How to fix "Will not boot from USB install"?

[bigpup]

I keep seeing posts about having boot problems, when Fossapup64 9.5 is installed on a USB.

I did a person, new to Puppy, install to a USB.
I did a fresh install to a USB, using Rufus installer, running in Windows 10.
The install is good.
Everything is setup correctly on the USB.

When I tried to boot and selected the first boot menu entry "Fossapu64 9.5"
It started booting and failed to boot.
Just after saying it was loading the kernel and waiting for USB.
Get errors that the Fossapup sfs files can not be found.
Boot stops.

This seems to be caused by trying to proceed with the boot, before the USB has gotten fully operational.
Not enough delay given to let it do this, before trying to read from the USB.
There is a wait4USB time delay in the initrd, that did get adjusted to a longer time period.
But the one in Fossapup64 9.5, seems to not have, this longer wait time for USB.

This also seems to be dependent on the computer and maybe how many other drives are in it.
If having more than one USB drive plugged in.
Probably how the computer accesses a USB drive. What controller is used.
Not all computers have this issue.

This is how I did get it to boot.
When the Fossapup boot menu comes up.
I moved selection off of the default first entry, so nothing would happen, until I selected a entry and pressed enter key.
This gave more time for the USB to power up and connect to system/computer.
After 1 minute of no selection being made.
I selected the first boot menu entry "Fossapup64 9.5" (normal Fossapup64 9.5 boot)
Now it did a complete normal boot to desktop.

I also did the pmedia=cd change to pmedia=usbflash in the boot menu entry.
This was no help.
Still had to give more time for USB to fully get operational.

Update Info:
Fossapup is installed on sdc1 USB drive partition
Debug files when it does not boot.

Bootinit.log
[WAIT4USB] TIMEOUT=4

ALLDRVSO
nvme0n1
sda
sdb
sr0

ATADRVESO
nvme0n1
sda
sdb
sr0

All the other debug files never list sdc.

So sdc is not being seen as a drive to get files from.

Other possible cause and fix:
Tried to see if having more than one USB drive plugged in is part of this problem.
sdb is another USB drive.
Removed it and only had the Fossapup USB plugged in.
It booted OK.
So having more than one USB plugged in, is part of this issue.

[rockedge]

@bigpup have you tried to add usbwait=X to the kernel command line?
This boot stanza is for a usb HDD

Code: Select all

title Fossa64-9.0.5  (uuid/Fossa64-9.5)
  uuid 8a8ea99d-a1b0-4c43-b1a0-d4ce5c9c7dfa
  kernel /Fossa64-9.5/vmlinuz   psubdir=Fossa64-9.5 pmedia=atahd pfix=fsck net.ifnames=0 usbwait=3
  initrd /Fossa64-9.5/initrd.gz

or one more for a USB flash

Code: Select all

title Fossa64-9.0.5  (uuid/Fossa64-9.5)
  uuid 8a8ea99d-a1b0-4c43-b1a0-d4ce5c9c7dfa
  kernel /Fossa64-9.5/vmlinuz   psubdir=Fossa64-9.5 pmedia=usbflash net.ifnames=0 usbwait=5
  initrd /Fossa64-9.5/initrd.gz

interesting to see if this works!

[Clarity]

I think @bigpup is sharing an issue I've run into and was inspired by the USB threads I posted on in the Off-Topic areas.

And is the prime reason I have been so discourage (probably disillusioned) on use of USBs.

Yes, like reports I have issues where one USB will not work on a particular PC while it will on another. Further, I can report that one PC not working with a particular USB stick; will boot using a another USB stick laid out exactly as the first one on that same PC.

This is hardware issues, I know, but, annoying when attempting to use. Firmware differences, motherboard differences, etc (sun-spots, aliens, ... you get the picture).

For a newbie or those new to Puppy Linux, the boot menu change options are not expected knowledge that anyone of them would have.

IMHO, is this a problem? No, but it is an annoyance and major for those who are new as well as the old ones of us; speaking of myself.

WacK-a-mole

[sonny]

I think @bigpup is sharing an issue I've run into and was inspired by the USB threads I posted on in the Off-Topic areas.

And is the prime reason I have been so discourage (probably disallunsioned) on use of USBs.

Yes, like reports I have issues where one USB will not work on a particular PC while it will on another. Further, I can report that one PC not working with a particular USB stick; will boot using a another USB stick laid out exactly as the first one on that same PC.

This is hardware issues, I know, but, annoying when attempting to use. Firmware differences, motherboard differences, etc (sun-spots, aliens, ... you get the picture).

For a newbie or those new to Puppy Linux, the boot menu change options are not expected knowledge that anyone of them would have.

IMHO, is this a problem? No, but it is an annoyance and major for those who are new as well as the old ones of us; speaking of myself.

WacK-a-mole

As I mentioned earlier in other post, FossaPup64 offers more features (than BionicPup64 does), but they come with more issues as well. FP has random PAM errors when booting. Not to mention occasional PPM glitch (won't open), incomplete repo listing, etc.
Other than that, make sure you only buy brand name USB media. The outcome is so much more predictable!

[Clarity]

@bigpup and others, as you know I have tested ONLY using USB sticks for ISO file booting, recently since start of 2020 modern PUPs. This ability has provided a benefit that I haven't spoken about.

