Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 feedback

[Compact]

Compact, do you know the exact requirements for PLOP? We'll make it happen if we can.

PLOP itself works very fine no problem. It boots Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 very fine.
I just said PLOP because with PLOP it is possible to boot from media where the bios itself
can't boot from. After PLOP-booting VL the loading  of Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 stops because
VL7 can't find the medium it is booting and loading from. So it can't find the livecd.sgn file.
VL6.0-light-live-final did recognise very fine where it was booting from. In my case a
cardbus pcmcia usb 2.0 card with stick where Vector is on. So VL6.0-light-live-final did find
the livecd.sgn file.
As far as I understand it has something to do with options during the compilation of the kernel.
But my knowledge is too small to help you for I can't compile kernels.
Untill now I only found Vector 6 and TinyCore Linux who know where they are booting from. Most distro's
don't know where they are booting from if it is not directly a bootable drive or medium in the bios.
So Vector 6 was pretty unique in this aspect. It would realy be pity if this disappears with Vector 7.

[newt]

Compact, do you know the exact requirements for PLOP? We'll make it happen if we can.

PLOP itself works very fine no problem. It boots Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 very fine.
I just said PLOP because with PLOP it is possible to boot from media where the bios itself
can't boot from. After PLOP-booting VL the loading  of Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 stops because
VL7 can't find the medium it is booting and loading from. So it can't find the livecd.sgn file.
VL6.0-light-live-final did recognise very fine where it was booting from. In my case a
cardbus pcmcia usb 2.0 card with stick where Vector is on. So VL6.0-light-live-final did find
the livecd.sgn file.
As far as I understand it has something to do with options during the compilation of the kernel.
But my knowledge is too small to help you for I can't compile kernels.
Untill now I only found Vector 6 and TinyCore Linux who know where they are booting from. Most distro's
don't know where they are booting from if it is not directly a bootable drive or medium in the bios.
So Vector 6 was pretty unique in this aspect. It would realy be pity if this disappears with Vector 7.

nightflier, I notice that VL6LightLive has a boot.catalog and VL7LightLiveA5 does not. I wonder if this single, simple file is what causes the inability to find the livecd.sgn. It should be pretty easy to test. HTH! newt

[vector]

The plop problem is due to plop only looking for the old hd format of devices like hda hdb hdc etc. The new kernels and most distributions including Vector subscripe to the new sd format i.e sda sdb sdc etc. So me thinks if someone urges the plop author to include the sd format for devices then it should probably work.

Cheers,
Vec

[Compact]

The plop problem is due to plop only looking for the old hd format of devices like hda hdb hdc etc. The new kernels and most distributions including Vector subscripe to the new sd format i.e sda sdb sdc etc.

With PLOP-booting I ment the whole proces of booting, loading and running Vector.
The booting part is 100%. Loading VL7 gives a limited prompt and fdisk -l
gives up devices sda1, sda2, sda3 and loop0. So only my harddrive partitions
are seen and NOT the usb-drive where it is booting from.
I don't understand what PLOP has to do with that ?
I always thought the kernel is taking over after booting with plop ..... but I might be
mistaken.....

If I force a limited prompt in VL6 by renaming the livecd.sgn file
and do a fdisk -l it gives up de following devices: hda1, hda2, hda3 and sda1.
No loop0. sda1 is the usb stick I'm normaly booting, loading and running VL6 from.

Friendly Greetings, Compact

[nightflier]

I see that boot.catalog is part of the El Torito specification.. "This is a 2048 byte file which is of no interest except it is required". Worth a try.

So, VL7 boots to a prompt and you can issue commands? What errors, if any, do you see? What does the "mount" command yield?

[Compact]

What errors, if any, do you see? What does the "mount" command yield?

I did some typing it over:

These are the errrors with VL6 if I force a command prompt by renaming livecd.sgn:
(VL6 normaly boots; loads and runs fine)

* Starting USB support
* Starting PCMCIA Cardbus support
* Looking for data directory (searching for livecd.sgn file)
Fatal error occured - VL6.0-Light-LIVE data not found.
You are maybe using an unsupported boot device (eg. SCSI or old PCMCIA).
Workaround: Copy the directory VL6.0-Light-LIVE from your boot device to an IDE/SATA
disk, eg. to /mnt/hda1/VL6.0-Light-LIVE or C:\VL6.0-Light-LIVE. Then try to boot again
* Something went wrong and we can't continue. This schould never happen.
* Please reboot your computer with CTRL+ALT+Delete
/# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext2 (ro,errors=continue)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)


These are the errors with VL7:
(VL7 does boot but doesn't fully load and run)

