Fossapup hangs at Grub on BIOS with no UEFI

[Artemgy]

Hi,

I have dd'ed the iso for Fossapup64 9.5 onto a USB and tried to boot on an old laptop that predates UEFI, SecureBoot and all that - it's a simple legacy BIOS boot. I F12 to select the USB as boot device, ISOLINUX flashes for hundredths of a second, the boxed Grub menu appears (find, commandline, reboot, exit) for tenths of a second then it drops out to the grub prompt with the following message:

Code: Select all

Booting `find /menu.lst, /boot/grub/menu.lst, /grub/menu.lst'
GRUB4DOS 0.4.6a 2019-10-28, Mem: 638K/3557M/240M, End: 368792
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB 
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible 
completions of a device/filename. ESC at any time exits. ]
grub> 

What fails:

• Fossapup iso on BIOS with no grub bootloader.
  • have tried another BIOS-only PC, and another USB drive, and both give the same issues with Fossapup.

What works:

• the most recent TahrPup iso dd'ed onto the drive in the BIOS PCs
  • TahrPup boots fine, so it appears to be the newer image that gives the issue.
• PC using UEFI
  • I can boot this same USB no problems on a newer device supporting UEFI.
• BIOS PC with Grub already installed on HDD
  • I can side-boot onto this Fossapup iso if I boot from a machine where Puppy has already been installed on the harddrive, or dual boot Puppy on Ubuntu Partition where Grub is installed on the harddrive

Any suggestions of how I can boot using the Fossapup64 9.5 iso on a USB plugged into a legacy BIOS booting PC without having to use a different Linux to pre-install grub? Are there some grub commands I can try at this prompt?

Ideas for tests, workarounds and kludges most welcome.
Thanks

[puddlemoon]

HI, welcome.
I have had similar issues on an old bios with the "dual" iso.

An option that works for me:

Boot into tarpup -- open the fossapup iso and copy the puppy files, vmlinuz, initrd.gz and the whole .sfs clan to the root of the new usb (or in a folder).

In tarpup install grub4dos with gru4dos config to the usb with fossapup files. It will do the rest.

If you unmount all the other drives it will be the only install to show on that boot menu. or you can just edit the menu.lst

[edcerw1n]

how are you suppose to move files onto a usb drive that has been written to be a cd (iso9660) That partition is read only and there is no space left. This is not a valid work around. If a I can't boot puppy on a regular bios then what is the point?

[foxpup]

dd is just good for a quick try. It is not a valid way to install.

Take @puddlemoon 's instructions.
You do not have to do it from Tahrpup, you can do it from any Puppy.

Additional if needed: gParted is in Puppy for formatting and partitioning.

[bigpup]

Using dd to do installs to USB is just asking for boot problems.

First you will need to partition and format the USB stick to get it back to a normal partition and format.
Using Gparted program.
Make new partition table. Choose msdos
Make a partition, formatted fat 32, and flag boot.

If you have to use some other program to partition and format.
It should be able to do the same setup.

Use one of these installer programs to do the install.
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=157

If you can run a Puppy version to do this in.
Use the installers in it to do the install.

[Jafadmin]

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do, exactly, but if you are hoping to wind up with a USB thumb that boots a fossapup iso, then do this:

Format a thumbdrive to ext3. Run grub-install from a linux distro to make it bootable. Copy the iso into an /ISOs directory on the thumbdrive, make a grub.cfg with this menu item in it:

Code: Select all

# Boot the ISO's in '/ISOs' on this USB stick
menuentry "fossapup 9.5 ISO" {
	set isofile="/ISOs/fossapup64-9.5.iso"
	loopback loop $isofile
	linux (loop)/vmlinuz iso-scan/filename=$isofile 
	initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
}

Why use Grub instead of Grub4Dos? G4D requires the iso to occupy only 1 extent. This can require a lot of trial and error to get it copied to a contiguous space. Grub will boot it regardless.

[allendiggity]

I solved this by remastering the iso with pmedia=usbflash instead of pmedia=cd .

viewtopic.php?p=6849#p6849

[Clarity]

Hello @Allendiggity AND @edcerw1n

ISOmaster has been in PUPs forever. Could it had made your lives easier to make those minor changes?

Seems everything proposed in this thread would have been simple implementations with GRUB commandline, as well, at boot to test efforts; I think. (True/False?)

Further, the PUP developers adopted GRUB2 for the very reason mentioned in this thread of the non-contiguous benefit as well as the fact that GRUB2 remains worldwide currency for ALL PC hardware. It is simple to understand and use. And support for any GRUB2 questions are answered on the forums of EVERY major Linux distro in the wild.

Good approaches shown by all

[Artemgy]

Inspired by @puddlemoon suggestions I took the tahrpup ISO that I'd dd'ed onto a USB and booted onto that.

Once in TahrPup I was not sure how to to the Grub4Dos, so instead I used the Universal Installer to create the Flash Drive, take me through partitioning, make the drive bootable and then afterwards opened the FossaPup ISO and overwrote the Tahr files on the USB with the Fossa ones (including vmlinuz and initrd.gz and the .sfs files).

This did work (even if the splash screen was still saying Tahr) so it achieved my objective of booting a bios pc with fossapup to give it a quick try without touching the existing hard-disk. Although, now I have read @allendiggity suggestion, and seen the Remaster Puppy live-CD icon under the Setup Start Menu in Tahr, I think I would try that method next time.

Thanks to all who chipped in suggestions of methods. @Clarity I wish I knew my way around the GRUB commandline enough to have hacked a solution to this from that prompt, but despite grub being on most of my machines for the past decade, that's one CLI I never got the opportunity to learn

[Clarity]

I understand. AND, for most times we have no reason. But, sometimes we have "what if I ..." at the splash screen at boot time. GRUB2 allows you to break into a commandline and one-by-one command do everything we see in the "cfg" (config) file.

It is bash like, support some/many of the same commands we have in bash terminals.

This is NOT any effort to suggest anyone change, but intends to give a GRUB2 perspective sometimes overlooked which benefits us.

[PipzDex]

Hi @Clarity , @Artemgy

check this little guide where I explain how to make a bootable USB with Grub4dos

I hope you find it useful

Cheers!!

[Clarity]

Hi @PipzDex Thanks for your contribution.

BUT, it appears you have never tried SuperGrub2 and all of the 2020 PUPs and DOGs as well as Ubuntu, et al.

No effort on user's part. Download the ISO(s) to the folder (/boot-isos). Boot, choose your ISO and away you go.

NO EFFORT and many advantages to doing such. And, there is no additional knowledge or anything to learn to boot any of your ISOs in that /boot-isos folder....NOTHING! Just "ISO drop" and boot.

Since the beginning of 2020, I now have 32 PUPs, DOGS, and etc ISOs when I boot. I sometimes use Clonezilla, I sometimes use PUPs, DOGs, Ubuntus, ...

Try it. You may find usefulness too without efforts.

FYI
P.S. There are other important changes coming to PUPPY thru the work of our developers that makes these kinds of pre-boot managers useful to the user community.
P.S. #2 I did download and read and test your document. Nice, but the current PUP approaches are much simpler, flexible, and faster. Try the SG2D and evaluate for yourself. (@PipzDex can PM me if you think I can help.)

[IanDLacy]

I can also confirm that "fossapup64-9.5.iso" does not work out of the box on my pre-UEFI netbook.
I switched to "bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso" and that worked just fine.
I have no clue why, just reporting here.

[hesparza]

Have you guys check out this thread?https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 635#p99635

I managed to fix it with a response provided there and it's very easy.