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tazlito + uefi

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Started 6 years ago by st_user
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st_user

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Hi,

I'm trying to create a bootable ISO using tazlito, justx flavor and syslinux/isolinux bootloader.

Doing that I ended up reading tazlito script and I can see that it expects files in the rootcd/efi/boot folder.

The problem is that the tazlito script throws an error when I place files there while trying to allocate/create uefi.img:

===========
```
Try 'stat --help' for more information.
stat: invalid option -- 'm'
Try 'stat --help' for more information.
awk: cmd. line:26: 			for (i=s,e=2; i<n; i++) {
awk: cmd. line:26: 			        ^ syntax error
awk: cmd. line:26: 			for (i=s,e=2; i<n; i++) {
awk: cmd. line:26: 			                      ^ syntax error
stat: invalid option -- 'm'
Try 'stat --help' for more information.
stat: invalid option -- 'm'
Try 'stat --help' for more information.
/usr/bin/tazlito: line 429: ( - )*4: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ")*4")
```
===========

My guess is that the default shebang in the script /bin/sh assumes certain shell. Which one is that? Or is it just a bug in the tazlito script?

Anyway is there any doc how to prepare UEFI iso with tazlito?
Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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I've managed to fix the errors by using busybox version of stat and awk i.e. I added in the beginning of the tazlito script:
```
...
alias stat='busybox stat'
alias awk='busybox awk'
...
```
And I also had to replace all 'stat -m' to 'busybox stat -m'. That fixed all the errors.

I don't know if the authors would be willing to accept these fixes to the script.

Thought still trying to make my ISO work with EFI computers.
Posted 6 years ago #
Bellard

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Key Master

done, thanks.

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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Member

Thanks, that was fast :)

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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I got syslinux to start on EFI machine from the tazlito generated efi.img.

The problem now is that it wants both the bzImage and the rootfs.gz files in the efi.img.

Is there a way to keep syslinux only files in the efi.img (i.e. /efi/boot) and access /boot/bzImage and /boot/rootfs.gz files i.e. share the image and the initrd between regular boot and UEFI boot?

Ping @bellard or somebody else please...

Posted 6 years ago #

st_user

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While I'm not sure if it's possible to access /boot/bzImage and /boot/rootfs.gz when booting into EFI partition, I'm trying to place both files in the /efi/boot folder to have them in the efi.img EFI partition.

The problem is that the filesystem on the efi.img seems to get corrupted whenever I place more than just a few megs on it. For instance, running filesystem check on it gives:

fsck.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
0x25: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
1) Remove dirty bit
2) No action
? 1
/EFI
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/.
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/..
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/BOOT
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/BOOT/.
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/BOOT/..
  Directory has non-zero size. Fixing it.
/EFI/BOOT/V64
  File size is 0 bytes, cluster chain length is > 0 bytes.
  Truncating file to 0 bytes.
/EFI/BOOT/VESAMENU.C32
  File size is 32400 bytes, cluster chain length is 2048 bytes.
  Truncating file to 2048 bytes.
/EFI/BOOT/LIBUTIL.C32
  File size is 24456 bytes, cluster chain length is 2048 bytes.
  Truncating file to 2048 bytes.
Reclaimed 26 unused clusters (53248 bytes).
Perform changes ? (y/n) y
efi.img: 11 files, 34526/34552 clusters

Trying to read the vesamenu.c32 and libutil.c32 files in this case throws "Input/output error".

I see that the fixup_uefi_part() function from the tazlito script modifies the efi.img file directly but then does it break it? Is this a known issue?

Posted 6 years ago #

lm2

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@st_user
dont think that efi class2 (meaning no CSM/legacy option) will be supported in taz wizard installer before 2019.....
you can try to see out with debian-likes or redhat-likes if you can't turn out uefi off or csm/legacy on (i have to test on my side) but in fact if it's a time problem go on another distro, slitaz is not ready (and we're lookin for that enhancement since maybe 2015/16) so wait months or get a temporary distro, while devs are doing their work.

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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thanks @lm2.

I don't really need to install Slitaz anywhere, all I need is a bootable ISO. Also I'm not hoping to get wizard working, trying to fix native tazlito script.

Posted 6 years ago #
Bellard

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@st_user: the fix is here

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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it did the trick with fixing the filesystem, thanks @bellard! The situation now is that I don't seem to get corrupted files but once I place rootfs.gz to the efi partition, it stops booting or finding the syslinux config file when booting from USB stick. I did some googling and I understood the efi partition doesn't have some booting tokens/flags. Does it make sense? Can it loose it?

