Jump to content

Linux and Multi-Boot


fevoldj2

Recommended Posts

Sorry buddy I completely missed your last question, I'm glad you managed to resolve the issue though.

KOF, i need your help: is it possible to put different disto of ubuntu (Ubu, Kubu, Edubu, ecc ecc) on the same dvd?

Thanls whistling.gif

In short, no.

Unlike many live systems Debian's casper system seams to be totally hardcoded which means your stuck with only one live distro at a time. This can be a right pain if your a Ubuntu/Debian user and want Clonezilla Live on your multi-boot disc :realmad: . Thankfully I'm not one of those any more :whistle: .

My suggestion would be to take a look at the alternative, installer only boot CD's for Ed/X/K/Ubuntu. Since these don't have a live system I doubt casper would exist on these disc's so you might be able to work something out with them instead.

Apart from that there's always the remaster route or change distro ;) .

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sorry buddy I completely missed your last question, I'm glad you managed to resolve the issue though.
KOF, i need your help: is it possible to put different disto of ubuntu (Ubu, Kubu, Edubu, ecc ecc) on the same dvd?

Thanls whistling.gif

In short, no.

Unlike many live systems Debian's casper system seams to be totally hardcoded which means your stuck with only one live distro at a time. This can be a right pain if your a Ubuntu/Debian user and want Clonezilla Live on your multi-boot disc :realmad: . Thankfully I'm not one of those any more :whistle: .

My suggestion would be to take a look at the alternative, installer only boot CD's for Ed/X/K/Ubuntu. Since these don't have a live system I doubt casper would exist on these disc's so you might be able to work something out with them instead.

Apart from that there's always the remaster route or change distro ;) .

Thanks a lot, you're the best!

:thumbup

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since some people had expressed interest in having multiple Linux Live distros I thought I'd post what you need to change in order to do it. Right now I have SLAX, CloneGenius2008, CloneZilla, Ubunutu, Kubuntu, OpenSuSE, Fedora, MandrivaOne, PCLinuxOS, Knoppix, D amn Small Linux, PartedMagic, and ZenWalk all booting from there own folders inside a folder called LINUX thats on the root of my disc. If there's interest I can post some of the modifed initrds to RapidShare or something.

Mostly what needs to be changed is stuff inside the initrd, which you can do inside of Linux. Here's the list:

Knoppix - needed to modify linuxrc file inside initrd and change KNOPPIX and

KNOPPIX_DIR variables (or use cheatcodes)

Zenwalk - needed to change name of livecd.sgn and edit

liblinuxlive to change LIVECDSGN and LIVECDNAME variables

Also, from=/LINUX needs to be added on isolinux append line.

Root password is ZenLive.

Fedora - Username is root, no password. initrd0.img is gzipped cpio.

To unpack: $> mkdir /home/user/tmp

$> mv initrd0.img initrd0.gz

$> gunzip initrd0.gz

$> cd tmp

$> cpio -id < ../initrd0

$> mv ../initrd0 ../initrd0_old

needed to change the sections in 'init' where it

referenced the LiveOS directory.

ie.. OSMINSQFS, EXT3FS, SQUASHED. You also need the

change the lines right above so the files can be

found

To pack:

$> cd /home/user/tmp

$> find . | cpio --create --format='newc' > ../initrd0.img

$> cd ..

$> mv initrd0.img initrd0

$> gzip initrd0

$> mv initrd0.gz initrd0.img

Ubuntu - need to change casper in initrd/scripts

change all $Path/casper to $Path/LINUX/UBUNTU/casper

change $mountpoint/.disk/casper-uuid to

$mountpoint/LINUX/UBUNTU/.disk/casper-uuid

change all $Directory/casper to $Directory/LINUX/UBUNTU/casper

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

OpenSuSE - needed to change config.isoclient to point new location for

openSUSE-10.3.i386*. Also need to change init and linuxrc so

that LIVECD_CONFIG points to config.isoclient in the right place.

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

Mandriva - needed to modify linuxrc and change LABEL to AdminToolkit

also change /live/media/distrib.sqfs to correct path.

Gentoo - needed to change copy path in init under "Mounting Squashfs filsystem"

isolinux append line needs SUBDIR=LINUX/GENTOO added

CloneZilla - add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to live_media_path_checklist in

pkg\opt_drbl\opt\drbl\conf\drbl-ocs.conf

add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to possible_path variable in s03prep-drbl-clonezilla

add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to possible_path variable in S99start-ocs-live in /etc/rcS.d

put changed S99start-ocs-live in the root of initrd

need to change casper in initrd/scripts

change all $Path/casper to $Path/LINUX/CLONEZILLA/casper

change all $Directory/casper to $Directory/LINUX/CLONEZILLA/casper

at the bottom (line right before the brace) create a new line and add

cp S99start-ocs-live "${rootmnt}/etc/rcS.d/"

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

Cheers

Edited by Jotnar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Here's some updated instructions:

Chris D'Hondt (cmdhondt @ hotmail.com)

Changes to Support Multibooting Linux Live CDs on the Same Disc (30,MAY 2008)

This assumes that your disc label is "AdminToolkit" and that your linux directory

on the root of your disc is called LINUX. Change as needed.

Almost all of these changes deal with editing files inside the initrd.

This file is usually a gzipped cpio or a gzipped ext2 image.

Knoppix - use the knoppix_name and knoppix_dir cheatcodes on ISOLinux initrd boot paramaters.

DSL - See Knoppix

Zenwalk - need to change name of livecd.sgn and edit liblinuxlive to change LIVECDSGN and LIVECDNAME variables

from=/LINUX needs to be added on isolinux append line.

root password is ZenLive.

