Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Ventoy works like a champ when booting an image of EasyOS from a SSD-based Ventoy system (see an older thread of mine) *except* when you let EasyOS update itself (5.8.1 to 5.8.2 or 5.8.2 to 5.8.3). The next time it boots and does it's voodoo where it creates some kind of new .sfs file is the last time that image will successfully boot. On the next boot and after, all you get is lots of errors about missing files.Something in the update process seems to confuse Ventoy.

Not a big deal I guess. The solution is to just save your data to some other drive/partition, make a nice new clean img file from the new version of EOS, and put your data back. EasyOS was never *meant* to work with Ventoy, so I guess one single "bug" is bearable. If you are using a HDD/SSD-based Ventoy and want to update the OS, view it as a clean install instead of an automatic update. Except for this one bad thing, Ventoy works great with EasyOS.

To be clear: Having EasyOS on a flashdrive and using Ventoy to boot and update the flashdrive works fine. The bug is when you are booting from an EasyOS *image*. In that case, updating borks the image and it wont boot anymore after the update is 100% complete.
The only way I have found to update an image-based Ventoy EasyOS is to not update it. lol
Treat a new version of EasyOS as a brand-new clean install. You know, Back up your data, do a new install and restore your data.

How sad, since other that that, EasyOS works great with Ventoy.

I download the newest image file,never use the update function.

Yes; a new clean install. Not a big deal, I guess; it's just annoying.

BTW, if anybody wants to do all this, I was *not* able to get the newest Ventoy, 1.0.98 to boot on my system. You may have to use 1.0.97.

Yes, 1.0.98 can't boot on some computer in UEFI mode.

Report this to Ventoy AND THEY WILL FIX. They have a 'long' past where they address issues that distros report.

P.S. Does EAsyOS have a "key" and is it registered in the UEFI? Seems IIRC, this is a feature of booting EasyOS on UEFI-SecureBoot PCs.

If so, I dont remember where the instructions are kept.

My memory of this could be wrong.

If EasyOS has a key, then Ventory would not be needed. I hope it does.
All that happens for me when I try to directly boot EasyOS is that my system tells me the secure boot policy is preventing the drive from booting. Hence I use Ventoy to bypass that problem and boot it anyway.

Yes, if you can find a way to get EasyOS to pop up that blue "Would you like to enroll a MOK key" screen (or whatever it says ... PLEASE tell me how. All is does with now is say, No way, eh!" when I directly boot EasyOS.

Barry, can you add an enroll key thing please and thank you? Maybe you can make the computer think the OS is Debian. That OS boots fine natively.

HarveyH wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 4:33 am

BTW, if anybody wants to do all this, I was *not* able to get the newest Ventoy, 1.0.98 to boot on my system. You may have to use 1.0.97.

Old news. The *newest* version of Ventoy, 1.0.99 works fine.

TLDR: Don't use Ventoy V 1.0.98.

HarveyH wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 11:22 pm

The *newest* version of Ventoy, 1.0.99 works fine.

For me, V 1.0.99 works fine for 5.7, not for 6.0.

measter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:23 pm

For me, V 1.0.99 works fine for 5.7, not for 6.0.

I wrote the easyos6 to a 1G stick w/ Rufus and the boot process was able to modify the USB to suit itself and booted fine. I was expecting that easy wouldn't like the way rufus writes an .img, but it was able to fix what it didn't like. After boot, gparted showed me that the 959 meg ext4 part showed used 892 meg. Naturally if a person were going to find a USB stick useful they would want to use something bigger, but I think it is neat that it can still do its thing w/ only 1 G.

I like the new background pic I haven't explored much yet. I'm impressed w/ the items in the menus.

measter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:23 pm

HarveyH wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 11:22 pm

The *newest* version of Ventoy, 1.0.99 works fine.

For me, V 1.0.99 works fine for 5.7, not for 6.0.

Well, as The King said to Anna, "'Tis a puzzlement". 6.0 works fine under Ventoy .99 for me. Here's what I did:

1) Installed Ventoy on my 2nd internal drive.
2) Burned EasyOS 6.0 to my 64G USB flashdrive using usbimager.
3) Booted the Ventoy drive and pressed F2 to look at other drives.
4) Chose the 7 Meg(?) partiton. That's the flashdrive.
5) Dug down to find efi64x.boot (?)
That booted the flashdrive and I let it do it's setup voodoo.

Could have stopped there and used steps 3-5 to always boot the flashdrive but,

6) Back in Windows, I again used usbimager to image the entire flashdrive making a 57 Gig file.
7) Renamed the file to "EasyOS.img" and moved it to my Ventoy drive.
Works great!

Step 2 could be any sized drive, but my Ventoy drive is large, so a 57 gig file is fine.
If you resize the 2nd partition on the flashdrive image with Gparted and then DD a new image, that works too. Or just use a smaller flashdrive to start with.

