I trust the logic of your suggestion because you are most likely more experienced and good at logic while I am at lost and most likely trying to do something that is impossible.
One need unionfs and loopbacked files in ext3 to something on the NTFS Vista machine I have.
I get many distros to boot fine and I can use them as long as I don't try to save changes using a casper-rw file because then the often crash at boot. If I never try to save then they are stable for days even if I reboot ten times that day.
But I am wildly offtopic in this thread now and linux people are very keen on one questio per thread and not any deviation or derailing.
I got badly bruised on a swedish forum they got upset by me.
So I feel rather insecure just now.
I will start another thread within some days or weeks. I have to read up and test a lot first.
I guess Robert has already warned that it is not possible on NTFS but works on Fat32.
I have had it two time on Fat 32 but never been able to on NTFS AFAIK.
I try to find relevant quote and link to what I am talking about.
6.1.2. From Windows
It is also possible to have Grub4dos (grldr) loaded directly by NTLDR and also Vista's boot manager. See here (external link).
6.2. Menu entry
The next step is to create a suitable entry in menu.lst for the tinycore/microcore linux iso
title Tinycore Linux
find --set-root /images/tinycore_2.5.iso
map --mem /images/tinycore_2.5.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
That will then boot the iso as if it were on a CD and load ISOLINUX.
Note that an emulated CD cannot be accessed once the Tiny Core kernel starts executing http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/map.htm#hd32 (external link):
"The "map" process is implemented using INT 13 - any disk emulation will remain accessible from an OS that uses compatible mode disk access, e.g. DOS and Windows 9x. The emulation can't however, be accessed from an OS which uses protected mode drivers (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista, Linux, FreeBSD) once the protected mode kernel file(s) take control."
In particular, Tiny Core extensions in a top-level /tce directory of an ISO cannot be loaded from an emulated CD. The boot process does work with extensions that are contained within the /opt/tce directory of the initrd file /boot/tinycore.gz (or /boot/microcore.gz) on an ISO on an emulated CD.
From here
Installing TC on USB
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/tiki-index.php?page=Installing+TC+on+USB#APPENDIX_B:_Persistent_homeMy grub4dos but made by Neogrub looks like this.
title superos
find --set-root /casper/vmlinuz
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper splash --
initrd /casper/initrd.lz
boot
title tinycore
kernel /tinycore/bzImage
initrd /tinycore/tinycore.gz
boot
title puppy stardust
find --set-root /pup_stardust-007/vmlinuz
kernel /pup_stardust-007/vmlinuz psubdir=pup_stardust-007 puppy pfix=ram
initrd /pup_stardust-007/initrd.gz
boot
TC boots fast and reliably that way. PuuyStardust can save due to that one make use of UnionFS save file.
SuperOS Ubuntu fail to save persistently due to NTFS but does save when I have it on USB Fat32 with grub4dos and a casper-rw file from pedndrivelinux. Multipass boot of many distros on one USB memory. I tested on one 4GB flash and a 20GB HDD in external USB mounted one.
So that was iso frugal install on them. Which I want to have on the NTFS too but I should start another thread about it but I am not good at structuring and know too little at the moment to have any usage of the answers.
Ago. who is one of the developer of Wubi told me in their forum that wubi has a frugal option and can save on NTFS but I did not understand his anwers and he is too busy to explain it further.
So sooner or later I want to ask that question here when I am knowledgeable enough to get the answer.
here is his text that is way above what I grasp now as a newbie.
By the way, wubi already supports frugal installation (not r/w although it can be changed by adding a persistent file)... Run wubi.exe from windows, then when you reboot press ESC and choose the last option... That is a frugal installation... If you want it permanent simply make it the default boot option in ubuntu\install\boot\grub\menu.lst. Note the demo mode option is deleted after a linux side loop installation.
Last edited by ago; August 21st, 2008 at 10:08 AM..
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?s=fa57d16156126338c247f3b7c8882a80&p=5635552&postcount=4Just as a background to my worried questions about how can I make it remember kmap on a NTFS formatted HDD when grub4dos dont' have such commands that allow it yet? Or me misunderstand the text?