Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: MrAccident on April 29, 2014, 02:29:43 PM
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I'm a newb to Linux. So this is probably this kind of a question.
I've started a short time ago with Puppy. Are the partitions named exactly the same in both OS's?
I just don't want to make a mistake in this kind of a thing.
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For me, different linux distros always displayed my drives in the same order (i.e. /dev/sda /dev/sdb - maybe that can vary by the order in which the drives are recognized at boot?). However, I'm sure the partitions will always be displayed the same way (/dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3) because this layout won't change as long as you don't do it manually or if an installer does it.
You can use the df command to check the size of your partitions.
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Well, df will only show the sizes of mounted filesystems.
'fdisk -l' will show the partitions and their sizes.
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"fdisk -l" worked.
But after installation - when I boot - all I get is a black screen with a blinking underscore.
The only things I can think of are:
I chose to install a boot loader; though I have the one for Puppy
I marked something like "installer program".
Other than that - I didn't do much other than click next.
Actually Puppy was installed on that partition prior. Maybe something was left there; I just deleted the folders. Maybe the old boot loader. Should I install again and this time format the partition?
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Sounds like the the bootloader is not installed to the drive correctly
May I suggest reading this http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html (http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html)
or the video installer guide http://tinycorelinux.net/screenshots.html (http://tinycorelinux.net/screenshots.html)
or the wiki install section http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:start#installing (http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:start#installing)
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I checked it; I am doing everything right.
I formatted the partition to ext4 with Gparted; installed TC again; and the same thing happens.
BTW, Puppy is on one HDD and TC is on another. I boot into Puppy, only after clicking F8 and choosing the other HDD.
Another thing - before I formatted the partition where TC was - when I booted into the disk - I tried to install TC again; and it didn't work because that partition was mounted; and I couldn't unmount it. And changes were meant to be saved to that partition before reboot, by default by the system. That definitely can have something to do with the problem.
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You said:
But after installation - when I boot - all I get is a black screen with a blinking underscore.
Are you sure you don't also have a '$' ?
You may be booted into console mode because you did not install X or your Video card is not supported.
You supplied no useful information, so it is difficult to assist you.
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I've witten this before gerald_clark has posted on which I have to agree. Anyways...
Have you tryed installin Core manually? This seems easy, too, since mostly everything is set up already.
You could boot into Puppy, mount the TC .iso image and the partition you want to install to, copy respective files ...
+/tce/
|- onboot.lst
|+/boot/
| |- core.gz
| |- vmlinuz
|+/optional/
| |- "all *.tcz goes here"
|+/ondemand/
| |- "will be used later by Core"
... and edit your boot loaders config (the same which is used to boot puppy) accordingly.
Something like this for syslinux.cfg
LABEL core53
MENU LABEL Core 5.3
KERNEL /tce/boot/vmlinuz
APPEND root=/dev/sdxY initrd=/tce/boot/core.gz
NOTE: change root=/dev/sdxY to your needs.
You can also install Core to the same partition where Puppy is installed, if there is enough free space.
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No "$"; only a blinking underscore - just like before it boots into the disk; but here it just stays like this.
I installed X from the options. I basically didn't touch the default; other then supporting "non-US keyboard".
I don't know if it's the console mode; but nothing happens when I click on anything other then Ctrl+Alt+Delete - which reboots.
Don't know if my card is unsupported; Puppy didn't have a problem with it; and TC works from the disk; don't know if that means it detects it.
You don't think that the fact that when I boot from the disk - TC makes a connection to where I installed it, has something to do with it?
Where do I get the useful information to provide here?
Misalf - I'll try that.
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Please post your boot loaders config file and tell us where you've installed Puppy and Core (sda2, sda3, etc.).
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How do I find the boot loaders config file please?
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depends on what bootloader is used
/boot/extlinux/syslinux.cfg
/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
/boot/grub/menu.lst
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
Sometimes the config file is not in a subfolder but in the partitions root directory (not the user but just / ).
However, I think most bootloaders first try to find the config file in its respective subfolder.
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That depends on the bootloader.
For a bootloader installed by tc-install, it will be the extlinux.conf file in the tce directory under
boot/extlinux
But again, you have not given us any useful information to help you.
