schrieb David A. Cobb am 2011-03-31 19:32:
The object: testing downloaded Linux (Ubuntu 11.04-pre) install media,
avoiding burning more coasters.
From the documentation, I see that from the command line I can "mount"
an ISO file image as a device, e.g. loopback loop
(hda0,1)/iso/xubuntu-11.04-a3.iso
It would seem logical that I could then boot from that "device." Disks
burned from these images are bootable -- whatever that requires.
Annoyingly, they all then fail to mount the filesystem.squashfs that
contains the Linux content. IIRC, the image uses LOADLIN to boot,
perhaps indicating that this would require chain-loading; however, if I
examine the files contained in the image, I see that it also contains a
/boot/grub/grub.cfg file.
I tried something like this with the recipie from
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-via-grub2-using-linux/
If you already have an GRUB2 installation, forget everything up to point
III.5. Get the grub.cfg and see how it should work.
Noteworthy is the last paragraph:
Adding an Unlisted ISO: To try ISO Files that are not yet listed, use
the existing menuentry examples in /boot/grub/grub.cfg and append any
options normally found in the distributions syslinux.cfg file on the
"append" line to the "linux" line of the menu entry.
This means you open the image like a disk, and then do what syslinux
would do.
Of course it would be much better to chainload the original boot
mechanism to get all option right from the start. Any hints or
experiences by anyone?
Installation would seem to be worlds quicker if I could leave the
relatively slow CD access out of the equation -- and even more
convenient if I could at least test that the image would not fail like
all its predecessors.
I'd like to have a USB disk with a rescue system (Grml) and a Ubuntu
installer. Problem is that the root device is not stable for USB devices
and I did not yet figure out how get all de UUID stuff and embeding a
config in the installation working.
Regards
Patrick