Caviet: Updating the system will bork it. At least going from 5.7 to 5.8 did. When a new version comes out, it's clean install time.

Work around: Leave it on the flashdrive and just do steps 3-5 all the time. On-flashdrive updates do not bork EasyOS. But even updating on a flashdrive and making a new image still gets a borked system. The update process does something that Ventoy doesn't like. Just do a clean install with a new version.

Key Point: Updating EasyOS will bork a Ventoy install Start over clean.

HarveyH wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 8:58 am

measter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:23 pm

For me, V 1.0.99 works fine for 5.7, not for 6.0.

Well, as The King said to Anna, "'Tis a puzzlement". 6.0 works fine under Ventoy .99 for me. Here's what I did:

1) Installed Ventoy on my 2nd internal drive.
2) Burned EasyOS 6.0 to my 64G USB flashdrive using usbimager.
3) Booted the Ventoy drive and pressed F2 to look at other drives.
4) Chose the 7 Meg(?) partiton. That's the flashdrive.
5) Dug down to find efi64x.boot (?)
That booted the flashdrive and I let it do it's setup voodoo.

Well, that's cute and a 'workaround', but I don't consider that strategy a 'conventional' use of Ventoy.

What I like about Ventoy is the ability to simply write an .iso, or in this case an .img file to a USB and boot it.

In my limited experience, it seems that Easy 5.7 was able to 'figure out the situation' w/ the Ventoy stick, but that Easy 6.0 didn't do its figuring the same way. I was impressed that Easy 6 WAS able to figure out the situation w/ the Rufus stick and fix it.

>Well, that's cute and a 'workaround', but I don't consider that strategy a 'conventional' use of Ventoy.

I guess you didn't read my entire message. The "workaround" is only needed ONCE so EOS can resize the working partiion and make a useable system. You never have to do that again EVER (except for an EOS upgrade) if you don't want to. The sole purpose is to allow EOS to expand its working partition. Then you make an img of the ready-to-go flashdrive and Ventoy-boot the image from then on. I'd suggest using an 8 or 16-Gig flashdrive so the final image isn't so huge

> What I like about Ventoy is the ability to simply write an .iso, or in this case an .img file to a USB and boot it.

Yep, so write that final working img file to your Ventoy USB and boot it. No more work-arounds needed.

> I was impressed that Easy 6 WAS able to figure out the situation w/ the Rufus stick and fix it.

Whatever works for you is the right thing to use. My response was to your statement that 6.0 wont boot in Ventoy 1.0.99. Yeah it does. I use it every day.

BTW, how did you get Rufus to boot? Every time I try Rufus, I get that message, "Policy does not allow this to boot".*

* Aw, Hell naw, People. I wont turn off Secure boot. Then I would bork my system and never be able to ever boot up Winblows 11 again. That's why I use Ventoy; to get around Secure Boot.

Hello @HarveyH Great effort and knowledge you share on this thread.

@BarryK has done some testing on his own, but he may not have seen what you have reported here.

I am NOT a developer, yet it seems that one solution that a developer would need to implement is the means to have the update utility to create the NEW version with user changes, as a bootable IMG file and alert the user the placement of that IMG file along side the old IMG such that it will be seen for launch the next time Ventoy starts (or minimally placed alongside gving those who constantly are updating the GRUB2 or boot menus, manually, the knowledge of the NEW upgraded IMG file's location).

Personally, I have been awaiting some realistic instructions on how to maintain a persistence file/folder rather than constant updating in the running IMG system file as user changes are made. So far, I have not come up with a reasonable way, yet.

Maybe Barry or others know a good pathway for upgrade to a good "upgraded" IMG file containing user's changes from the prior release.

P.S. YOU are absolutely correct in the Ventoy benefit in Secure boot. That is just another benefit that it offers. Thus a user can have secure-boot or non-secure boot or disk formatted as MSDOS or disk formatted as GPT. This allows it accommodate, no matter if the PC being used is a BIOS or UEFI PC without affect a distro's behavior or its performance. It is merely an ISO/IMG/Installed-system file launch vehicle.

Clarity wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:42 am

Hello @HarveyH Great effort and knowledge you share on this thread.

without affect a distro's behavior or its performance.

Ty for the kind words. I would disagree with that last part though and reword it to say, "almost without affect a distro's behavior or its performance". Ventoy does do some weird drive-mapping or something that changes drive IDs in a way with *some* linuxes. It's hard to describe. With some linuxes, the Ventoy drive gets hidden from the OS; even if you set that remount option. With some linuxes it does not and you can see the drive.

With EasyOS, it remaps what would be sdd1 and sdd2 when booting from a flashdrive to dm-1 and dm-2 when booting from an image file and makes it impossible to viewe the Ventoy drive at all. So, Barry was technically right. Ventoy does "mess up and do weird things to EasyOS"*, but the OS still works. It's just a little different.

