KLV-vmhost_rc4 Works with Lenovo Ideapad With 32 bit EFI

[JusGellin]

Boot off your usb drive, run blkid and confirm that the uuid is correct.

It sounds to me like your emmc drive is failing.

I booted up on the usb using Ventoy.
blkid confirms that the uuid is the same as in the grub.cfg

But BookwormPup64 installed on the emmc never fails.
And KLV never has successfully booted yet.

[rcrsn51]

When the KL boot fails, does it stop with a # prompt? Type "blkid". Does it list the emmc drive?

[JusGellin]

When the KL boot fails, does it stop with a # prompt? Type "blkid". Does it list the emmc drive?

Yes the following are the last lines it shows and then it stops with # prompt, but nothing can be typed, so blkid cannot be typed:

Code: Select all

Seeking boot partition
Delay will be variable up to timeout of 30 seconds
Please wait: ..............................................................In initrd/init at seek_timeout.  Enter exit to continue:boot:
/#

[rcrsn51]

Seeking boot partition
Delay will be variable up to timeout of 30 seconds

When I boot my setup, I see those lines, but it then immediately finds the boot partition on the emmc drive.

I have no other ideas about why your setup would be different.

[JusGellin]

That's the way it works when Bookworm is installed on the emmc.
It gives a short hesitation seeking the partition and then continues to a successful boot.

Thanks for making sure I'm not missing anything.

[rcrsn51]

That's the way it works when Bookworm is installed on the emmc.
It gives a short hesitation seeking the partition and then continues to a successful boot.

I tried an install of Bookworm and there was ZERO hesitation.

[rockedge]

@JusGellin
I assembled a new KLV-vmHost-sr1.iso that comes without firmware and KLV-vmHost-sr1_fw.iso that has the latest firmware SFS included.

Root File System is completely updated/upgraded.

You could open one of the ISO files and just take the kernel, modules and initrd.gz and swap those into your existing setup.

Hopefuly a test on the emmc drive as a frugal install wil prove to work. Is the boot loader Grub2?l

Download KLV-vmHost-sr1.iso
SHA1-MD5.txt

Download KLV-vmHost-sr1_fw.iso
KLV-vmHost-sr1_fw_ISO.txt

[Clarity]

@JusGellin AFTER you run the test @rockedge is asking(I expect you should/could find favorable results): Would you provide an answer to the question I asked earlier here

[Clarity]

@JusGellin AFTER you run the tests @rockedge is asking(I expect you should/could find favorable results): Would you provide an answer to the question I asked earlier here?

Thanks.

BTW: Thanks Eric. I tested your firmware version launched from Ventoy without issue.

[JusGellin]

@rockedge
I've tried downloading, but my Firefox tab crashes.
I tried several times until it told me the "Transfer quota exceeded" and I have to wait 4 hours.
I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try again.

Why is this happening to me?

Thanks

[JusGellin]

@JusGellin AFTER you run the test @rockedge is asking(I expect you should/could find favorable results): Would you provide an answer to the question I asked earlier here

I will do that.
On a working laptop, not this Lenovo, with a normal ssd I made a third partition called Persistence and folder Sessions.
I wanted to do this on a normal laptop not with the emmc drive.

I used Ventoy to boot BookwormPup and edited the grub file from its menu.
Then I gave it <ctl>x to boot it up.
I made a change (set the time zone) and saved it when asked for a first save.
When I rebooted, the third partition had the saved folder made and in Sessions folder.
But it didn't seem to save the change in the grub.
Should it have done that?
When it comes up from a boot, shouldn't it see that folder and bring up the changes?

I may need your help to make this work on a normal laptop first.
Tomorrow.

Thanks

[rockedge]

@JusGellin

Please try the links again! viewtopic.php?p=144043#p144043

[JusGellin]

@rockedge
It still won't allow me to download and had counted down to 3h 57m to go.

I guess it doesn't like me.

[Clarity]

... But it didn't seem to save the change in the grub.
Should it have done that?
When it comes up from a boot, shouldn't it see that folder and bring up the changes?
...

NO! This is 'normal' for all linux distros; namely interrupting the boot at the boot-time menu to add parms, are ONLY for the upcoming boot. Thus additions are not maintain and need to be entered on each boot.

KLs dont need it as they have a boot-time menu entry that will auto-discover the user's Persistence partition and will also auto-save sessions changes with no need for user interactions from boot to shutdown.