In other words, if I place only the bzImage and the basic bootloder files to addfiles/rootcd/efi/boot then I see the following in the result efi.img
```
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      172.1K Jan  1  1980 BOOTX64.EFI
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        4.7M Jan  1  1980 BZIMAGE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      131.3K Jan  1  1980 LDLINUX.E64
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      192.7K Jan  1  1980 LIBCOM32.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       23.9K Jan  1  1980 LIBUTIL.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       31.0K Jan  1  1980 MENU.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        1.1K Jan  1  1980 SYSLINUX.CFG
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       31.6K Jan  1  1980 VESAMENU.C32
```
The system boots from a USB stick - I've attached a picture. Like I mentioned earlier, the problem there is that there seems to be no way to access the rootfs.gz then.

If I add the rootfs.gz file to the addfiles/rootcd/efi/boot, then the result efi.img is this:
```
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      172.1K Jan  1  1980 BOOTX64.EFI
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        4.7M Jan  1  1980 BZIMAGE
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      131.3K Jan  1  1980 LDLINUX.E64
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      192.7K Jan  1  1980 LIBCOM32.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       23.9K Jan  1  1980 LIBUTIL.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       31.0K Jan  1  1980 MENU.C32
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       62.4M Jan  1  1980 ROOTFS.GZ
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        1.1K Jan  1  1980 SYSLINUX.CFG
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       31.6K Jan  1  1980 VESAMENU.C32
```
And this is when the system stops booting and gives the black screen with "No default or UI directive found" message. I've attached a screen as well.

I do run diff on all the files between the addfiles/rootcd/efi/boot ones and the ones from the mounted efi.img on the mounted usb stick and all files give no difference, so the files don't seem to be corrupted. Can something indeed happen to the efi partition? I'm out of ideas at this moment. I'm thinking of trying grub instead of syslinux loader but I'm not sure it's the issue.
Attachments
efi-boot-syslinux-with-rootfs.jpg (27.3 KB, 1,153 downloads) 6 years old
efi-boot-syslinux-without-rootfs.jpg (55.1 KB, 1,100 downloads) 6 years old
Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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Member

hey @bellard, you've added some improvements! Any chance it's possible to fix fat16 as well? :)

Posted 6 years ago #
Bellard

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Key Master

Try the lastest tazlito : fat12 (up to 16M) *and* fat16 (up to 250M) should be ok.

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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Member

Hmm, no luck, almost same behavior. Syslinux starts just fine without the big file in EFI image. But if I put the big file there, then nothing happens and then laptop reboots back to the Boot menu almost immediately (doesn't show any text) though the device is seen correctly as EFI Bootable USB device in the menu.

I've tried both latest commits i.e. the one you pointed to (5d84fadfd928) and the last one with the fat32 support.

Thanks @bellard for helping with this.

Posted 6 years ago #
Bellard

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Key Master

Remove addfiles/rootcd/efi tree and rebuild the iso image.
Tazlito uses startup.nsh and the linux embedded loader. It doesn't need any other efi loader.

Posted 6 years ago #
st_user

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@bellard, I removed the addfiles/rootcd/efi folder. When the image is generated, I see that all the partitions are created correctly i.e. MBR partitions, EFI partitions and Apple partitions. But when I dd the image to the USB stick, the laptop doesn't see it as a bootable device so basically I can't boot from USB with this image.

To get the latest tazlito script, I pull the repo (http://hg.slitaz.org/tazlito) and copy the script to /usr/bin/tazlito. Is this ok? Or do I need to update my system to the latest state with the tazpkg ?

I don't know much about this, so to boot from startup.nsh (btw the script doesn't have executable flag on the image, I don't know if it matters) - does the kernel need to be enabled for that (you've mentioned linux embedded loader)? I wonder if this can be the issue.

I have 2 custom kernels but they both are based on the Slitaz config (I added more drivers). So the image with the kernel 4 behaves the way I described - UEFI laptop doesn't see the bootable USB stick.

After trying to generate the image with kernel 3 (which basically Slitaz based one), I get an error when build the image:
```
Copying addfiles content to the rootfs...                                                                                         [ Done ]
Root filesystem is generated...                                                                                                   [ Done ]
Preparing the rootcd directory...                                                                                                 [ Done ]
Moving the boot directory...                                                                                                      [ Done ]
Copying addfiles content to the rootcd...                                                                                         [ Done ]
6638 Kbytes saved in 209 duplicate files.
446 duplicate symlinks.
Creating initramfs with lzma compression...

Filesystem size: 59M     

0 Kbytes saved in 0 duplicate files.
0 duplicate symlinks.
/usr/bin/tazlito: line 3279: arithmetic syntax error
```
What am I dong wrong?
Posted 6 years ago #

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tazlito + uefi

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