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Hello im trying to install slitaz to usb stick (make it act as harddrive) "Not live USB"
when booting it says unknown root device after slitaz bootmenu
and some init scripts have run
Im guessing im doing something really wrong here
how do i know what hda0,0 device it is or should it say sda0,0 ?
Thanx
Martin
i would think it is likely to be sda (or sdb) and not hda
to be on the safe size i end up mounting the device with pcfm then df tells you what device it is
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ztealmax,
I'm wondering what version of Slitaz you are trying to install to USB? I tried the following
three ISO's without success. They try to boot from the Grub Menu, but lock up with errors.
slitaz-4.0.iso
slitaz-4.0-core.iso
slitaz-cooking.iso (as of ~May 07 2012)
The first problem I found was that I got an Error of "File not Found" when trying to boot (from
the Grub Menu). I tracked that problem to the Splash Image (/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz) not being
copied to my USB Flash Drive) You can fix this problem by copying the file from the LiveCD to
your USB Flash drive (as root). Or you can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and comment out that
line with a leading # as follows:
# splashimage=/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
After doing that the Grub Boot menu will still need some modifications. Since you are booting
from the USB Flash Drive, it will become (hd0,x) even though it is sda or sdb and your partition
with Slitaz was installed as /dev/sda1 (or /dev/sdax, etc.) or /dev/sdb1 (or /dev/sdbx, etc).
So, again you will need to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to make these modifications.
# For booting SliTaz from : /dev/sda1
#
title SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz)
# Modified from (hd1,0) to (hd0,0) so Grub finds the correct device
root (hd0,0)
# Modified from root=/dev/sdb1 to root=/dev/sda1 so Grub finds the correct device
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sda1 quiet
One other thing you can do from the Grub CLI is to double check where the stage1 file is located.
From the Grub CLI:
grub >
type the following:
find /boot/grub/stage1
It should be found at (hd0,0) assuming your USB Flash Drive is plugged in to a USB Port, and
you are actually trying to boot from the USB Device, and you are in the Grub CLI.
Be very careful if you use the other Grub commands because your Physical Hard Drive is likely
still connected to your IDE or SATA Cable and a wrong command can sure mess up your existing
install on your Physical Hard Drive. If you can remove your hard drive during the install to
USB, it would be the best thing, because it couldn't be overwritten by accident.
If you get your USB Flash Drive to boot from the Install, Please let me know as I've tried for
hours and for some strange reason mine just won't boot. I wish I had a Spare Hard Drive to try
the install to see if that actually works. At this point, I'd bet it doesn't..............
I've submitted a BUG report, but so far there is no news. I hope the Guru's try to do one
Install to a USB Flash Drive, as I'm sure they will see the problems in short order.
Thanks.
Larry
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Taking a look at this tomorow ill keep you updated
:->
Marin aka ztealmax
I had no problem booting SliTaz full install on USB flash drive.
The following can cause kernel panic early in the boot if not done.
Full install on USB flash drive requires rootdelay=8 to kernel line.
If there are sata drives on the computer they will be recognized before the usb drive.
With 2 sata drives in the computer to boot a USB full linux install:
menu.lst:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinux-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdc1 rootdelay=8
Booted slitaz-4.0 4-in-1 livecd to core.
Tazpanel installer using slitaz-4.0 4-in-1 livecd as install source.
tazinst is missing cp command for /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
Line 612=> http://hg.slitaz.org/slitaz-tools/file/de228dee5090/installer/tazinst
cp $SOURCE_ROOT/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz $TARGET_ROOT/boot/grub
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i installed SliTaz on a 4gb usb and did the following;
upon boot i got the Error 15: File not found
pressed "e" for edit
and
changed (hd1,0) to (hd0,0)
added "rootdelay=8" before "quiet"
i was able to boot to SliTaz and am now fighting the battle with editing menu.list in grub.
i am wondering if we used grub2 will it resolve the issue?
thanks. i could not have done it without those who navigated the oceans before my time.
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i got it to work and edited the menu.list from the TazPanel bootloader. SliTaz is awesome and blazingly FASTTTTT!
how can you explain SliTaz to someone? like the sweetness of honey; just taste it!
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update on SD cards.
the same process as above has worked on an SD card and that card is able to boot the emachines e528 laptop i use daily.what i like so far is the speed with which everything is loaded and done. what SliTaz brings to the table today is an ability to power up the low resources embedded os devices and make them perform like their heavier cousins. i will now install SliTaz on another microSD and try to power up a tablet with it.
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so far i have SliTaz installed on;
2 Toshiba 4gb usb hdds
1 Kodak High Speed 16gb SD card hdd
1 Verbatim 16gb microSD card hdd
1 CENTON 4gb SD card.
they have all booted the emachines laptop e528
i will now focus on a 7 inch tablet to see how i can boot from the Verbatim microSD hdd.
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Sorry for the necro, but this thread is the one that helped me out.
I just installed Slitaz to a USB drive through this process:
Remove laptop hard drives (per a different thread; probably unnecessary)
Burn Slitaz 4.0 to CD -> boot & use TazPanel installer
Use web install with slitaz-4.0-core.iso from flavor list online
Remove CD and boot
Yay! Working!
Mess around to test permanence
Yay! Working!
Put SDD and HDD back in
Mess with GRUB
No luck
Find thread, boot to CD, "super user mode" to copy splash.xpm.gz to correct location
Edit menu.lst to:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinux-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdc1 rootdelay=8 quiet
Boot USB
Where I'm at now is that I get errors along the lines of:
EXT4-fs error
196972
I get a slitaz text login prompt and can log in that way, but startx fails
Is it because I used the flavor (slitaz-4.0-core.iso) instead of the slitaz-4.0.iso?
