Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Although EasyOS, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=63 has many 'puppy-like' features, it is not a traditional 'Puppy'. BarryK developed it as an operating system, affording high-security features, primarily intended to be booted from a USB-Key. When deployed to a hard-drive, commonly employed boot-loaders such as grub2config can not manage it OOTB.

BarryK has graciously provided instructions for deploying EasyOS to a hard-drive here, https://bkhome.org/news/202206/simple-f ... e-fix.html. Thanks, again Barry.

Yes, but everything is evolving, hopefully getting simpler.

See this update on frugal install:

https://bkhome.org/news/202206/complete ... asyos.html

As Easy is an experimental distribution, the "goal posts" keep shifting.
Hopefully, though, I will soon get it into a very nice state where can leave those goal posts where they are for a long time.

I looked at Limine for a while. In BIOS mode (limine.sys), it worked great on both internal and USB drives. But on UEFI systems (BOOTX64.EFI), it was so unreliable that I eventually had to scrap it.

By comparison, GRUB-based bootloaders work 100% for me.

rcrsn51 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:39 am

I looked at Limine for a while. In BIOS mode (limine.sys), it worked great on both internal and USB drives. But on UEFI systems (BOOTX64.EFI), it was so unreliable that I eventually had to scrap it.

By comparison, GRUB-based bootloaders work 100% for me.

That's interesting. I have only tested legacy-BIOS booting on four computers and UEFI booting on three computers, all OK.

Easy 4.2 is expected to be released in a day or two, with Limine, so we shall see what the feedback is.

I am using v3.7. The project is very active, commits every few days. I see some commits after v3.7 that look important, latest is v3.7.3, so will update soon.

I resolved one problem with Limine. If you want to make a UEFI-bootable flash drive, it must be formatted as GPT.

Luckily, you can multi-boot the device on BIOS machines just by setting up limine.sys. It can co-exist with GPT.

The EasyOS image file only has an MBR, that is, an msdos partition table.

rcrsn51 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:14 pm

I resolved one problem with Limine. If you want to make a UEFI-bootable flash drive, it must be formatted as GPT.

I looked at this again. I can now get UEFI booting working with MBR provided that I do a clean re-format of the drive with a new partition table using a recent Gparted.

Limine seems to be fussy about this.

Legacy booting with limine.sys still works.

I have a script that does it all with fdisk. Script attached, with false ".gz".

It is fdisk from util-linux 2.35.1

In theory, the script could have done everything with an image file, instead of an actual physical drive.

My only outstanding problem is with an HP Stream "cloudbook" whose UEFI firmware refuses to boot Limine's BOOTX64.EFI. I get a black screen of death that never reaches the menu.

It would be interesting to know if other HP UEFI machines have this problem.

Fun and games with Limine are starting, getting feedback after releasing EasyOS 4.2 with Limine. Have raised two issues #184 and #185:

https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine/issues

Part of Limine is written in assembly language, and they are using an opcode that is not in the earliest 64-bit x86 CPUs. That accounts for #184.

I have limine v3.7.3. It works for me on a Core2Duo T7300 and an old single core Atom.

What are the models of your UEFI-compatible computers?

[Edit] I lost interest in limine. There were too many places where it didn't work the way I wanted or didn't work at all. GRUB2 always works for me and the Multi Installer has easy tools for using it.

I already received a reply about the invalid opcode. They have removed the assembly code in 3.7.1. I am currently using 3.7. So, I just need to update.

Updated instructions here:

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-insta ... w-ssd.html

This really is the simplest and easiest way to go. If you can find a spare drive, plug it into the computer.
You can then be up and running with EasyOS without having to touch the main drive.