Multiboot - Puppy/Dog linuxes and Linux Mint

[dcung]

This thread can be considered 'solved' - in a sense that I created it looking to add LinuxMint 20.3 as an additional item on my multi boot menu.

Now I have 2 ways to do it. After deciding to use GRUB2 bootloader, both 'full install' or 'frugal install (WDL_mintCin)' are acceptable solutions for me. I haven't written report of my experience/findings. Not only too long but also I'm a lazy bugger.

I did also experimenting multiboot on USB. I'll continue using this thread, as it's 'sort of' related.
I have bits/queries that I can put in Ventoy, SG2D, Debian-Live-Bullseye-Starter, or Bullseye-build-script threads (also read those threads on and off too).

I downloaded and tried Clarity's Readymade-ISO, Ventoy-1.0.75, etc...etc...

I'm going to narrow the scope to one of the laptops used that's of my interest most.
SSD from scratch, GPT, sda1 - 500MB boot ext3, sda2 - 51GB ext4, installed GRUB2, stage1, stage2 as per rcrsn51 'recommendation' in 'somewhere'. Put few frugals (sda2) with deb-live-multi-installer-2. All working fine, as far as I can tell.

I created Ventoy-1.0-75 bootable using a 32GB thumb drive.
My interest is to find out, why 'all' Bullseye ISOs do not work. While 'others' work - see screenshot, all with green block -> work.

Focusing on Debian - At first, I noticed that both busterdog & stretchdog isos have initrd.img file, and I did make bullseye isos without it back then.

So, I remake new ISOs. It's still not working.
I was gonna ask in Bullseye-build-script thread, so Fred can do sanity check of my build, whether those warnings matter, attached log.

Code: Select all

Generate initrd.img . . .
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3_tso5.bin for module tg3
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3_tso.bin for module tg3
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3.bin for module tg3
cryptsetup: WARNING: Couldn't determine root device
live-boot: core filesystems devices utils udev blockdev ftpfs dns.
Working files in /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_XREthU, early initramfs in /var/tmp/mkinitramfs-FW_w1ND3S, main initramfs in /var/tmp/mkinitramfs-MAIN_VsfnIP and overlay in /var/tmp/mkinitramfs-OL_2BbO2C
Generating porteus-boot initrd1.xz . . .
Done ! /tmp/initrd1.xz
Cleaning...
Unmounting mount binds in chroot

[Clarity]

Hello @dcung.

... I downloaded and tried Clarity's Readymade-ISO, Ventoy-1.0.75 ...

I suspect that you will be mildly pleased with either ISO boot solutions; namely SG2D or Ventoy. They allow running of the distros you choose and saving persistence (save-sessions) with little chance of disturbing the boot sequences that exist on your system drive, yet experiencing all the glory each distro you boot offers.

The 2 solutions have different provisions where I have found that on rare occasions, Ventoy might not boot all PUPs; yet SG2D will. But, Ventoy will boot almost every ISO file (including the SG2D ISO) while SG2D will boot all PUPs, DOGs, KLV, and Ubuntu based ISO files.

Thus, the primary benefit you will gain is that you no long have to install an ISO file which offers persistence; merely download the ISO file to /BOOTISOS folder on the USB stick and boot it without installing. In the case of PUPs/DOGs/KLV/Ubuntus/Mint/etc, I recommend you save your persistence on your system drive preferably on a Linux partition (I keep all of my save sessions in a folder on a Linux partition named /Sessions).

These are the ONLY elementary notes you need for use of either of the ISO file solution(s) you choose.

Trust me, you wont look back once you build your USB

Personally I have NOT installed ANY DISTRO on my system drive(s) in several years. ISO file booting and saving the session (persistence) is a Frugal use without the headaches of the past. I mention this frequently to help those who have not tried the solutions to be able to frame the advantage of the solutions.

Enjoy

[dcung]

@Clarity
I did try both SG2D and Ventoy.
For me, booting of USB will not be my main use. I will still boot of internal SSD for my test laptops as it still offers faster booting than USB thumb drive. But occasionally, I need to use USB flash drive and, yes, I found Ventoy has its place for my such use.

I tried SG2D and found that the delay in booting process is very noticeable in the ISOs that I tested. Maybe, because my unfamiliarity of SG2D. But, for now, I will put it in the back burner. Also, it just so happened, most (if not all) the ISOs I couldn't get it working in Ventoy, didn't work either in SG2D. Again, I'm happy to admit, this very likely attributed to my very limited experience with SG2D. And, unfortunately, I'm not inclined to dig further, not for the time being at least.