You also have to install special drivers if you want to boot an OS that has been installed to a VHD.
So, is Ventoy bad? No, it's great, but it's also kinda weird sometimes. lol


*To be fair, EasyOS is kinda weird in the way it does things anyway. The mounts and internal links are looped spagetti. lol

TL:DR
When booting an ISO or an img with Ventoy the booted OS sometimes behaves normally and sometimes a little differently as to drive names, but basically it still works fine.

Stupid retarded post removed. Sorry about that. I should both proofread stuff AND not post at 3AM. Sorry about that.

Hello @HarveyH
I am not familiar with the folder /Ventoy2. I have never encountered this in my years of use.

I am familiar with Ventoy having the ability to create a 3rd partition on the USB. BUT, and its a big 'but' for me, I advise to NEVER put persistence on a USB. USBs are troublesome to say the least and in my multi-decades of use, USB sticks are too erratic in their use with the various filesystems available in Linux today.

So, in my posts on the forum, I make it very clear that I do not advise such...without going into all the arising issues with their use...even from those manufacturers who have good reputations.

Thus, I advise and show in my postings to place all sessions (persistence) on a system drive. The USBs are OK for having to launch ISO/IMG files. But persistence and its integrity is an issue I don't take likely which has led to my advice to users in my directions postings on use of the launchers; namely Ventoy and SG2D.

There are members who will argue to the contrary; I not one of them resulting from the many years of performance testing and behavior analysis with USBs in various scenarios. System disks are just plain consistent and reliable.

I do agree muchly with some of the takebacks in the interactions with various UEFIs and BIOSs in the treatments of drive designations within the OS upon desktop arrivals that you posted in prior posts.

I must admit one thing which is important in what I post on this forum in Ventoy and SG2D usage. 99% of ALL of my reviews center around the distros from the developers across this forum. I publish successes and anomalies when spotted.

Again, I THANK you for your reporting!

hehe it's /mnt/ventoy2

My setup shows a /mnt/ventoy2 with a folder named "EasyOS" that contains a LOT of stuff. It seems to be everything that was written to the save area. /mnt/wkg also contains that stuff.
------------------------------
When booting from a flash drive, it's /mnt/sdd2 and /mnt/wkg

It seems that "wkg" is the key. if that can be re-directed to another partition on a fixed drive, we may have our non-flash drive "persistence". Flash drives are far too flaky and SLOOOW for saving data. External SSDs, fine.

I don't know from Linux. I just have (stupid) ideas. I should also point out that my Ventoy drive is an internal SSD.I am 64 years old. I do NOT enough time left in my life for using flash drive persistence. lololo

@Clarity

I found this on the website:

--SNIP--
The boot-partition contains file 'limine.cfg', which contains text, including a line like this:
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=1ca8506e-79f5-11ed-b964-287fcfeb4376 wkg_dir=easyos/
This tells the Linux kernel what partition and the folder where EasyOS is installed.
--SNIP--

Maybe this is the way to get the persistence onto an SSD partition; edit the img file (or flash drive) and change the line in that file to point to an ext4 partition somewhere else instead.
I dunno. I'm trying.

Thanks. I think it best to wait for something official via a boot parm. Our changes/efforts may not be incorporated.

Thanks again.

OK well I just found this:

Just one extra note: there are two alternatives to "wkg_uuid" on the kernel commandline; "wkg_dev" or "wkg_label".

"Boot Parameter" yes hmm
Well, hitting "e" over the boot menu entry for EasyOS brings up the standard editor and you can see that line to edit it. Is that enough of a "boot parameter"?

Yes and just may be the requirement at boot time to designate the location of persistence.

This is similar to how the KLs have been doing persistence for quite some time.

Never tested that for EASYs.

I'll give a try next week when I return.

The benefit is that the ONLY storage demand for continued distro operations is the persistence location when booting via its IMG file launched from Ventoy or IMGbooter.

Thinking out loud, the other component after a pristine IMG boot, is how to save persistence-only at shutdown for future access on next IMG file bootings??? But of course,
'this could be' or 'already is' automatic.

Clarity wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 2:11 am

Thinking out loud, the other component after a pristine IMG boot, is how to save persistence-only at shutdown for future access on next IMG file bootings??? But of course,
'this could be' or 'already is' automatic.

It does that now, I mean save "persistent only" on shutdown. I don't know about automatic though because I have it ask me. /files is always saved since it's a real-time write.

I would think the OS would work exactly as it does now except the writable partition is somewhere else. I mean it will save/not save/ask on shutdown as you have it set.

K.I.S.S. you know. The main part is moving that persistent partition and I *think* we know how to do that now. Manually edit that one line on every boot or (guessing) edit the .cfg file in the img to always point there. This needs testing! If it works, perhaps Barry will add the info to his blog. It's there now, but kinda buried and implied.

This needs testing first though. At the moment, we are simply spitballing and thought experimenting. Isn't that the fun of Linux? Your OS your way.