Thanks for taking a moment to read & help. I'm a linux noob, but I can follow instructions rather well.
Edit:
Looking at the docs linked from the site made me recall having trouble with xstart when I was trying to install PCLinuxOS awhile back. The problem had to do with the video driver that the OS was trying to choose for me sucking like hell. If this happens to be the same problem, I need to know if I can fix it from the text prompt I get, or if I have to do a new install with a different flavor. I know that I have an ATI card - I think a radeon 5000. PCLinuxOS was choosing a radeon2000 driver that wouldn't work.
Why is it that live CDs always work with video, but USB installs don't always?
Edit2: Did some Googling. Going to try adding lang=en and kmap=us to GRUB entry
Edit3: Added vga=788, too. Resulted in a line of penguins showing up. managed to see something about a block not being read or written or something.
Anyway. That prompted me to recall that I think I might have had the USB formatted as etx as according to a different thread i saw with someone who stated they got it working with ext2. But another thread said to use etx3. The error message I saw said something about EXT4-fs. So I don't know which I need. Checking docs.
Edit4: Going to reinstall with ext3 from the slitaz-4.0.iso (basic) via the web, since that seems to be the standard advice.
Edit5: Install done. Adding lang=en_us this time, instead of lang=en - wondering if I need to add screen size
Edit6: Liftoff! Changed root to hd 0,0 (since it reset to 2,0 since hdds were in) and booted up. Saw penguins twice. No problem.
However, it does load noticably slower. Is it not copying to ram now, or is that a consequence of it having to write some things to the USB even if it's running in ram?
Thanks to everyone for creating the helpful threads and working so hard on this project. Now that I know exactly what to do, I'll be spreading it around.
Final working order:
Install slitaz-4.0.iso to CD
Boot from CD
Insert USB
Format USB to ext3 in gparted
Open SliTaz Panel
Install -> Install Slitaz
Follow instructions w/ web "stable" and pointing to sdc1 (USB) [because I have two HDDs. Check USB location with gparted]
After install is finished, open PCMan
Select the CD-ROM
Tool -> Open Current Folder as Root
Browse to /boot/grub/ to get splash.xpm.gz
Copy splash.xpm.gz
Select USB (TOSHIBA etc etc for the one I used)
Browse to /boot/grub/
Paste splash.xpm.gz
Open menu.lst
Edit menu.lst entry to:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinux-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdc1 rootdelay=8 lang=en_us kmap=us vga=788 quiet
Save menu.lst
Turn off computer
Eject CD but leave in USB
Boot
Voilà! Slitaz 4.0 running on USB with persistence
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I have SliTaz on a 20gb (IDE) usb hdd, here is my grub/menu.lst :-
# /boot/grub/menu.lst: GRUB boot loader configuration.
#
# By default, boot the first entry.
default 0
# Boot automatically after 8 secs.
timeout 8
# Graphical splash image.
splashimage=/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
# Change the colors.
#color yellow/brown light-green/black
# For booting SliTaz from : /dev/sdb1
#
title SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz root=/dev/sdb1 rootdelay=9 quiet
### kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz root=UUID=6159b823-41e1-93ef-d92debc42d14 rootdelay=9 quiet
### does not work
NB As can be seen, I also tried using the disk id, but it didn't work.
I'm not sure if there's a difference between rootdelay=8 and rootdelay=9, but that might be important.
You made sure to copy the splash.xpm.gz file onto the USB in the location /boot/grub/ ?
Also, what's the last indication that you get that it doesn't work? Adding the lang, kmap, and vga entries might be an important step. I know the vga part was an important difference for me.
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### kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-slitaz root=UUID=6159b823-41e1-93ef-d92debc42d14 rootdelay=9 quiet
### does not work
It does not work because at boot time udev has not yet populated /dev/disk/by-uuid/*
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I'm thinking there is confusion about my post earlier in this thread, so to make it clear; I offered my menu.lst as a guide to Anonymous. My drive boots up quite happily.
@ domcox
Whilst I wasn't looking for help; that bit of info is interesting, because it works with my Debian based installs that use grub2. Must be one of the improvements the grub devs were talking about.
More info: In fact, it does not depend on the bootloader, it works on Debian because an initramfs file is used. udev is integrated in the initramfs loaded into memory during the boot process and do the device discovery necessary to get the real root file-system mounted.
More here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Initramfs
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@domcox
Thanks for the info; I didn't even think about it being in initrd.
(Always something to learn. 
)
Thanks for this thread. I have followed the instructions, but am curious because after I complete the install on the USB stick, there is no /boot partition. It will not boot, only gives a missing operating system error. Does anyone have any ideas?
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I found the problem. I was trying to use a 128 MB USB stick and it was out of space. How can I make for a smaller install so that I can use a 128 MB stick?
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It will/should run 'live' from a 64mb stick, however, an installation decompresses onto the disk.
(The 'core', which includes everything, is about 400mb on disk.)
If you setup your pendrive as a live system, you can then add the rest of the drive as your /home to save files to, by using fdisk to create a second partition on it.
(A possible other way might be to remove one or two of the compressed files from the live distro & try installing what is left.)
@ dmouck
Using a 128 MB USB for a full install. What's the interest?
You'll have to suppress a lot of packages and finally, it'll stay so little space on your stick that you can't save anything on it.
Why don't you want to use a liveUSB? It would be faster, you can have all the applications and you'll have near 90 Mb for your /home.
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