* Starting USB support
* Starting PCMCIA Cardbus support
* Looking for 'VL7.0-Light-Live-A5' data directory (searching for livecd.sgn file)
Fatal error occured - VL7.0-Light-Live-A5 data not found.
You are maybe using an unsupported boot device (eg. SCSI or old PCMCIA).
Workaround: Copy the directory VL7.0-Light-Live-A5 from your boot device to an IDE/SATA
disk, eg. to /mnt/hda1/VL7.0-Light-Live-A5 or C:\VL7.0-Light-Live-A5. Then try to boot again
* Something went wrong and we can't continue. This schould never happen.
* Please reboot your computer with CTRL+ALT+Delete
ash: can't access tty; job control turned off
/# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw,relatime,errors=continue)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=65088k,nr_inodes=16272,mode=755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/loop0 on /usr type squashfs (ro,noatime)
/dev/loop1 on /lib/modules/2.6.38.7/kernel/drivers type squashfs (ro,noatime)

[Pita]

I installed quite a few more programs from the repos and others and all run
w/o flaw. Wonder why this is still called Alpha?

BTW I changed that Window Remover with xkill in Menu-System to a smaller
xterm and with a red background. I put it as well as an icon on Desktop for
easier access, just one double-click away.

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Comment=
DocPath=
Exec= xterm -g 50x12 -bg red -e xkill
Icon=/usr/share/icons/Faenza/apps/scalable/gnome-mines.svg
MimeType=
Name=Kill Window
#GenericName=Quick testing mechanism
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Qt;System;

[Pita]

Installed Firefox -6.0. Running well.

[Compact]

Wonder why this is still called Alpha?

Yeah. Me too is wondering why this is called Alpha5 if really nothing is running.
At least ..... in my case......

[The Headacher]

Awesome stuff guys!! I've installed it on my Roboard 110, and it seems to work fine so far.
However, I also tried to install on my laptop (the one in my sig), but it just wouldn't boot it. The error was that the medium could not be found and that I could try putting the iso elsewhere as a cheat (I´m paraphrasing here). If you need some more info, please let me know.

In  the mean time, I'm installing it in a virtual machine, and so far it's nice and fast.

Thanks for making a light VL, I really needed this for my secret project. Oh, alright, I'm building a robot, and I wanted it to be VL powered.

[roarde]

However, I also tried to install on my laptop (the one in my sig), but it just wouldn't boot it. The error was that the medium could not be found and that I could try putting the iso elsewhere as a cheat (I´m paraphrasing here). If you need some more info, please let me know.

I ambushed The Headacher in IRC and as stated, received further info. Paraphrasing here, the error looks just like Compact's, but a bootloader isn't involved: BIOS boots the internal CD drive. 6 SOHO (much later kernel than 6 Light) sees the drive as sr0.

Thanks to The Headacher for info here and in IRC, and to Compact for the details that really helped me know what to ask.

[pierce.jason]

After PLOP-booting VL the loading  of Vector Linux 7.0 Light Live Alpha 5 stops because VL7 can't find the medium it is booting and loading from. ...

As far as I understand it has something to do with options during the compilation of the kernel.
But my knowledge is too small to help you for I can't compile kernels. ...

This sounds similar to what's required to boot as a loopback .iso file from grub2.

Here is the grub2 block that I'm using:

Code:

menuentry "Vector Live A5" {
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
loopback loop /boot/VL7.0-Light-Live-A4.iso
linux (loop)/boot/vmlinuz from=/boot/VL7.0-Light-Live-A4.iso
initrd (loop)/boot/initrd.xz
}

The magic part of this is the "from=", which is a kernel boot param. A large listing of boot parms avail can be found in on the cd/iso at VL7.0-Light-Live-A4/bootparms.txt

I also boot the STD RC2.1 installer iso in a similar method via grub2:

Code:

menuentry "Vector STD Installer RC2.1 " {
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
loopback loop /boot/VL7.0-STD-RC2.1.iso
linux (loop)/isolinux/kernel/sata from=VL7.0-STD-RC2.1.iso vga=normal splash=silent load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw root=/dev/ram
initrd (loop)/isolinux/init.lz
}

Be wary when using this method to boot the iso, I have noticed anomalies in both systems that might or might not be caused by this boot method. I have further investigation to do before I can determine if this boot method is causing my issues.

[Masta]

Off, Off... anything I don't use is OFF. well at least for my own system 

[pierce.jason]

Off, Off... anything I don't use is OFF. well at least for my own system 

Uh oh Masta! The print lovers seem to be catching up!

To the streets, rally the forces! LOL

[Masta]

Off, Off... anything I don't use is OFF. well at least for my own system 

Uh oh Masta! The print lovers seem to be catching up!

To the streets, rally the forces! LOL

Thanks for the tip, I'll try to make sure my woman misses the rally info