Discussion, talk and tips
https://forum.puppylinux.com/
EasyOS 4 worked fine on a Ventoy USB stick, tweaking the file with the truncate command. But I tried it with Kirkstone (4.99, 4.101 as well as 5.0) and it just gave me the original error prior to "truncating."
(truncate -s 2G easy-5.0-amd64.img)
I even tried 3G instead of 2G but no go. Is it me and/or my USB stick?
You cannot truncate easy-<version>-amd64.img
What you will be doing is truncating 'easy.sfs', thus breaking it, and also corrupting the ext4 filesystem.
I think by "truncate" they mean using the truncate command to extend the size of the file. Counterintuitively, the truncate command can be used to extend a file by specifying a size larger than the file you're "truncating". So basically they're doing the equivalent of making a disk image file and then flashing the EasyOS image to the disk image file, then trying to boot that disk image using Ventoy.
Oh, yes, I see. Of course, 2G is going to be bigger.
It should work then.
ArrayBolt3 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:58 amI think by "truncate" they mean using the truncate command to extend the size of the file. Counterintuitively, the truncate command can be used to extend a file by specifying a size larger than the file you're "truncating". So basically they're doing the equivalent of making a disk image file and then flashing the EasyOS image to the disk image file, then trying to boot that disk image using Ventoy.
Yes, that is what I meant. I can get it to work with 4.5.5 but not with any of the Kirkstone versions. Is 2G enough or should it be larger?
Thanks!
Any one else have this problem? I still can't get it to work. File size after truncate command is 2048MB so it seems to have expanded correctly.
In my test the Easy 5.0 image file don't work with the current version of ventoy.
But it is still possible to install easy on the ventoy partition (formatted in ext4) of the ventoy usb key (https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 625#p81625)
I've added it to the to-do list to checkout getting Easy 5.0 to work with Ventoy.
I have resisted getting involved before, as my point of view is that you are better off just writing easy*img to a usb-stick and let Easy use the entire usb drive.
A drive size of only 2GB is severely constraining Easy. OK for evaluation, but not so good for ongoing usage.
Easy will be much happier with at least 4GB, preferably 8GB.
BarryK wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:08 amI've added it to the to-do list to checkout getting Easy 5.0 to work with Ventoy.
I have resisted getting involved before, as my point of view is that you are better off just writing easy*img to a usb-stick and let Easy use the entire usb drive.
A drive size of only 2GB is severely constraining Easy. OK for evaluation, but not so good for ongoing usage.
Easy will be much happier with at least 4GB, preferably 8GB.
there seems to be lots of alternative ways to boot images and isos under development since the usb supplanted the cd.
ventoy is interesting but seems to be a moving target on account of changes in the ventoy project that can ony be addresses by the ventoy devs?
I havent had a chance to play with qemu for distro sampling, but have often wondered if there are some optimizations in the target images that could make booting in VMs easier.
The original technique of increasing the size of the img file using truncate, apparently used to work.
Note, there is no need to resize the working-partition to fill the extra space -- easyos will automatically do that.
This evening I have installed ventoy 1.0.89 to a 64gb usb-stick.
I increased easy-5.0-amd64.img to 4gb and copied it to the usb-stick 1st partition.
Booted the usb-stick, got a grub menu, with easyos listed, choose it, but then lots of errors flashed by.
Managed to see one of them -- it seems wants the easyos linux kernel to have device-mapper (dm) support.
Hmmm, is that a new requirement that ventoy has introduced?
The easyos kernel does have dm support, but it is a module, only available after the initrd has finished.
Right now I'm compiling kernel 5.15.99 with dm support builtin.
Will build easy with that kernel and try again.
Have tried, and failed, see blog report:
"Ventoy does not work with EasyOS"
https://bkhome.org/news/202303/ventoy-d ... asyos.html
And a follow-up blog post:
"EasyOS 4.5.5 does not work with Ventoy either"
https://bkhome.org/news/202303/easyos-4 ... ither.html
Hey, it works now!
I am booting an unadulterated (no "truncating") EasyOS 5.2.1 with Ventoy 1.0.91 and it works fine. I tried it on two different USB sticks and both work. Save session works also.
Ha ha, that's good!
The working-partition is very small, greatly restricting what you can do, but is ok for evaluation of EasyOS.