WoofCE PUPs require the PSAVE parm for boot and shutdowns when launched from Ventoy. This is not necessary when booting via SG2D and is the reason why I advise many users to add the SG2D ISO file to their Ventoy sticks as it gives an additional method to get our distro running should a distro fail at desktop from a Ventoy launch. When booting via SG2D, the WoofCE PUP looks for a SAVESPEC file in the BOOTISOS partition that will guide boot and session saves with no need for user interactions.

In each case though, booting from an ISO file is equivalent (rather 'exact') to what members call 'frugal' as well as what some call 'installation'. A distro operation, when booted from its ISO file IS A FRUGAL (or what is called installed)! The session file coupled with the boot contents is what provides the distro's functionality no matter if its ISO launched or disk installed.

This is why I have not installed a single distro in over 5 years, yet have full functionality for what the distro(s) provides. My disks ONLY have sessions for distros on them! This limits my storage needs and limits the things that can go wrong with extractions from ISO/IMG files. Thus I see or have no need to change what the developer puts into his ISO offerings. My sessions contains all of those things and desktop changes beyond what the authors provide and pertain to my personal needs and additions during operations.

Hope this explanations is clear and helpful.

[Clarity]

@rockedge

AS indicated earlier, I had tested an earlier version. Do I need to get a new one to test?

[Clarity]

One more question for you @JusGellin: I've reviewed this thread and I dont see what is the size of your eMMC. Would you share that with us along with your posting results of saving the session when booting from your Ventoy USB?

Thanks

[williams2]

@rockedge @JusGellin
It still won't allow me to download and had counted down to 3h 57m to go.
I guess it doesn't like me.

The mega.nz plugin downloads the entire file to ram
then asks where to save it

You can see in htop Firefox using more ram as it downloads.

If you do not have enough ram, it will never finish downloading.

Enabling a swapfile will allow it to work.

By the way, @rockedge,
if the forum does not have enough ram it can run slow.
The maximum amount of ram that the forum uses can be
set in the forum settings.
Sometimes the default is not enough.

[JusGellin]

The mega.nz plugin downloads the entire file to ram
then asks where to save it

You can see in htop Firefox using more ram as it downloads.

If you do not have enough ram, it will never finish downloading.

Enabling a swapfile will allow it to work.

I was using Bookworm in a vm with 4G

So I went to another vm and increased it's ram to 8G and it worked ok.
What it did before is sometimes complete the download from the site,
then I would see Firefox attempting to complete it on the pc, but then crash before it finished.
I never tried the mega.nz plugin because by that time it prevented me from downloading for another > 4hrs.

Thanks

[fredx181]

I tried downloading KLV-vmHost-sr1.iso https://mega.nz/file/OtAnzLYT#X3bwC-QM_ ... WZi7-yw61I and it stopped at 67% (edit: used Firefox browser).

The mega.nz plugin downloads the entire file to ram

Didn't know that (and don't like that way )
I have 4G RAM and also 3G swap so I'd say it's not a problem of not having enough (edit: and didn't notice any sign of overloading, I checked).

Btw, a personal thing perhaps, but I never liked Mega, and now dislike it even more.

[JusGellin]

One more question for you @JusGellin: I've reviewed this thread and I dont see what is the size of your eMMC. Would you share that with us along with your posting results of saving the session when booting from your Ventoy USB?

Thanks

Lenovo ideapad 100S-11IBY
CPU: Intel Atom Z3735F 1.33 GHZ 4 core
RAM: 2G DDRIIIL 1600 ONBOARD
Storage: 32G EMMC
Display: 11.6 HD TN GL(SLIM)

It's not a Chrome Book, but had Windows 10, which I never used.

BookwormPup works surprisingly well on it.

@Clarity
I'll get back to getting what you asked for later.
I want to try the init to see if that helps it to boot, but will have to get back to that later too.

Thanks all!

