wiak wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:34 amOkay, I suspect I know what you have done using Gnome Disks. I think you have restored the hybrid iso KLV-Airedale to the first partition of an already msdos partitioned usb stick. The result will be like using 'dd' to a partition, and the size will be that of the iso image so just under 900MiB. Problem is that is ISO 9660 format, which is read-only. Yes, that could then be booted using RAM0 mode via an already existing grub2 (from your Fedora install).
When you say "restored to the first partition" - I had manually deleted all partitions on this USB so it then presented as the full 64 GB of unallocated space and then told Disks to restore the KLV ISO to this USB
You 'could' arrange save persistence therafter to some other partition - but best to make that ext4, say, rather than NTFS which would only work with savefile and not the preferred savefolder. i.e. you 'could' format the second currently (I think) unallocated partition on your usb as ext4 and then use a grub2 kernel line argument to tell KLV to use that partition for w_changes (i.e. save persistence). Unfortunatly, that is more complicated than simply doing a normal frugal install to an ext4 read/writable partition in the first place rather than ISO 9660!
Yes that was my thinking too regarding creating a second NTFS although now understand ext4 would have been better although I suspect Disks might have failed with any filesystem type I attempted - I want to keep this simple so think I'll use another USB stick formatted with two ext4 partitions to create the KLV system and KLV save folder partitions as described in an earlier post
Also, your usb stick will not boot by itself (without the Fedora grub2 current arrangement) when restored to a first partition like that. Rather you'd need to write it to the raw disk (e.g. /dev/sda and not /dev/sda1) if you want the hybrid iso grub4dos included part to boot (without needing your Fedora grub2). That's what I 'believe' the overall current situation is anyway. Let me know if I have it wrong.
I don't understand this part - I thought with the BIOS set to boot from USB it would do so providing it found the required files on the USB drive partition (init or vmlinuz?) - I thought what you describe would be the case if I put the KLV files in a HDD partition without GRUB pointing to it as a boot option from its menu?
We can start from there. Best if you can keep your Fedora grub2 - otherwise we'll need to find some way of getting grub2 back on your system if you remove that Fedora arrangement. You probably want to remove Fedora itself by the sounds of it so we have to find a way of keeping or re-installing grub2 thereafter... Alas, that installation of grub2 is always the tricky part - installing the distro itself is almost trivial thereafter. The 'key' to keeping the Fedora grub2 arrangement is first of all knowing where everything is, and usually then keeping the Fedora /boot folder (or at least the grub2 related stuff in there) - the result is a bit messy but the /boot/grub/grub.conf can with care then be edited to work with any frugal installed distro and still, hopefully, be able to boot your Windows installation too. Isn't life easy?
LOL!
OK so I previously thought GRUB (and maybe an MBR) might reside outside of the 6 partitions in a reserved "boot area" at the start of the HDD and I could simply delete the Fed partitions without affecting GRUB but it seems that might not be the case and now that I think about it - I actually found a GRUB folder with all kinds of config files and content under in a "Boot" directory in Fedora so that's just me being stupid!
Is GPT an alternative boot record to MBR?Truth is, probably best to forget about Fedora altogether and use some system such as 'LICK' (search forum for info about that - I've never used it) to dual boot something like FossaPup with Windows. Thereafter, you should be able to remove FossaPup but still have the boot loader (hopefully it is grub2) and then frugal install of KLV-Airedale becomes trivial/easy. Sorry I can't help with LICK though and take no responsibility if that breaks anyone's system.
Understood - I'll keep that as a potential solution to explore.
I think I need to understand more about how to setup KLV as a dual booting system with Windows as was hoping this process might have allowed me to delete the Fed partitions and create a new GRUB during the standard install process.It is simply a fact that one matter we, in this KL/FirstRib corner, have yet to get round to is to provide installation utilities for grub2 booting and with dual boot capability with Windows. We would need a huge DISCLAIMER if we supplied such a utility since easy to break booting altogether! Personally, I tend to use a method like you have done via Fedora, though I tend to use official Ubuntu to effect dual boot with Windows, and then I use its installed grub2 (and remove most all of Ubuntu itself other than what I need kept for grub2 to work... so a bit messy really, but often gets over Secure Boot EFI boot difficulties that otherwise can cause extra problems...). The 'frugalpup' utility, forum member bigpup often recommends is fine if you don't care about dual-booting; otherwise LICK is often recommended, but that is only designed for installing Puppy Linux, not KL/FirstRib distros.
Ah ok - Understood I thought KLV had a dual boot installer like Puppy had.Easier if you just want to make a bootable usb stick with save persistence folder on it. More efficient and convenient if you want the (much trickier) dual boot with Windows on hard disk partitions arrangement though. Let us know.
If you don't know about this already, you need to get used to using the following really: https://psearch.puppylinux.com
A lot has been asked about similar booting matters for Puppy Linux itself over the years. Here is a 'not too old' thread: viewtopic.php?t=4382
The idea of using Fedora install, or my Ubuntu variant, is also suggested by mikeslr there, but using small AntiX, which sounds reasonable approach to me, and maybe safer than the grub2config method which is particular to Puppy Linux distro and may not apply so nicely for KL FirstRib distros (unless that utility is modified appropriately). As developers it might be a good idea to study how AntiX does it, if any good, and try to adapt their mechanism - I don't really like the Puppy Linux mechanisms (though haven't as I say tried LICK, which may or may not be 'safe'...).Here is an AntiX forum discussion on same topic. Looks like, to me, that an initial AntiX install might be the best way to go at present for a small dual boot situation with Windows: https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic ... windows-10
And once that is going you can simply configure the grub.conf to boot the likes of KLV or whatever. We probably don't have sufficient time to re-invent the wheel, though some in Puppy crowd try to, but AntiX method looks better to me (though I haven't tried it).
Thankyou - I'll check out those links and maybe that'll achieve the result I wanted to remove a broken Fed36 - if I'm left with a functioning Anti X on a smaller partition with GRUB setup to point to Win7, AntiX and KLV that would be ok too.
Maybe another (if a little messy) solution leaving some baggage on the HDD (SATA not SSD) might be:
- Leave Fed 36 as a backup Linux/GNU HDD OS although I'll resize it down to 50GB or something
- Create a seventh sda7 ext4 partition of 120GB or so for KLV running from a newly created live USB (with recommended partition types this time!) to use as a backup/alternative save location.
Given I've got a 128GB USB stick I could use - USB storage for a Live instance of KLV isn't really an issue and even the 32 and 64GB sticks I have should be fine for months.
- Just use KLV as a daily driver
I think we've got some options now so I'm going to read through this thread again and check out the links you've provided.
I'll provide brief answers to your subsequent posts and then present a plan of action if you'd be kind enough/still have the patience to review and make any amendments that may be required for the optimal/simplest solution to achieve the updated goals.
Update
I guess an even simpler solution might be:
- Delete sda 4/5/6 leaving a single boot Win7 machine
- Create sda4 with remaining space to be used as the save folder partition by KLV running from live USB when desired and my "dual boot" functionality is simply enabled by inserting the Live KLV USB
The only baggage left then is the unspecified sda3 which is small potatoes being only 1 GB of a 750 GB HD anyway