Ventoy, however, I could get it up and running in reasonably short time. And these isos that I got working is already meeting my need for now. Not surprised if I will want to use it for more than how I use it now. But that a 'later' problem.

[Clarity]

@dcung I ask:

1. Make a BOOTISOS folder on sdb1

   

   Add all ISO files to BOOTISOS folder on this partition

   Dclung Ventoy.jpg (47.61 KiB) Viewed 2349 times

2. Move and keep ALL ISO files in the BOOTISOS folder

3. ADD a SG2D ISO file to the folder; can be gotten from here

4. Boot Ventoy USB and select SG2D ISO file

5. Allow SG2D to find all your ISOs

6. Scroll to the bottom of the 'found' screen and try booting your DOGS from the list.

I do not have any BusterDOGs. I ONLY have @fredx181's DebianDOGs which I boot from time to time. It is found by SG2D and boots without any boot-time issues. I HAVE NOT tested any of Fred's DOGs except his DD which I use frequently for several years..

[rcrsn51]

I tried SG2D and found that the delay in booting process is very noticeable in the ISOs that I tested.

I had the same experience with SG2D and abandoned it. For ISOs that don't work OOTB with Ventoy, I use the technique here.

You could also use the Multi Installer to do a frugal install onto Ventoy's data partition and boot it with F4.

[fredx181]

I tried SG2D and found that the delay in booting process is very noticeable in the ISOs that I tested.

I had the same experience with SG2D and abandoned it. For ISOs that don't work OOTB with Ventoy, I use the technique here.

You could also use the Multi Installer to do a frugal install onto Ventoy's data partition and boot it with F4.

FYI: The ISO should contain boot/grub/loopback.cfg to work with SG2D . The Starter Kit doesn't have that AFAIK.
Only latest Dogs built with latest build script and chosen "UEFI support" will contain this loopback.cfg.

[dcung]

@Clarity
I will re-visit SG2D when I have time later. I didn't elaborate what I did, but I did enough to satisfy myself for now.
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... I use the technique here.

Bill (rcrsn51), that technique resolved my bullseye isos booting issue, thanks.

You could also use the Multi Installer to do a frugal install onto Ventoy's data partition and boot it with F4.

This confirmed my suspicion that frugal install is possible with Ventoy, though I haven't managed to successfully do it.
It's probably related to the fact I have not been able to reformat/repartition Ventoy data partition to ext3/ext4 yet. Ventoy gave error message that my config is not supported (ext3/4). So, atm, I'm still using Ventoy created partitions, ie. exfat(sdb1) and fat16(sdb2).

Using Deb-Multi-installer-2, here is what I found.
The Install tab, select the target partition drop-down only shows /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2.
Other tabs (Puppy, Syslinux, GRUB2, ISO, Win) drop-down list show all 5 - sda1(ext3), sda2(ext4), sdb1(exfat), sdb2(fat16), sdc1(ntfs).

So, generation of menu entry has incorrect uuid accordingly/expectedly.
I tried modifying uuid to the exfat or fat16 or combination of both, but Ventoy error with 'invalid devices' and can not locate /buster-xfce/live/initrd1.xz file.

I'll try to get Ventoy working with ext3/ext4 partitions and redo this 'frugal' test afterward.

2022-06-10-081634_1280x800_scrot.png (429.11 KiB) Viewed 2296 times

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FYI - I did try the thumb drive on another laptop that is using GRUB4DOS. Those bullseye isos boot 'further' but froze after x started. And I noticed, it just 'picked' random/first frugal on the internal SSD.
I'm also puzzled, you can use Starter Kit ISO to work OOTB on BIOS machine. As far as I know, this D630 is BIOS, not UEFI. And I could not, do it without the F4 trick. I tried it on both the GPT and MSDOS SSD partition table (i.e GRUB2 and GRUB4DOS laptops).

[rcrsn51]

The "target partition" and "empty folder" selections have to match. In your example, they do not, so bootup will fail.

If you are installing a Starter Kit ISO, you must select an ext partition because the changes folder requires that filesystem. So the drop-down list only shows ext. But a Puppy can be installed in other filesystems, so more choices are shown. This is the correct behaviour.

To make the Ventoy data partition ext, boot from another machine and do it with Gparted. This will erase the ISOs, so you will have to reinstall them.

[dcung]

I created another Ventoy USB. Reformat the data partition to ext3.
Deblive-Multi-installer Install tab sees it. Frugal install okay, booted okay.