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The useful information would be:
What ISO did you use?
How did you install it?
Where did you install it?
Show the output of the 'blkid' command.
Where did you find the config file ( full path ) ?
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Show the output of the 'blkid' command.
what gerald_clark is referring to is the UUID. It's an unique ID to idetify your drive. If you just copy/pasted it from an exaple file, it would be certainly the wrong ID.
You don't usually need waitusb= anyway, since it's meant to be used with drives that need some time to respond (like some usb drives as the name suggests). You also can omit the tce= boot code because the tce-directory will be found automatically if located at the usual place (/mnt/sdb1/tce/) with its default name.
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ISO - CorePlus; in "blkid" - iso9660; from - http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html.
I installed it with the installer. Frugal. Clicked next next etc; other than the "non-US keyboard" option.
TC is installed on partition "sdb1" type ext4
Conf file - /mnt/sdb1/tce/boot/extlinux/ - that's the path in Puppy.
I can't copy the text from the terminal; and there are all the long file names of the partitions; so if some other information is needed - tell me.
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In the file "extlinux.conf" the text is:
DEFAULT core
LABEL core
KERNEL /tce/boot/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/tce/boot/core.gz quiet waitusb=5:UUID="c16640ef-c0bc-4cff-9245-85615e9d8708" tce=UUID="c16640ef-c0bc-4cff-9245-85615e9d8708"
Puppy is installed on sda1 and TC on sdb1.
gerald_clark - I asked - where can I find this "useful information"?
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Since you're
[...] a newb to Linux.
I can understand that you're not really aware about what info is useful/needed.
Please do this in while Puppy
blkid /dev/sdb1
You can just mark anything in the terminal with your mouse (no need to 'copy' but the text needs to still be marked while pasting) and paste it by clicking the mouse wheel. If you're not using a mouse, it can be pasted by pressing "SHIFT"+"INSERT" (not every program understands this, though).
Also, please post your onboot.lst (just in case).
HINT: Use the [ code ]-your-outup-here-[ /code ] tags (without the spaces) for such outputs.
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# blkid
/dev/sdb5: UUID="13FF883D343D1961" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="fa48b2d0-f9cf-4d42-bdc9-2a3e79a84391" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="c16640ef-c0bc-4cff-9245-85615e9d8708" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="8C783A62783A4B6A" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="313f00fc-1bad-4f97-9525-32db8a9ac7ef" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda1: UUID="09cd876b-21ad-4196-9a6a-8b0a04665f20" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sr0: LABEL="CorePlus" TYPE="iso9660"
/dev/loop1: LABEL="CorePlus" TYPE="iso9660"
OK, now you know all my secrets. :-P
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No, you did not show the full path to your extlinux.conf file.
You installed TC to your 2nd drive, but we don't know where you installed the boot loader.
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Sorry; didn't find "onboot.lst". And "code" and "/code" didn't do anything in the terminal; if that is what I was suppose to do.
gerald_clark - so what can I do about it?
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Nah, the "code" tags are for posting stuff on the forum.
OK, the UUID of
/dev/sdb1: UUID="c16640ef-c0bc-4cff-9245-85615e9d8708" TYPE="ext4"
and
tce=UUID="c16640ef-c0bc-4cff-9245-85615e9d8708"
are identical. So that was not the problem.
Maybe your downloaded ISO got corrupted.
You can check via
md5sum /path/to/your/copy/of/CorePlus-5.3.iso
and compare it with the contents of this file
http://tinycorelinux.net/5.x/x86/release/CorePlus-5.3.iso.md5.txt
which is
312a35d769bd61271bfbf6f08eae8492 CorePlus-5.3.iso
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You still did not show the full path to your extlinux.conf file you posted.
You may have installed the boot loader and boot files on different drives.
That won't work.
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By comparing - you mean - comparing those two numbers?:
312a35d769bd61271bfbf6f08eae8492 /mnt/sda5/חדש/CorePlus-current.iso
312a35d769bd61271bfbf6f08eae8492 CorePlus-5.3.iso
gerald_clark - you mean this path? - /mnt/sdb1/tce/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
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Oh, I just checked the syslinux install of my dual-booting laptop where I have syslinux installed in the MBR, using a config file on the first partition (FAT) and for Linux, I have another (sys)extlinux installation installed to the Partition Table of /dev/sda3 (ext4) using onother config.