For me, the issues started when I used Frugal installs to USB exclusively where I ran into several annoying issues, including some reported here.

Couple years back, I discovered SG2D. Many of the problems disappeared; namely filesystem issues, random errors that I attribute to read/write file related errors that directly or indirectly affected booting or system operations in a Frugal USB use.

The USB work/not-work problems have been reduced since use of GRUB2-EFI PUPs via SG2D. Today, the I know immediately with the SG2D USBs I have. If one doesn't work, try another and it works ???

I have not had FossaPUP64 boot from ISO file problems if the SG2D starts on any PC.

I DO NOT BELIEVE that SG2D is a cure-all, rather, I do know that if it boots identifying the ISO files, selection of any PUP ISO usually leads to pristine desktop (except for those rare occasions where we hit the missing SFS problems of old).

FYI
@bigpup, if you have a SG2D USB lying around somewhere, try it using that "new" ID you've created. PM me any results if you do.

[bigpup]

I thank everyone for their ideas and input!!!

However, I am posting this to show what happens to a new Puppy user, the very first time they try to boot Fossapup64 9.5, installed on a USB flash drive.
They are expecting it to just boot.
The boot loader that is in the Fossapup iso, should be able to do this USB boot.
A new Puppy user, should not need to modify anything, to get it to boot.

This was an issue I thought got fixed, by providing more time for the USB to power up and fully get access ability.
Wait a longer time, before trying to read from the USB.
This longer time to wait, does not seem to be in the initrd of Fossapup64 9.5
It seems to be using the shorter time setting, that was found to be not long enough.

I wonder if someone, working on Woof CE, made this wait4usb time shorter, tweaking the initrd.

Just to add more info.
If you use a boot loader that you install and it uses UUID to identify the USB drive partition Fossapup is on,
No problem booting.

See the updated info in the first post.

I am going to see if this is also the problem of having more than one USB plugged in.

[Adam Li]

Hi

1. Wait time for USB Flash IMHO have no sense. If ANY content is read off from it, next will be read almost immediately. Longest expected time to read will be with HDD on USB, say up to 200 ms worst case.
2. Speed of USB pendrive is (black) legend of age. Time to time I see copying files to USB 3.0 pendrive as speed start at 60 MB/s landing on 15 kB/s. Combination of pendrive's memory, its controller and USB PC's USB hardware give not predictable results. Booting is under BIOS or UEFI control - speed can be as low as USB 1.1 (about 1,5 Mb/s). It is reading speed, NOT DELAY to read.
3. I suggest an experiment: take "not booting" pendrive, use Ventoy to format pendrive and copy on it FP iso with some other isos (BP32). If ANY will boot without problem, then combination pendrive/PC is good - the problems are elsewhere.

Regards
Adam

15 min later...
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1662
I regret it, but there is no solution to the problem

[bigpup]

You do not understand the boot process.
The computer seeing the USB drive is not the problem.
The computers bios/UEFI only does the initial boot to a boot loader menu.
After that, control of the boot process, is all Puppy software.
The wait time for the USB is for the initrd in Puppy. The boot process in it looking for drives.

[baldronicus]

Hi @bigpup . I realise the reason for your post is to highlight a problem for new users of Fossapup64 9.5, with respect to wait4usb. However, I think I recall you assisting gyrog by testing eSlacko, with improvements that gyrog had made (to the initrd?). If I recall correctly, I think this was successful, but would have happened after the release of Fossapup. I know it may not be of relevance to your current concern, but I would imagine (I don't know) that the improvements might have made their way into woof-ce and would be available for later releases. Thanks.

[Edit- Heck I am dense. I should read more closely. Of course, in your first post you are mentioning a workaround. Apologies]

[wiak]

I keep seeing posts about having boot problems, when Fossapup64 9.5 is installed on a USB.

I did a person, new to Puppy, install to a USB.
I did a fresh install to a USB, using Rufus installer, running in Windows 10.
The install is good.
Everything is setup correctly on the USB.

When I tried to boot and selected the first boot menu entry "Fossapu64 9.5"
It started booting and failed to boot.
Just after saying it was loading the kernel and waiting for USB.
Get errors that the Fossapup sfs files can not be found.
Boot stops.

This seems to be caused by trying to proceed with the boot, before the USB has gotten fully operational.
Not enough delay given to let it do this, before trying to read from the USB.
There is a wait4USB time delay in the initrd, that did get adjusted to a longer time period.
But the one in Fossapup64 9.5, seems to not have, this longer wait time for USB.

This also seems to be dependent on the computer and maybe how many other drives are in it.
If having more than one USB drive plugged in.
Probably how the computer accesses a USB drive. What controller is used.
Not all computers have this issue.

Whilst I have read that gyrog has implemented a fix for the wait4usb issue that has been in Puppy for years probably, I have respectfully pointed out that the experimental fix posted by gyrog is not an original idea. Rather, the "wait for partition ready loop idea" was a WeeDogLinux contribution by old forum member 'seaside' and been implemented in WeeDog for probably a couple of years now. Like woof-CE github, WeeDogLinux code is all openly published (in a couple of very simple bash build scripts) for developers or anyone else interested to study and cherry-pick with acknowledgement. I suggest the community should thus give seaside full credit for his ideas regardless of how they are later implemented in Puppy init code.

post I refer to is: viewtopic.php?p=30035#p30035