[rcrsn51]

I'm also puzzled, you can use Starter Kit ISO to work OOTB on BIOS machine. As far as I know, this D630 is BIOS, not UEFI. And I could not, do it without the F4 trick. I tried it on both the GPT and MSDOS SSD partition table (i.e GRUB2 and GRUB4DOS laptops).

I don't understand that comment. We are talking about booting off the Ventoy flash drive? So the structure of the hard drive is irrelevant.

What ISOs can you boot successfully from the main Ventoy menu? What specific ISO is failing?

[dcung]

I don't understand that comment. We are talking about booting off the Ventoy flash drive? So the structure of the hard drive is irrelevant.
What ISOs can you boot successfully from the main Ventoy menu? What specific ISO is failing?

Yes, booting off Ventoy flash drive. This iso DebLive_bullseye-amd64-8.iso.
In any case, it's 'resolved'. With your F4 technique, I can boot of it. It's more a curiosity than a problem.
https://github.com/DebianDog/MakeLive/r ... md64-8.iso

See screenshot here - all with green rectangle, I can boot off main Ventoy menu.
viewtopic.php?t=6089&start=29

Now, with your F4 localboot.cfg technique, I can boot all of them.

EDIT: Anyway, I think I'm confusing your statement OOTB to mean, booting of main menu (?).
Here

[rcrsn51]

DebLive_bullseye-amd64-8.iso works for me off the main Ventoy menu and using the "Porteus-always fresh" choice.

If you were using a non-ext data partition and trying another choice, you would have trouble.

[dcung]

DebLive_bullseye-amd64-8.iso works for me off the main Ventoy menu and using the "Porteus-always fresh" choice.

If you were using a non-ext data partition and trying another choice, you would have trouble.

This is what I was curious about. It didn't work for me off the main Ventoy menu and using the "Porteus-always fresh" choice.
Still doesn't, even on flash drive that is ext3 data partition.

But, it works of F4.

Again, it's a curiosity rather than a problem.

[rcrsn51]

The Porteus boot out of an ISO file uses "from=/" to locate its "live" folder. Because no specific location is specified (like with a UUID) Porteus will start scanning your drives and partitions for it. It sounds like Porteus is finding the wrong one on your hard drive first.

Have you done a frugal install somewhere with the "live" folder at the start of the partition, as opposed to being in a subfolder?

[dcung]

I got to play a little more with Ventoy now. More flash drives, more data partitions format, more laptops, etc.

I found that you can get different outcome/reaction from same iso on same laptop using different flash drives formatted differently (i.e. Ventoy data partition).
I'm not going to make a list of every combination I tried, as I didn't do it methodically.
For eg. DebLive_bullseye-amd64-8.iso, I got it booting from main menu - not consistently on a Cruzer 4GB. etc. etc.

Suffice to say (for me), decide how you want your Ventoy data partition formatted, try your isos. See which one consistently work from main Ventoy menu in your case. Those that didn't, you can use Bill (rcrsn51) F4 technique.

I don't need all my isos on flash drives, so I'm gonna choose what's best combo for me later and make one 'toolkit' flash drive. This journey is just a learning/get to know Ventoy for me.

Thanks to all that help along the way!

[rcrsn51]

Have you done a frugal install somewhere with the "live" folder at the start of the partition, as opposed to being in a subfolder?

Could you please answer this question?

[dcung]

Have you done a frugal install somewhere with the "live" folder at the start of the partition, as opposed to being in a subfolder?

This is a more consistent explanation. In one of my test laptops, I have a 'live' folder, left over from a test I did I while ago.
On this laptop, Ventoy would start any isos that I could not get to run from main menu elsewhere, and picked up this folder.

[dcung]

Have you done a frugal install somewhere with the "live" folder at the start of the partition, as opposed to being in a subfolder?

Could you please answer this question?

Bill, please be a little patient.
I'm trying to answer as fast as I can.
I appreciate your help in all my time on this forum.
But I test on my schedule.

[rcrsn51]

So if you delete that "live" folder off the hard drive, you should have better luck booting Porteus-style ISOs from the main Ventoy menu.

[dcung]

@wiak

I feel that I owe you a report for your help.
Note - This is not a request to troubleshoot nor a critic of WDL_mintCin. I have got what I need from your assistance so far, thank you. It's likely that I don't have motivation to look into this issue further, and I started 'dismantling' the 'lab'. It's merely FYI.

