I think I need to make an isolinux USB for my laptop to boot from a libreboot system (don't ask).
I'm looking at this:
https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISOLINUX
but there is this lovely glossed over detail in this line
Umm - OK. I have zero idea what files I want. So I mounted the artix image and it doesn't have what I am used to looking at in bootable images. It looks like it has a boot image
without any packages..
I'm looking for clues here what I might been to make an isolinux boot image. :(
OK so I unziped the artix image with 7z and created an archive. Now I am trying to contruct a isolinux.cfg file, and it is like shooting in the dark. My first attempt I declared everything off of the root and then it couldn't find te linux kernel saysi it couldn't find ///boot/vmlinux-linux
so I copyed the kernel and the initrd files into a subdirectory in user kernel/ and images/
it not sees the entry, "linux" but it fails to run the kernel, and I don't know why.
A am following these instructions, but you guys making the CDs seem to be doing this all the time. There is a syslinux config file in artix that works
https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISOLINUX
There are a numbe rof inconsistances in this wiki
for one thing, you run
mkisofs -o output.iso \
-b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
CD_root
but there is not boot.cat file mentioned before this
for another, it is important to know that the isolinux.bin file is altered by this command and needs to be refreshed everytime you run this.
Also, what the heck is the path in the isolinux.cfg is beyound me.
It is hard to just guess, and I can not find documentations.
This worked to make a dual boot antiX / Devuan USB with syslinux last year, I didn't get it to work with the Artix base iso. (That doesn't mean you won't do better, I needed a bootable USB with storage for a particular task.) The Devuan loading method is very inefficient as it loads the entire ISO into RAM then the iso boots, and loads itself into RAM again, so it's slow and uses 2GB of RAM. Also antiX supports multiboot and booting from both syslinux and grub, so makes things easy. If I had another go I would try using grub as the USB bootloader and chainloading the rest from that I think, and see how that works. It would be interesting if you did find out how to boot Artix isos. I think there is some multiboot software that now supports Artix, there was a post on here a while back but I can't remember what it was now, there might be some clues there. This was my syslinux.cfg and the layout of the files it was pointing to:
/mnt/boot/syslinux.cfg
UI menu.c32
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE Boot Menu
TIMEOUT 50
DEFAULT antiX-17.1_x64-full
LABEL antiX-17.1_x64-full
CONFIG /antiX/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
APPEND /antiX/boot/syslinux/
LABEL devuan-iso
LINUX memdisk
INITRD /isos/devuan/devuan_ascii_2.0.0_amd64_desktop-live.iso
APPEND iso
$ ls /mnt/antiX/
boot initrd.gz initrd.gz.md5 linuxfs linuxfs.md5 random-seed state vmlinuz vmlinuz.md5
$ ls /mnt/live
boot filesystem.squashfs initrd.img vmlinuz
$ ls /mnt/isos/
devuan
$ ls /mnt/isos/devuan/
devuan_ascii_2.0.0_amd64_desktop-live.iso Devuan-ASCII-README.txt devuanbytes SHA256SUMS SHA256SUMS.asc
$ ls /mnt/boot
syslinux
$ ls /mnt/boot/syslinux/
cat.c32 cptime.c32 dhcp.c32 ethersel.c32 host.c32 kbdmap.c32 libgpl.c32 ls.c32 menu.c32 prdhcp.c32 sanboot.c32 vesa.c32
zzjson.c32
chain.c32 cpu.c32 disk.c32 gfxboot.c32 ifcpu64.c32 kontron_wdt.c32 liblua.c32 lua.c32 pci.c32 pwd.c32 sdi.c32 vesainfo.c32
cmd.c32 cpuid.c32 dmi.c32 gpxecmd.c32 ifcpu.c32 ldlinux.c32 libmenu.c32 mboot.c32 pcitest.c32 pxechn.c32 sysdump.c32 vesamenu.c32
cmenu.c32 cpuidtest.c32 dmitest.c32 hdt.c32 ifmemdsk.c32 lfs.c32 libutil.c32 memdisk pmload.c32 reboot.c32 syslinux.c32 vpdtest.c32
config.c32 debug.c32 elf.c32 hexdump.c32 ifplop.c32 libcom32.c32 linux.c32 meminfo.c32 poweroff.c32 rosh.c32 syslinux.cfg whichsys.c32
This problem is this. This stupid laptop has libreboot and that design team has decided that it will ONLY boot isolinux
It came with an encrypted harrd drive that was removed from the system by the tech support guy, leaving me no OS on the system.
Despite that it is using grub for the bios, it will not boot grub or efi images.
It is fustrating as hell
Simple, install (suse) imagewriter from the AUR.
Our grub menu on iso allows you to add parameters defined here:
https://gitea.artixlinux.org/artix/artools/src/branch/master/initcpio/hooks/artix#L125
persistence only works if the iso has an embedded ext4 image inside the squash image. Our iso releases until now use flat squash images, so no persistence can be enabled, regardless if you set the proper parameters for usb boot.
curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
==> ERROR: Failure while downloading http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/src-oss/src/imagewriter-1.10.1432200249.1d253d9-1.6.src.rpm
Aborting...
Error downloading sources: imagewriter
imagewriter seems to often need updating according to the AUR comments. imagewriter-git built OK. But it would just dd the iso on the USB it seems. Chainloading the iso on a bootable multi boot USB allows you to have multiple isos on one USB, and although there may not be persistence for desktop settings etc in the iso image, you can store files and software in the unused space after booting from the USB and that will be saved, also you can mount the USB and use it like any other non bootable one to store things on, which is really useful if you don't have / want lots of usb sticks.
the only problem with this, from my nees anyway, I don't think this libreboot peice of cold brick is going to boot ANY grub configuration. It is only seing STRAIGHT isolinux, on the rocks. Is Knoppix an isolinux image?
Try multibootusb / multibootusb-git in the AUR - it supposedly works with Artix, Arch, Parabola etc. and uses syslinux for the bootloader. If it works it should be easy as it has a GUI. I have only read about it so far, not tried it, but it seems to be an active current project.
Currently broken that is... ::)
udisks2 is an unspecified run time dep. But even with that multibootusb-git doesn't work at all, and multibootusb makes some effort in between spewing various errors, writes some things to the usb, tries to set up a memdisk boot from the look of things, then finally gives up. The resulting usb boots to a flashing cursor at the top left of the screen.