Syslinux - Jan 2014 - USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G

Am 18.01.2014 04:30, schrieb Ronald F. Guilmette:
> The results were the same in both cases. In both cases, LessLinux 
> Search & Rescue booted up and began a timed 10 second countdown, which 
> I allowed it to finish in each case. After that, it started to do 
> something... I'm not even sure what, exactly... and eventually froze 
> up while displaying a progress bar, showing about 50% completion (of 
> something) and the phrase "Starting dhcpcd".
It is an unstable build. DHCPCD got updated and might behave 
differently. Its should continue after a very long time (five minutes or 
so). If you are interested in booting LessLinux, press Tab when the menu 
appears and add "dhcpcd" to the skipservices variable. But that's 
off-topic here.
> For each of the two USB sticks I then powered the system off and 
> rebooted again. Results were then identical to the first boot from 
> each of the two sticks.
My intention was to find out, if this very special partitioning boots 
correctly. Upon first boot you started an isohybrid thumbdrive with the 
isohdpfx.bin boot record, the ISO was prepared with Thomas' xorriso. 
After the first boot the drive gets partitioned to seven or eight 
partitions with a GPT partition table with a legacy boot partition, an 
UEFI boot partition and compat MBR. The boot sector in this case is 
gptmbr.bin.

So far this setup really works best with legacy BIOS and modern UEFI. It 
sometimes fails miserably with old broken EFI implementations.

To cut a log story short, we probably should write some advices for best 
practices of creating bootable media. I got five:

 1. Never ever rely on partitioning or filesystems that a already on the
    user's thumb drives. These might use odd CHS geometries or drives
    may be flashed with a broken FS - partition and format using well
    proven tools
 2. If your system has to be bootable from USB and optical media try to
    deliver isohybrid images. Thomas and Mattias might help you with
    working around typical bugs in BIOS and UEFI implementations
 3. When converting a thumb drive to read only ISO9660 does not seem
    suitable, you might go with LessLinux' solution of converting the
    isohybrid drive to a partitioned layout with a large FAT32 partition
    at the start - this way even Windows can write to the drive. If
    windows doesn't matter just add one partition in the free space
    after the dd'ed ISO
 4. Check the media upon first boot. Too many too cheap thumb drives
    flip too many bits after a few dozen full writes.
 5. Move away from MBR/DOS, goto GPT, you'll be rewarded with reliable
    boot both on UEFI and on BIOS. You'll just break compatibility with
    Windows XP, but this is dead after April 8th anyway.

Regards,
Mattias

-- -
Mattias Schlenker - Redaktion + EDV-Beratung + Linux-CD/DVD-Konzepte
August-Bebel-Str. 74 - 04275 LEIPZIG - GERMANY

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In message <52DC29E3.7080004 at mattiasschlenker.de>, 
Mattias Schlenker <ms at mattiasschlenker.de> wrote:
>To cut a log story short, we probably should write some advices for best 
>practices of creating bootable media...
Ummm... You've just touched on something that I had been intending to
ask about. 

I was going to ask "Isn't there (someplace) a document which gives all
these folks who are using Syslinux (in the sense of incorporating it
into other things) a document that tells them exactly how best to
do that?"  But I don't even need to ask that question now.  Google
is my friend, and it took me all of five second to arrive here:

   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX

I don't even have to either read or understand any of the abundant infor-
mation located here in order to see that it is very comprehensive and
detailed... which, of course, is excellent.

So anyway, I would guess that all of your suggested bits of advice for,
as you put it, "best practices" when using Syslinux should go
someplace
in there, no?


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  Someday (when I grow up :-) perhaps I will want to create a useful
stand-alone bootable tool too.  Obviously, Syslinux is a key and critical
part of the process of creating such a thing.  But where might a person
find instructions and advice on how to create the NEXT part, i.e. a
minimalist Linux... along the lines of what is used to support OpenELEC
or Clonezilla...  for the world's next great stand alone bootable app?
Is there any one place where enlightenment about THIS part of the process
is concentrated?  (Not that I have any plans myself to work on creating
the world's next great stand-alone application.  I am just acutely aware
that so much of the great stuff that has been produced by the FOSS community
over the past years has only been possible due to the availability
of lots and lots of great free & open supporting infrastructure type
software.  Certainly Clonezilla and OpenELEC are perfect examples of
this.)

Ady?  What all went into producing your bootable "Hello world" thing?
I gather that you did not find it necessary to first drag in the whole
Linux kernel to make that work, but I'm still sort-of interested in what
you did, and the steps you took anyway.  Obviously, any fool... even me...
can write a trivial five line "Hello world" program in C, but what
supplied and implemented stdout for that?