[rockedge]

@JusGellin, @fredx181

Mega.nz is giving me grief......no indications as to why the downloads will not work correctly, so.......

back to what always worked ->

Download KLV-vmHost-sr1_fw.iso 1.12G
SHA1-MD5

This version does not have the 01firmware included!
Download KLV-vmHost-sr1.iso 786M
SHA1-MD5

[JusGellin]

I copied initrd.gz from the KLV-vmHost-sr1_fw.iso and tried it on emmc installs for:
KLV-vmHost-rc4 and KLV-Airedale-sr17.
The same results occurred for each:

Code: Select all

Seeking boot partition
Delay will be variable up to timeout of 30 seconds
Please wait: ..............................................................In initrd/init at seek_timeout.  Enter exit to continue:boot:
/#

It's using Grub version 2.06-13+deb12u1.
I first installed BookwormPup_10.0.9_nkb_v4.
That's what gave me this new Grub version.
(I've had the same rusults when I used Grub version 2.03)

Then I tested that this worked - it did.
I copied extracted isos from each of the KLV-vmHost-rc4 and KLV-Airedale-sr17 to their own folders
alongside of BookwormPup_10.0.9_nkb_v4

I ran each of the KLV folder's wd_grubconfig script to get the proper menus for the grub.cfg that I could boot up.

When I selected each of KLV's I would pick the menu that had the uuid for each.

I got the same results above for both of them.

A real puzzler.
Thanks

[JusGellin]

Perhaps the title for this topic should be changed to indicate that the KLV doesn't work for the emmc drive.
The KLV's do work from a usb stick.

[rockedge]

@JusGellin so the UUID and LABEL both do not work?

Have you tried without RAM2 mode selected?
Have you tried to use the drive and partition in the form that is showing for the emmc drive device name like: w_bootfrom=/mnt/mmcblk1

Code: Select all

menuentry "KLV-Airedale-sr17zm" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --label psystem --set
  linux /KLV-Airedale-sr17zm/vmlinuz w_bootfrom=/mnt/mmcblk1=/KLV-Airedale-sr17zm w_changes=RAM2
  initrd /KLV-Airedale-sr17zm/initrd.gz
}

[rcrsn51]

I tried rc4 on a different emmc machine and unfortunately saw the same problem as JusGellin. In that case, I could run "blkid" and it showed NO drives. So the init was unable to see the boot partition. I don't know why it works on my Chromebook - there must be some slight difference in the emmc hardware.

I then tried sr1 on the second machine and it failed to fix the problem. I tried it on a different machine with a regular hard drive and the touchpad locked up. So it's not an improvement.

When Fred got emmc working in the Debian Dogs, he had to put additional driver modules into the init. Maybe that's the same issue here.

There are other forum members with emmc hardware who could be helping with this.

[JusGellin]

@JusGellin so the UUID and LABEL both do not work?

Have you tried without RAM2 mode selected?
Have you tried to use the drive and partition in the form that is showing for the emmc drive device name like: w_bootfrom=/mnt/mmcblk1

Code: Select all

menuentry "KLV-Airedale-sr17zm" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --label psystem --set
  linux /KLV-Airedale-sr17zm/vmlinuz w_bootfrom=/mnt/mmcblk1=/KLV-Airedale-sr17zm w_changes=RAM2
  initrd /KLV-Airedale-sr17zm/initrd.gz
}

Yes, both UUID and Label do not work.
The same problem occurs if I eliminate RAM2 mode
Using w_bootfrom=/mnt/mmcblk1 goes to a kernel panic instead

[JusGellin]

@rcrsn51
Just some history:
When I first started (back in January 2024) into the puppy linux website @gyrog worked with me
on this same laptop since he had one as well and hadn't gotten BookwormPup to work directly from the emmc drive.
He gave a lot of time to finally resolve this so BookwormPup would work.
In fact BookwormPup_10.0.4 through 10.0.10 work fine on this laptop as long as I use only the 32bit booting part:
bootia32.efi, grubia32.efi and mmia32.efi.

Somehow he did something to make this laptop work. It was way beyond me to know what he had to do.
Also back then it was mentioned how my laptop was different than a Chrome Book that did work back then using BookwormPup.

[rcrsn51]

@JusGellin : In both our cases, UEFI/GRUB has done its job. It found and loaded the vmlinuz and initrd.gz files off the emmc drive. Modern GRUB is very good at this. If it had failed, you would have seen a different error.

The problem occurs when the init tries to locate the emmc drive so it can load the various sfs files. Something is failing with its hardware detection.

[rockedge]

Something is failing with its hardware detection.

I agree. The initrd can be examined by looking at the wd_init-latest. I'll start looking into it to see if there is any clues there.

[rcrsn51]

Progress.

On my working Chromebook, I ran "lsmod | grep mmc" and got the list of related modules.

On the machine that fails to boot, I ran the same command. The module sdhci_acpi was missing. I ran "modprobe sdhci_acpi" followed by "blkid". The emmc partitions were now listed.