "P" screen.

@CentralWare, newbieCore have already shown the screenshot of "fdisk -l" output and those mmcblk0boot?s are 4M in size each.

[CentralWare]

I saw the 4MB for boot1 -- somehow missed the line for boot0 regarding size.

Here's your backup:

Code: [Select]

cd /path/to/your/USB
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0boot0 of=./export_boot0.img bs=16K
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0boot1 of=./export_boot1.img bs=16K
sync; sync

fDisk claims no partition type for either unit.
/dev/mmcblk0p# has already been obliterated of anything Windows based, so I can't go poking around looking for the boot menu files that used to reside there.
The laptop is currently booting from USB, so with backups in hand, I'd run with it if the unit were here.

What I've read online regarding these units is that the MMC is removable and upgradable so if there are locked partitions (boot0/boot1) they have to be either a part of mmcblk0...  or they're just sharing that identifier and instead they're separate hardware.  From the looks of it, there's a dozen or so screws holding the cover together and probably a dozen more plastic clips keeping it closed...  I wouldn't ask someone to venture that part just to prove or disprove what I've read online.

If there's no resolution with the MMC situation, there's always almost-flush USB card readers which can be formatted with TinyCore in the same fashion the MMC was, and the SD card could be a matter of MB in size if necessary as we'd pass control over to the MMC after the USB was finished booting. For a couple dollars more, here's a unit that's already stuffed with 32GB -- I'm not endorsing the product(s) or company; this is strictly for photos and descriptions.

[gadget42]

i searched the forum for "dev/mmcblk"(no quotation marks for the search) with the Search Order set to "Most recent topics first" and there are five pages of results. some of these will be more informative, instructive, and relevant than others.

@newbieCore, have you successfully ran any other LiveUSB-system on this machine yet? Keep us posted on your progress!

[jazzbiker]

@gadget42, I refined the search pattern to "/dev/mmcblk0boot" and 2 entries were found, one of them pointing at this thread :-) and another one not related to the problem.

I am a weak googler, and found only Chromebook related links. They propose not to touch these *boot* drives. Maybe they contain the BIOS itself. Really, what for ASUS will place additional BIOS ROM chip on the mainboard if lot of memory is already present?

@newbieCore, You may try writing an image from http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,26658.0.html this thread to /dev/mmcblk0 with the help of dd utility:

Code: [Select]

sudo dd if=InstantCore.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M
It contains ready to use dual boot BIOS/UEFI filesystems with CorePlus14 and TinyCorePure64. If the case is UEFI, it may help. Just to try with low expectations.
 

[newbieCore]

In fact TinyCore is the only Linux really designed for nomadic use. I mean that You don't install it to some box, but You install it to some drive (USB flash or USB HDD) and it works anywere it is possible. I've chosen TinyCore few years ago in order not to carry laptop, but carry USB flash drive. I keep it in my wallet, it is much handier :-) Laptops and desktops are spreaded over the environment almost everywhere. Chose the one You like and use!
What is Your opinion about such a concept?

It could be a nice concept, but I can't save the backup every time on the USB because it is written as read-only.
If you have a solution for this, I guess I can manage like this for now because it's very annoying to download file manager and firefox and the other programs and files every time.

[newbieCore]

The unit IS in fact UEFI (which is what CSM support is all about - to allow a UEFI device offer legacy options to older operating systems and/or hardware devices.)

Here's what I see:
1. You have legacy (CSM) enabled - this is likely a requirement for Windows, but you may need to disable it for sys/extlinux and possibly grub
2. You have boot0 and boot1 which are VERY likely boot partitions from the original Windows installation - this we may have a slight problem with
3. For unknown reasons, you have your USB device (sda) double-partitioned (sda1 = Partition 1...  which is then re-partitioned as sda1p1)

@jazzbiker: The eMMC isn't configured like a RasPi so piCore references aren't really helpful here.  LOL, plus it's an Intel, not an ARM processor.
With RasPi, the system doesn't usually come preconfigured with multiple hardware partitions. With EC-9100, it does - which requires a compiled boot-loader.