P.P.S.  Has anybody got a comprehensive list of stand-alone bootable
things that are already leveraging off Syslinux?  Just in case I do
come up with an idea for the world's next great stand-alone bootable
app, I wouldn't want to re-invent the wheel.

In message <70229.1390169666 at server1.tristatelogic.com>, I wrote:
>In message <52DC29E3.7080004 at mattiasschlenker.de>, 
>Mattias Schlenker <ms at mattiasschlenker.de> wrote:
>
>>To cut a log story short, we probably should write some advices for best
>>practices of creating bootable media...
>...
>   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX
In addition to any & all other advice and directions given to users
of Syslinux, I would like to suggest the following:

1)  Make sure that your distribution images and/or install instructions
    results in the end-user ending up with a USB stick that contains
    one partition that is explicity flagged as "bootable".  (As I have
    now learned, this isn't absolutely necessary for booting off a USB
    stick with my... admittedly dated... BIOS, however it does cause
    the device to show up on the Boot Priority list, and this in turn
    can eliminate one possible source of confusion for end-users.)

2)  In the usage instructions for your Syslinux-assisted bootable
    product (i.e. the instructions that YOU give to end-users) advise
    the end-users that if they have trouble booting your product when
    it is installed onto a USB device that is itself plugged into one
    of the front USB ports on a traditional "desktop" type system that
    they should try instead connecting the device to one of the rear
    USB ports.   (I personally don't know if this is even actually an
    issue, but some have suggeted here that it may sometimes be.)

    In the usage instructions for your Syslinux-assisted bootable
    product (i.e. the instructions that YOU give to end-users) advise
    the end-users that if they have trouble booting your product when
    it is installed onto a USB device that is itself plugged into some
    add-on USB controller card (e.g. a USB 3.0 add-on card), then they
    should try instead connecting the device to one of the built-in
    USB ports that are a part of the base motherboard.  (I can attest
    now, based on an experiment that I just now ran, that indeed the
    ports on the USB 3.0 add-on card that I have installed into my
    Gigabtye GA-M55Plus-S3G are not even seen by the BIOS, and that
    thus, a stick which is perfectly bootable from the regular mother-
    board USB 2.0 ports cannot be booted when plugged into the USB 3.0
    ports on the add-on card.)


Regards,
rfg

On 19.01.2014 20:39 Mattias Schlenker wrote:
> To cut a log story short, we probably should write some advices for best
> practices of creating bootable media. I got five:
>
> 1. Never ever rely on partitioning or filesystems that a already on the
>    user's thumb drives. These might use odd CHS geometries or drives
>    may be flashed with a broken FS - partition and format using well
>    proven tools
> 2. If your system has to be bootable from USB and optical media try to
>    deliver isohybrid images. Thomas and Mattias might help you with
>    working around typical bugs in BIOS and UEFI implementations
> 3. When converting a thumb drive to read only ISO9660 does not seem
>    suitable, you might go with LessLinux' solution of converting the
>    isohybrid drive to a partitioned layout with a large FAT32 partition
>    at the start - this way even Windows can write to the drive. If
>    windows doesn't matter just add one partition in the free space
>    after the dd'ed ISO
> 4. Check the media upon first boot. Too many too cheap thumb drives
>    flip too many bits after a few dozen full writes.
> 5. Move away from MBR/DOS, goto GPT, you'll be rewarded with reliable
>    boot both on UEFI and on BIOS. You'll just break compatibility with
>    Windows XP, but this is dead after April 8th anyway.
>
just a finding by me (us):
only use USB sticks from major manufacturers;
If a stick fails use another brand or a stick from another series;
Over the last years we had only with SanDisk USB-drives no troubles,
they boot and have a long term stability.

bye
Christoph

> Regards,
> Mattias
> 
> -- -
> Mattias Schlenker - Redaktion + EDV-Beratung + Linux-CD/DVD-Konzepte
> August-Bebel-Str. 74 - 04275 LEIPZIG - GERMANY
> 
> Telefon (VoIP "ueberall"), geschaeftlich: +49 341 39290767
> Telefon (Festnetz), privat und Fax:       +49 341 30393578
> Mobil:                                    +49 163  6953657
> Mobil (SIM in Testgeraeten):              +49 1578 3499550
> 
> Bitte fuer geschaeftliche Telefonate vorzugsweise die VoIP-Telefonnummer
> +49 341 39290767 verwenden, da ich diese aufs Mobiltelefon routen kann!
> 
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