Salix Forums

Sorry for the delay in responding. My job often keeps me away from the computer for a spell. But I didn't want to leave everybody guessing.

I got it to work. And Salix runs just fine on the little laptop. However, I used Windows to do it. Turns out there's a program available under Windows that automatically formats USB sticks and "burns" ISOs to them. From there, the Salix installer worked perfectly.

Also, it would be helpful if the "how-to" which explains how to put an ISO on a USB stick mentioned the fact that the USB stick has to be formatted first. I hadn't formatted mine, and I think that was at least part of the problem.

Sasquatch wrote: I got it to work. And Salix runs just fine on the little laptop. However, I used Windows to do it. Turns out there's a program available under Windows that automatically formats USB sticks and "burns" ISOs to them. From there, the Salix installer worked perfectly.

What is the name of the program. I trying to find out why Salix ISOs will not boot for me on one of my computers.

Sasquatch wrote: Also, it would be helpful if the "how-to" which explains how to put an ISO on a USB stick mentioned the fact that the USB stick has to be formatted first. I hadn't formatted mine, and I think that was at least part of the problem.

Well how did you do it? Maybe you could update the wiki
http://docs.salixos.org/wiki/Install_from_a_USB_stick

laprjns wrote:
Sasquatch wrote: I got it to work. And Salix runs just fine on the little laptop. However, I used Windows to do it. Turns out there's a program available under Windows that automatically formats USB sticks and "burns" ISOs to them. From there, the Salix installer worked perfectly.
What is the name of the program. I trying to find out why Salix ISOs will not boot for me on one of my computers.

The program is called "rufus". Goofy name, but it works.

laprjns wrote:
Sasquatch wrote: Also, it would be helpful if the "how-to" which explains how to put an ISO on a USB stick mentioned the fact that the USB stick has to be formatted first. I hadn't formatted mine, and I think that was at least part of the problem.
Well how did you do it? Maybe you could update the wiki
http://docs.salixos.org/wiki/Install_from_a_USB_stick

I did it in Windows. So it isn't something I could add to the wiki. I don't think I'm skilled enough to be qualified to edit the wiki anyhow. I'm a complete amateur.

it would be helpful if the "how-to" which explains how to put an ISO on a USB stick mentioned the fact that the USB stick has to be formatted first.

I think Unetbootin tells you this if it is not - but maybe "rufus" doesn't. With the dd method, formatting is not necessary, as everything is wiped.

mimosa wrote:
it would be helpful if the "how-to" which explains how to put an ISO on a USB stick mentioned the fact that the USB stick has to be formatted first.
I think Unetbootin tells you this if it is not - but maybe "rufus" doesn't. With the dd method, formatting is not necessary, as everything is wiped.

Interesting. But the dd method did not work for me. If formatting wasn't the problem then I am still at a loss to explain why dd didn't work.

I had written a longer message and this withdrawn, after I realized that I had not taken the subject. I'm sorry, because of confusion.

Now a new attempt, to make it better.

laprjns wrote:I have an Asus laptop which refuses to boot any USB memory stick that I have that has been dd 'ed with any Slackware derivative iso, including Salix and Slackel, yet they boot fine on my Desktop with a uefi MSI motherboard. On the Asus they just boot up to a grub prompt.

I want to disassemble your above statement. On one hand you wrote, that on the Asus laptop computer no USB memory stick can be booted with any Slackware derivative ISO. But then on the other hand you wrote, that a Grub prompt appears. Then you wrote:

laprjns wrote:Then dd Salix64 XFCE to the drive and sure enough it wouldn't boot on my laptop, but work fine on my desktop .

I suppose now that even here a Grub prompt appeared. The appearance of the Grub prompt is already the result of the boot process, which is performed by the UEFI firmware. Then Grub would continue booting. You would have to think about why Grub can not boot any Slackware derivative ISO on this laptop. To me it looks as if Grub does not know that it should go on.

Can Grub show the kernel name on your laptop computer?