The closest guess I'd be able to offer is that we'll need to install GRUB onto boot# and have IT point to mmcblk0p1.  "Logic" tells me this should have been boot0, but it's looking like boot0 may not have "space" to put a boot-loader in.  Let's find out, shall we?

@newbieCore: Please boot the laptop and at the shell type in fdisk /dev/mmcblk0boot0 [ENTER]; once in, press "P" to get a layout.  Specifically, we want to see what it's SIZE is.  (Screen shot likely helpful!!)  Press "Q" to exit, then repeat the process for /dev/mmcblk0boot1 - again, a screen shot may be useful here, too, of the "P" screen.

If boot0 has "size" and enough to cram GRUB into it, that's our goal.  If it doesn't, I cannot fathom why it exists in the first place.  For Windows, it needs a boot partition of a few MB to install a boot loader and a menu - normally this is a single partition.

Once we have that information, reboot the laptop and go into settings -- this time, turn off CSM -- reboot again and go back into settings; you may now have new boot options.  If so, please send along a screen-shot of this, too.

Hi, thanks for the detailed answer. I am attaching a screenshot of the partitions.
Regarding the CSM, when I cancel it, it doesn't change anything, it also doesn't show the usb and nothing can be uploaded.

https://ibb.co/rtQcpPS
https://ibb.co/Qr0JBnH

[Rich]

Hi newbieCore

It could be a nice concept, but I can't save the backup every time on the USB because it is written as read-only.
If you have a solution for this, ...

Boot that USB and use it to install to another USB thumb drive.
When you get to step 5:
http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html#5_
Make sure you add check marks to all of the Wireless options.

[newbieCore]

i searched the forum for "dev/mmcblk"(no quotation marks for the search) with the Search Order set to "Most recent topics first" and there are five pages of results. some of these will be more informative, instructive, and relevant than others.

@newbieCore, have you successfully ran any other LiveUSB-system on this machine yet? Keep us posted on your progress!

Yes of course, more or less every distribution I managed to go live. And Ubuntu and Windows 11, and Zorin OS were also installed in the past.

[newbieCore]

Hi newbieCore

It could be a nice concept, but I can't save the backup every time on the USB because it is written as read-only.
If you have a solution for this, ...

Boot that USB and use it to install to another USB thumb drive.
When you get to step 5:
http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html#5_
Make sure you add check marks to all of the Wireless options.

Huh, so the goal is actually to install the system on another usb and use it as a portable hard disk.
At the moment I don't have another usb but I understood the idea.

[Rich]

Hi CentralWare
I don't know if any of this helps you, but I saved some
notes from an ASUS T100 That I installed TC10 onto.

fdisk -l:

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:/mnt/sdc2/home/tc/statbackup28$ cat fdisk.txt
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT

Disk /dev/mmcblk2: 122142720 sectors, 2296M
Logical sector size: 512
Disk identifier (GUID): 8ce1ea2f-1e82-4345-84a9-850536ee32f3
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 122142686

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size Name
     1            2048          534527  260M EFI system partition
     2          534528          567295 16.0M Microsoft reserved partition
     3          567296        28534783 13.3G Basic data partition
     4       121118720       122140671  499M Basic data partition
     5        28534784        49272831  9.8G
     6        49272832        51320831 1000M
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT

Disk /dev/sda: 1003520 sectors,  490M
Logical sector size: 512
Disk identifier (GUID): 3acb6dc7-8b32-4dbb-be6c-5e3b30efcaf9
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1003486

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size Name
     1            2048           73727 35.0M Boot
     2           73728         1001471  453M Linux
lsblk:

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:/mnt/sdc2/home/tc/statbackup28$ cat lsblk.txt
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda            8:0    1  490M  0 disk
|-sda1         8:1    1   35M  0 part
`-sda2         8:2    1  453M  0 part
mmcblk2      179:0    0 58.2G  0 disk
|-mmcblk2p1  179:1    0  260M  0 part
|-mmcblk2p2  179:2    0   16M  0 part
|-mmcblk2p3  179:3    0 13.3G  0 part
|-mmcblk2p4  179:4    0  499M  0 part
|-mmcblk2p5  179:5    0  9.9G  0 part /mnt/mmcblk2p5
`-mmcblk2p6  179:6    0 1000M  0 part [SWAP]
mmcblk2boot0 179:8    0    4M  1 disk
mmcblk2boot1 179:16   0    4M  1 disk
Some selected entries from dmesg (complete file attached):