It's chainloading from one boot loader to the other like this:
LABEL linux
MENU LABEL Linux on /dev/sda3
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0 3
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Misalf - I don't understand if it has something to do with me.
About installing TC on the same partition. I don't have a problem installing it there;
but will TC be in it's own separated folder?
Will I be able to later remove one of them and keep the other, just by deleting it's folders?
And if the same will happen - will I be able to delete TC's folders with Puppy's live-CD; and the problem will go away?
It'll really be a problem if I won't be able to boot into anything, and will have to reinstall and loose all the settings (mostly FireFox).
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It seems boot loaders from the syslinux family aren't able to boot from another drive as the one the boot loader is installed on (I'm not sure; I'm more used to grub2 where it is possible).
About installing TC on the same partition. I don't have a problem installing it there;
but will TC be in it's own separated folder?
Yes. on sda1, it will be /mnt/sda1/tce/.../
Will I be able to later remove one of them and keep the other, just by deleting it's folders?
Yes. But make sure you don't delete the directory which contains additional boot loader files and the config file (either /boot/extlinux/ or /tce/boot/extlinux/).
And if the same will happen - will I be able to delete TC's folders with Puppy's live-CD; and the problem will go away?
I don't understand. If something doesn't boot, you probably won't be able to fix it by removing stuff. You'd rather make it worse if you're not absolutely sure what can be deleted.
It'll really be a problem if I won't be able to boot into anything, and will have to reinstall and loose all the settings (mostly FireFox).
The good thing about, both, Puppy and Core, is that you can easily backup your settings to an external drive (Flash, CD, whatever) in case something terrible happens. Both distros save the user settings in packages.
For Core it is
/tce/mydata.tgz
For Puppy I'm not sure right now but usually it's something like
/puppysave.sfs
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If I understand correctly - TC and Puppy have each, their own boot-loader.
So if the same will happen - the fault is in TC's one. So if then I'll delete it - I'll be able to boot into Puppy.
Am I wrong?
Yeah I know the save file. Didn't know exactly how it works. So all the bookmarks, sessions etc - will be saved there?
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Yes, you are wrong. ;^)
The BIOS is configured to boot from a certain drive and it does if that drive has some sort of loader in its MBR (Master Boot Record). The config file of that boot loader can then have several entries for all sorts of linuxes you have installed, pointing to different locations and files (kernel and initrd in sub directories). If you want to boot from another drive or partition while the boot loader from the first drive was already started by the BIOS, you would have to chainload from one boot loader to another (again, I'm not quite sure about that; might be possible even with syslinux but I used chainloading to start a second boot loader from another partition [installed to partition table] - pretty much the same as chainloading to another drive [MBR]).
So if the same will happen [...]
Sorry again, I don't understand.
You won't be able to start one boot loader by deleting another one. The MBR contains the reference to the latest installed bootloader files (stored on the disk in a sub directory; usually /boot/...).
While two Linux installers from different distros have messed with your drive now (it seems), I'd suggest you try find a tutorial on the internet to install extlinux manually (so you can choose the extlinux path) with any live CD (Puppy or CorePlus or anything - doesn't matter) so that you know for sure which bootloader files are actually being used and what can get deleted (to clean up the mess for preventing further confusion with config files all over the place).
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Alright. Thank you both for all the effort!
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Solved the old fashion way. Even though I used only Windows - along the years there were many problems like this one. Thought posting this can add to your knowledge of how to help someone with a similar problem, in the future.
I unplugged Puppy's drive; deleted TC's partition with Gparted from Puppy's live-CD (before that - I formatted; which I saw that leaves some of the disk space "used"; so it doesn't really format it I guess); formatted to ext4; installed TC with the option "Mark Partition Active (bootable)"; the computer booted into TC's boot options; after plugging Puppy's drive - with F8 I can boot into Puppy. Tried a few times to make sure I can boot into both OS's.
Yeah, usually starting over is easier than rummaging through the settings etc.