We can discount the first 2 tests that I reported earlier in the thread - I didn't know the state of the disk involved. From then on, when I run weedog (WDL_mintCin) script, I was always conscious of the ntfs-3g error and uuid. I used different laptops, however, all are Dell, 3x D630 and 1x Vostro. WDL_mintCin script always run in laptop that I started with/from scratch 3xSSD/1xSATA(spinning) disk that then was setup as follows - GPT, GRUB2, sda1/ext3 500MB, sda2/ext4 random size what my finger type at the time. I tried to run the script right after I put a platform, usually StretchDog64 or FossaDog64. After WDL_mintCin, then I loaded with random dogs/puppy I felt like at the time. Testing Deb-live-multi installer at same time.

I always ensure that there is NO ntfs partition, which is only possible from me plugging my external portable NTFS formatted USB. I don't have necessity to create ntfs partition in this exercise (i.e. to increase my Ventoy, GRUB2 experience).

I have run WDL_mintCin at least 6 times, if not more - didn't keep count. Usually, on the laptop, the first run, I let it download the ISO from the link in the script, second run, I copied the iso from first run.

I tried to keep the output from the terminal for reporting, but often, my finger has got mind of its own and closed the terminal before I did so. And sometimes, I reformatted/re-partition the disks w/o saving those logs that I created. Attached are 2 logs that I managed to find from a laptop used that I have not destroyed.

My observation - WDL_mintCin :
On the same laptop/frugal install, I can login at first try, or at second try. It's a potluck for me. If I use it, I plan to put a workaround by setting auto login from within LinuxMint. I can't report yet since I don't use it often or yet.

During running of the script, I saw ntfs-3g error randomly on screen. My recollection is, when I let it download the ISO from the net and not when I used a copy from 1st run - but I can't be sure, I lost the logs. All platform I used has ntfs-3g command/package built in it (ie. StretchDog, FossaDog, BusterDog, Bullseye, etc) - but no NTFS partition. What was calling ntfs-3g command or why it was called, I don't know. I search WDL_mintCin script, could find it. I don't know if it's calling other script when it's connecting to rockedge site.

I also saw 'harmless' (?) error/warning when it could not remove temp file/dirs it was using. See logs for examples.

Anyway, such is my report. Not done methodically, sorry. Hope it's of some use.

Your WDL_mintCin definitely impressed me.

[dcung]

So if you delete that "live" folder off the hard drive, you should have better luck booting Porteus-style ISOs from the main Ventoy menu.

You're probably right.
I have re-used/re-partitioned the disk during all this tests.
Even flash drives at I used, I just randomly format them at will.
I formatted them using exfat, fat, ntfs, ext3 just for the heck of it and put a couple isos.
I always put my stretchdog iso, which I like the most. And lucky for me, it consistently booted okay from main ventoy menu. The other isos, I don't care as much.
Booting off main Ventoy menu, no longer important (for me), thanks to F4 technique you taught me.

[wiak]

Old thread, but fits my planned next tests.
Wanting to try Linux Mint xfce variant as possible replacement of the full Zorin lite I've been using long while. Zorin been excellent but too long Focalfossa-based and no Jammy variants due yet. But for testing I don't yet want to full install so I'll use firstribit (previously weedogit) to make a test frugal installation. Been significant recent improvements in klv-airedale so will borrow its save2flash routine so I get pupmode13-like functionality in linux mint xfce tests.

If I like Linux mint xfce, I'll then use its installer to make a full install to its own partition. I might thereafter however quickly convert that to a firstrib initrd driven 'pseudo full install' meaning I'll move the whole Linux mint full install into a subdirectory called upper_changes, which I'll make on same partition. Then I'll be able to conveniently use pupmode13 like functionality via the firstrib initrd boot and addition of save2flash from RAM utility.

I've already done that with my Zorin install. Just takes seconds to change a full installation into a frugal with firstrib since no actual files need copied just a same partition move into own directory. It works because firstrib initrd can use normal directories in its overlayfs layers, not just sfs files. In seconds can also be moved back to normal full install situation simply by procedure reversal. The switch could be automated easily via a tiny script.

Whilst frugal install is great since allows that pupmode13 like optional save or not save changes, full install mode makes system upgrades much easier, even glibc and kernel, since they just get replaced by package manager when required, and new initramfs for booting full installed distro is automatically rebuild. At that stage it becomes simple to rebuild the firstrib initrd and switch over to frugal installed mode again.

EDIT: Linux Mint XFCE made with firstribit worked right away. Yes, this suits my needs fine - pretty much like Zorin but based on Jammy rather than Fossa.