Fedora - Username is root, no password. initrd0.img is gzipped cpio.

To unpack: $> mkdir /home/user/tmp

$> mv initrd0.img initrd0.gz

$> gunzip initrd0.gz

$> cd tmp

$> cpio -id < ../initrd0

$> mv ../initrd0 ../initrd0_old

needed to change the sections in 'init' where it referenced the LiveOS directory.

ie.. OSMINSQFS, EXT3FS, SQUASHED. You also need to change the lines right above so

the files can be found

To pack:

$> cd /home/user/tmp

$> find . | cpio --create --format='newc' > ../initrd0.img

$> cd ..

$> mv initrd0.img initrd0

$> gzip initrd0

$> mv initrd0.gz initrd0.img

Ubuntu - need to change casper in initrd/scripts

change all $Path/casper to $Path/LINUX/UBUNTU/casper

change $mountpoint/.disk/casper-uuid to $mountpoint/LINUX/UBUNTU/.disk/casper-uuid

change all $Directory/casper to $Directory/LINUX/UBUNTU/casper

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

Kubuntu - See Ubuntu

Linux Mint - See Ubuntu

OpenSuSE - need to change config.isoclient file to point new location for

openSUSE-10.3.i386*. Also need to change init and linuxrc so

that LIVECD_CONFIG points to config.isoclient in the right place.

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

Mandriva - needed to modify linuxrc and change LABEL to AdminToolkit

also change /live/media/distrib.sqfs to correct path.

Clonegenius- need to change copy path in init under "Mounting Squashfs filsystem"

ISOLinux append line needs SUBDIR=LINUX/GENTOO added

CloneZilla - add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to live_media_path_checklist in

pkg\opt_drbl.tgz\opt\drbl\conf\drbl-ocs.conf

add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to possible_path variable in ocs-live.d/s03prep-drbl-clonezilla

add /live_media/LINUX/CLONEZILLA to possible_path variable in S99start-ocs-live in /etc/rcS.d

put changed S99start-ocs-live in the root of initrd

need to change casper in initrd/scripts

change all $Path/casper to $Path/LINUX/CLONEZILLA/casper

change all $Directory/casper to $Directory/LINUX/CLONEZILLA/casper

at the bottom (line right before the brace) create a new line and add

cp S99start-ocs-live "${rootmnt}/etc/rcS.d/"

See above (Fedora) for cpio extraction and compilation.

PCLinuxOS - need to change linuxrc in initrd (ext2 image).

Change $MNTCDROM/$BASEIMG$LOOPSEXT to $MNTCDROM/LINUX/PCLINUXOS/$BASEIMG$LOOPSEXT

Change losetup $DEVLOOP $MNTCDROM/$BASEIMG$LOOPTYPE to losetup $DEVLOOP $MNTCDROM/LINUX/PCLINUXOS/$BASEIMG$LOOPTYPE

Change all $MNTCDROM/livecd.sqfs to $MNTCDROM/LINUX/PCLINUXOS/livecd.sqfs

Kaspersky - In init change ${cdrom_mount_point}${SUBDIR}/kavresc to ${cdrom_mount_point}${SUBDIR}/LINUX/KASPERSKY/kavresc

Gentoo based.

Virtualbox is a good way to test your changes

To get eth0 interface working in VirtualBox, you need the Bridge_Utils package:

$> brctl addbr br0

$> ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0

$> brctl addif br0 eth0

$> ifconfig br0 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

Cheers

Edited by Jotnar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally managed to get Knoppix 5.0.1 and ubuntu 6.10 to boot through CDShell using the default boot options.

For Knoppix put the isolinux folder inside the KNOPPIX folder on your disc the use this command to boot it:

if $lastKey == key[f4]; then isolinux /KNOPPIX/isolinux/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=/KNOPPIX/isolinux/minirt.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

And use this command for ubuntu (no isolinux folder required and source files at root of disc):

if $lastKey == key[f8]; then isolinux /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --

Obviously change the keys to fit your menu.

The only draw back with this approach is you would need to script each isolinux command in CDShell if you wanted the extra boot options.

I found an interesting thread here that could be adapted to provide the full isolinux boot menu for each distro. However, I do not yet poses enough knowledge about mkisofs to decipher exactly what is being done here... jetman? :whistle:

On the topic of relocating source files.

I've also read somewhere that you can append source file locations to the isolinux command. Although I havn't tried this yet, I worry this could cause problems during installation (ubuntu) even if it manages boot live. I'll try to find the topic again to give to guys an example.

-kof94

did exactly what it says here and get this error... check screenshot

post-195917-1213375149_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@cdob

IT WORKED!!!

i opened my iso with magiciso and hit properties and "checked" rock ridge file system and hit "save"... it woks great now... thank you...

anyways, just to let you know i've added backtrack, gparted on it too and its was very simple...

1) i extracted the linux boot image using isobuster (eg: knop.img)

2) i made dummy file system to root of the dvd

3) then i boot it up like this...

if $lastKey == key[0]; then memdisk /KNOP.IMG

thanx again... i didn't realise it was this simple.

heres a screenshot of magiciso properties... hope it helps other lurkers...

post-195917-1213452070_thumb.jpg

Edited by rageaddict
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I am beginning to understand that this was for for booting off a live cd, which does not really interest me much. However, I am trying to make a multiboot installer DVD with Customized XPSP3 and Ubuntu and a few other goodies... i made a great menu, integrated Windows XP and other things..... I have modified my initrd.gz file correct however I am still getting an ``image checksum error, sorry...``. this error occurs within the img boot file that comes with Ubuntu as I load it. Anyone have any experience with this endeavor

cheers, rave

Edited by ravenise
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...