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:/mnt/sdc2/home/tc/statbackup28$ grep -E "mmcb|mmc[0-9]|smb|efi\:|efifb|efivar|EFI|DMI\:|smpboot" dmesg.txt
[    0.000000] efi: EFI v2.31 by American Megatrends
[    0.000000] efi:  ACPI=0x78728000  ACPI 2.0=0x78728014  ESRT=0x797d7190  SMBIOS=0x797d7090
[    0.000000] DMI: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. T100CHI/T100CHI, BIOS T100CHI.206 09/25/2015
[    0.012801] ACPI: UEFI 0x0000000078DEE000 000042 (v01 _ASUS_ Notebook 00000000      00000000)
[    0.043972] smpboot: Allowing 4 CPUs, 0 hotplug CPUs
[    0.070389] smpboot: CPU0: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  Z3775  @ 1.46GHz (family: 0x6, model: 0x37, stepping: 0x8)
[    0.070389] smpboot: Max logical packages: 1
[    0.070389] smpboot: Total of 4 processors activated (11735.16 BogoMIPS)
[    0.186740] pci 0000:00:02.0: BAR 2: assigned to efifb
[    0.455877] Registered efivars operations
[    1.680763] efifb: probing for efifb
[    1.680807] efifb: framebuffer at 0x80000000, using 9024k, total 9024k
[    1.680818] efifb: mode is 1920x1200x32, linelength=7680, pages=1
[    1.680825] efifb: scrolling: redraw
[    1.680834] efifb: Truecolor: size=8:8:8:8, shift=24:16:8:0
[    1.724812] fb0: EFI VGA frame buffer device
[    2.224891] EFI Variables Facility v0.08 2004-May-17
[    2.687168] mmc0: SDHCI controller on ACPI [80860F14:01] using ADMA
[    2.691908] mmc1: SDHCI controller on ACPI [INT33BB:00] using ADMA
[    2.710673] mmc2: SDHCI controller on ACPI [80860F14:00] using ADMA
[    2.751273] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (2 bytes)
[    2.752850] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (3 bytes)
[    2.754426] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (3 bytes)
[    2.757201] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (7 bytes)
[    2.793125] mmc2: new HS200 MMC card at address 0001
[    2.821932] mmc1: new ultra high speed DDR50 SDIO card at address 0001
[    3.078727] mmcblk2: mmc2:0001 MCG8GC 58.2 GiB
[    3.079293] mmcblk2boot0: mmc2:0001 MCG8GC partition 1 4.00 MiB
[    3.079917] mmcblk2boot1: mmc2:0001 MCG8GC partition 2 4.00 MiB
[    3.080069] mmcblk2rpmb: mmc2:0001 MCG8GC partition 3 4.00 MiB, chardev (237:0)
[    3.105108]  mmcblk2: p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6
[    4.001088] EXT4-fs (mmcblk2p5): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[    4.104462] Adding 1023996k swap on /dev/mmcblk2p6.  Priority:-2 extents:1 across:1023996k SSFS
[   32.017235] fb: switching to inteldrmfb from EFI VGA
[   32.384369] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (2 bytes)
[   32.385972] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (3 bytes)
[   32.387656] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (3 bytes)
[   32.390621] mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x80 (7 bytes)
[   32.614389] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.clm_blob failed with error -2
[   32.614392] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Falling back to syfs fallback for: brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.clm_blob

[jazzbiker]

Hi newbieCore!

I was not attentive enough and missed the fact that Your motherboard really has UEFI, but inactivated through disabling CSM. It is clear that CorePlus image will not boot in CSM enabled mode. But if return to my post #37 about InstantCore, I think You may download and copy it to Your eMMC in CSM-disabled mode and then reboot and try enbling CSM. InstantCore image is UEFI compatible, and I think chances it will boot are not so poor as I was expecting earlier, and You will be able to kick-start TinyCore.