Are in the Ubuntu image, from which you wrote, the files BOOTx64.EFI and grubx64.efi included?
I do not use Ubuntu anymore, but have the ISO image ubuntu-15.10-desktop-amd64.iso in which both files exist. List excerpt:

Code: Select all

./EFI/BOOT:
BOOTx64.EFI
grubx64.efi

On my salix64-xfce-14.1.iso the file grubx64.efi is not present. It is found nowhere else in the ISO image. List excerpt:

Code: Select all

./EFI/BOOT:
bootx64.efi
grub-embedded.cfg
grub.cfg
make-grub.sh*
osdetect.cfg
tools.cfg

I could now say that no bootloader named grubx64.efi is stored in the NVRAM of the EFI on your laptop computer. Perhaps it is necessary to bridge the problem, to install manually a boot loader in NVRAM, then?

If the configurations in EFI NVRAM are the same for both computers, desktop and laptop, then the difference between the two computers might arise, because the desktop computer might resort to the CSM, but the laptop computer does not.

westms wrote:...then the difference between the two computers might arise, because the desktop computer might resort to the CSM, but the laptop computer does not.

Both of my computers, a Desktop with an MSI motherboard and a Asus Laptop, boot in UEFI mode only; no CMS or legacy boot modes are enable in either. In fact, they both boot into the rEFInd boot manager which detects and presents boot menu items for all the installed Operating Systems, including Window 10,along with detecting bootable removable devices. It's booting the removable devices where the Asus laptop has problems with some of the Slackware derivatives that were dd'ed onto USB sticks.

westms wrote:I suppose now that even here a Grub prompt appeared. The appearance of the Grub prompt is already the result of the boot process, which is performed by the UEFI firmware. Then Grub would continue booting. You would have to think about why Grub can not boot any Slackware derivative ISO on this laptop. To me it looks as if Grub does not know that it should go on.

So yes, you are correct, it does boot into the grub boot manager, however on the Asus Laptop there is no grub boot menu presented. After about a minute or so just the grub prompt appears, and hence there is no boot options to select and then no kernel and file system to boot. And yet I put the very same usb stick with the dd'ed iso into my MSI desktop and the grub menu comes up almost instantaneously and I can then select and boot into a kernel and root file system.

So I wrote the above about a couple weeks back and since that time I continued to test various Salix (including Slackel) installation ISO's dd'ed onto a usb flash drive. After repetitively attempting to boot from the drives, I have found that they will boot into the grub menu but very inconsistently, still taking 30 to 60 seconds for the grub menu to come up.

The only conclusion that I can come with is that there is something flaky with slackware compiled grub 2 boot manager that doesn’t play well with my Asus hardware/firmware combination. If you read Rod Smiths excellent web-pages on UEFI (http://www.rodsbooks.com/linux-uefi/) you will see that he has similar issues with Grub 2, basically calling it finicky and unstable in certain situations. (http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/grub2.html).

Rod Smith wrote:In my experience, GRUB 2 is finicky and difficult to get working on EFI systems. It sometimes generates bogus error messages, produces a blank display, fails to read its configuration file, or fails to launch a selected OS. Sometimes it works fine for several boots and then, with no changes in configuration, begins to fail on some boots but not on others.

So for my Asus Lapotop the Salix / Slackware ISO's dd'ed to a flash stick will on occasion boot to the grub 2 men menu and from there can boot into the installer program. In all instances, I do get the “Starting bootx65.efi” and “Welcome to Grub” but from there it either the grub prompt or the grub boot menu. On the other hand I have flashed a USB stick with Fedora, which also uses Grub 2 and it boot up on the Asus Laptop to it's Grub Menu consistently and fast.
My conclusions that the configuration and compiling of the Slackware version of Grub 2 has something to do with the unstable booting on my Asus.

My conclusions that the configuration and compiling of the Slackware version of Grub 2 has something to do with the unstable booting on my Asus.

That is a depressing conclusion that seems likely to affect others, too. Let's hope it's better in 14.2.

Actually after reading more on it this morning it's more likely to be the bootx64.efi image that grub-mkimage creates and it specifically affects Asus Q500A. But the good new is that they all do seem to boot into the grub menu eventually; you just have to keep trying.

Can you please check what is the size of EFI partition in the Asus Q500A ? It is bigger than 300MB and fat32 ?
Some linux distributions make this 1024MB. On my laptop lenovo G50-80 EFI partition is 512MB.
As many operating systems are going to boot EFI size partition has to be bigger. So 1024MB can hold many operating systems.
This was the reason i could not boot salix in virtual box (it end to grub prompt) because i made the efi partition less than 300MB, till i found out what was the problem.
Can check this with gparted.

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