troubles with USB

[mimosa]

I've just had a play with the latest 13.1.2 xfce live and persistence appeared to set up without problems - I didn't actually use it, but the file set up ok. I made quite a few changes including a full update and installing some software, and then set LiveClone to work. Several hours later it announced success. However the USB didn't work properly. It got as far as letting me log in as "one", but the mouse immediately froze on an error message about xfce power manager or something like that. Conceivably, it is relevant that I installed Caffeine and python-xlib.

I'm submitting this for info rather than as a help request, as I then formatted the stick as ext2 and copied the files manually, using the install script - of course that wasn't going to give me my changes but I figured I could just use persistence. However, when I tried to boot it it spat out an error message and dumped me in Grub rescue. This isn't apparently a BIOS problem - it got as far as Grub - and I successfully boot from USB on this hardware with other systems including a USB Akuna helped me make several months ago.

Incidentally, I was pleased to see on another thread that it is planned in future for Liveclone not to default to vfat, but to give a choice. Anything to make it run faster is good. (It would also be good if you could have more than one partition, allowing for instance a small vfat one for interacting with Windows; one way to do this would be to give an option *not to wipe the stick* and also to select the partition.) For the same reason, I'm looking forward one day to a live version of Fluxbox which could prove to be a very good option for a USB install.

I'll edit this in a minute giving the exact error message. Again this is more for info, and I'd also be glad to help with any diagnostic tests at this end.

EDIT The error was: Unknown filesystem. Does Grub2 not like ext2?

[Shador]

EDIT The error was: Unknown filesystem. Does Grub2 not like ext2?

Grub2 does support ext*.
Nevertheless the problem is that the core.img used for Salix Live doesn't contain the ext2 module. I didn't build that image, which JRD named grub_post_mbr_gap, but I'm quite sure that he didn't add ext2 support, because he most likely just installed with a fat device.
This is also not that easy to circumvent as it's impossible to build one image which supports all setups grub2 can support. Such an image would be to big.

The easiest solution for you is probably just to use a fat filesystem.
Alternatively you can use a system with grub 1.98 installed and then run the following command:

Code: Select all

grub-install /dev/sdX --root-directory=/media/XY

Replace "/dev/sdX" with the device of your usb stick and "/media/XY" with the mountpoint of your usb stick.

[mimosa]

Thanks Shador. I tried your second suggestion first, and all seemed simple enough using grubconfig, except that somehow grub2 was then still there. I am now doing it the really easy way - and the main thing is, now I understand why it wasn't working originally.

Still, it's frustrating I couldn't get grub legacy to install. Now I'll never know how much faster Salix would run off the USB with ext2!

[Shador]

Thanks Shador. I tried your second suggestion first, and all seemed simple enough using grubconfig, except that somehow grub2 was then still there. I am now doing it the really easy way - and the main thing is, now I understand why it wasn't working originally.

grub 1.98 is grub 2, it's just more specific. While grub 0.x is referred to as grub legacy, grub 1.x or more specifically grub 1.9x is referred to as grub 2.

Still, it's frustrating I couldn't get grub legacy to install. Now I'll never know how much faster Salix would run off the USB with ext2!

I guess it wouldn't even have been such a big difference. Usually the size limitations are the biggest problem of fat.

[Seq_Res]

I experience many mouse pointer frozen. For this distro I think it is best to use
live-CD or 'dd'-command written live-Usb.

[mimosa]

I'm pleased to say I've handed out my first copy of "Salix for Brazil" - the process now seems to be working well for me. The hook or plug in this case was that my brother-in-law can use Salix to watch any region DVDs, and I'm hoping he'll notice the experience is also better than he's used to - including the playing quality.

I've noticed some glitches with Brasero, though, and it also proved impossible to play a DVD that had been left in the drive during reboot, even after removing it and putting it back. Whether these are problems with the lastest Salix Live (xfce), the cloning, or something else, I don't know. I vaguely remember a glitch with Brasero a while back that was solved by an update, but surely that's not in the latest iso? Anyway I *think* I updated everything before cloning.

By contrast, this approach seems to work well:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/burning.html#movies

and maybe the command line is the way forward.

But above all, this is to say that LiveClone and persistence make a great combination of tools. Thanks for the hard work!

[pwatk]

EDIT The error was: Unknown filesystem. Does Grub2 not like ext2?

Grub2 does support ext*.
Nevertheless the problem is that the core.img used for Salix Live doesn't contain the ext2 module. I didn't build that image, which JRD named grub_post_mbr_gap, but I'm quite sure that he didn't add ext2 support, because he most likely just installed with a fat device.
This is also not that easy to circumvent as it's impossible to build one image which supports all setups grub2 can support. Such an image would be to big.

The easiest solution for you is probably just to use a fat filesystem.
Alternatively you can use a system with grub 1.98 installed and then run the following command:

Code: Select all

grub-install /dev/sdX --root-directory=/media/XY

Replace "/dev/sdX" with the device of your usb stick and "/media/XY" with the mountpoint of your usb stick.

Forgive my ignorance but I've always found myself getting frustrated with grub2 and running back to syslinux/extlinux but if I run grub-install will that install a fully functioning (everything including the kitchen sink) grub2 on to the stick?

[mimosa]

It worked for me flawlessly, several times. Unlike grub legacy, I've no idea how it works or how to tweak it, but apart from some minor editing of locale configuration files I've never needed to with Salix.

[pwatk]

Thanks.