Racy 5.3 on USB-memory - won't boot

Booting, installing, newbie
Post Reply
Message
Author
turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

Racy 5.3 on USB-memory - won't boot

#1 Post by turboscrew »

What's wrong?
I installed racy 5.3 on an USB memory as it describes in the instructions (for windows):
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/InstallationFrugal

When I booted, I got the black dots, the two red dots then announcement that:
puppy_racy_5.3.sfs is not found.

In the ISO-file there was only PUPPY_RA.SFS which I renamed to puppy_racy_5.3.sfs on the USB memory, but still no luck. Same error.

[edit]
Oops, the numbers in the version were swapped. It should have been 5.3 not 3.5. Corrected that (and a couple of typos).
Last edited by turboscrew on Mon 20 May 2013, 11:03, edited 2 times in total.

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#2 Post by turboscrew »

Ooops, I read one set of instructions, but not the other that very clearly says what's wrong:
http://puppylinux.com/flash-puppy.htm

It still doesn't find the "main" sfs.
The same problem with racy 5.5.

Racy 5.2.2 works fine.
(Is there anything easier to install than racy 5.2.2 on USB-stick?)

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#3 Post by turboscrew »

To put it in an other way: has something changed since racy 5.2.2 such that the directions for manual frugal install onto USB-stick using windows host doesn't apply anymore?

I followed the directions (here) and racy 5.2.2 installed fine (and runs fine on at least two laptops: Thinkpad T400 and a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2732 :D ).

Racy 5.3 (or 5.5) didn't. It kept whining about puppy_racy_5.3.sfs (puppy_racy_5.5.sfs) not found.

I tried with images from nluug and ibiblio. The md5sums matched.
I used 7-zip (and Linux Mint) to extract the files to the USB stick.
(vmlinuz, initrd.gz and the "main" sfs)

What am I doing wrong?
syslinux.cfg doesn't seem to contain anything release-dependent.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

I just did a flash drive install of Racy 5.5 and it worked fine.

What does your syslinux.cfg file look like? Mine has

Code: Select all

default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#5 Post by turboscrew »

Here's the whole thing:

Code: Select all

###---for FLASH MEMORY drives only---###
ui menu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 20
ontimeout puppy
menu title SYSLINUX system loader

LABEL puppy
	MENU LABEL System GNU/Linux Puppy
	COM32 linux.c32
	KERNEL /vmlinuz
	INITRD /initrd.gz
	APPEND pmedia=usbflash pfix=fsck,copy pkeys=us boot_delay=0 bootmem_debug debug earlyprintk=vga,keep elevator=noop initcall_debug load_ramdisk=1 loglevel=7 max_loop=256 prompt_ramdisk=0 rootdelay=0 ro video=800x600 vmalloc=384M
With this same syslinux.cfg racy 5.2.2 works fine.

This is the directory listing of the USB stick:

Code: Select all

L:\>dir
 Volume in drive L is KINGSTON
 Volume Serial Number is 3433-3231

 Directory of L:\

14.04.2010  22:54               166 autorun.inf
14.09.2011  12:07           361 248 unInstaller.exe
14.09.2011  12:07         1 934 624 urDrive.exe
21.05.2013  08:34     1 073 741 824 racysave-racy_522_save.3fs
19.05.2013  12:01               453 syslinux.cfg
17.11.2011  13:15         2 729 376 vmlinuz
20.05.2013  13:11        94 998 560 devx_racy_5.2.2.sfs
17.11.2011  13:15         1 801 209 initrd.gz
17.11.2011  13:21       112 013 344 puppy_racy_5.2.2.sfs
               9 File(s)  1 287 580 804 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   6 376 931 328 bytes free
Some of it seem to be windows stuff, but it hasn't bothered wit 5.2.2, so
I haven't removed that stuff.

If I replace the vmlinuz, initrd.gz and puppy_racy_5.2.2.sfs with the same from racy 5.3 or 5.5 ISO, it doesn't work.

If I then replace the files back to the ones from racy 5.2.2 ISO it works again.

(Added devx later and created the savefile.)

[edit]

Swapped to the racy 5.5 files and again:

Code: Select all

L:\>dir
 Volume in drive L is KINGSTON
 Volume Serial Number is 3433-3231

 Directory of L:\

14.04.2010  22:54               166 autorun.inf
14.09.2011  12:07           361 248 unInstaller.exe
14.09.2011  12:07         1 934 624 urDrive.exe
19.05.2013  12:01               453 syslinux.cfg
02.03.2013  18:05         2 745 440 vmlinuz
02.03.2013  18:05         1 877 065 initrd.gz
02.03.2013  18:11       125 440 032 puppy_racy_5.5.sfs
               7 File(s)    132 359 028 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   7 532 154 880 bytes free
Searcing for Puppy files......puppy_racy_5.5.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console...
[some blabber about IBM trackpoint]
# _
Where did you get the ISO-image?
I think the one I used now was from nluug.
The 5.3 was from ibiblio.

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#6 Post by turboscrew »

Wary 5.5 from ibiblio does the same thing.

BTW, I used windows :
"syslinux.exe -m -a X:"

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

Have you tried booting the flash drive on different machines?

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#8 Post by turboscrew »

Only racy 5.2.2. It seems to work. The other games were played on Thinkpad T400.

Could it be that the newer racy/wary versions need the /boot and /syslinux stuff? The Windows-version of setup doesn't make those directories, and no .c32-files are found on the USB stick. (Racy 5.2.2 still works fine.)

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#9 Post by turboscrew »

Tried racy 5.5 from ibiblio on the Fujitsu-Siemens - the same problem.

Is there a way to get the boot log onto the USB stick for later checking?
I think I saw something about not being able to load CMD32 or something...
Hard to say, because I can't scroll the console.

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#10 Post by turboscrew »

I looked at the init in initrd.gz and found that it logs in /tmp/puppy-file-search.log.
There was only:

Code: Select all

ALLDRVS=

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#11 Post by turboscrew »

I tried to see what's wrong by adding some debugs into the "init"-script in the file "initrd.gz".

My debug-lines can be found by searching 'JAA' in the init-script.

I got:

/tmp/puppy-file-search.log:

Code: Select all

JAA 1: PUPXXXSFS = puppy_racy_5.5.sfs DISTRO_PUPPYSFS = puppy_racy_5.5.sfs
JAA 12: PMEDIA =  PDEV1 =  PSUBDIR =  PUPSFS = 
JAA 13: PMEDIA = usbflash PDEV1 =  PSUBDIR =  PUPSFS = 
ALLDRVS=
JAA 14: PCPARTS0 =  PDEV1 =  PSUBDIR =  PUPSFS =
JAA 15: PCPARTS0 =  PDEV1 =  PSUBDIR =  PUPSFS =
JAA 16: PCPARTS0 =  PDEV1 =  PSUBDIR =  PUPSFS =
JAA 2: search func: param = ata PMEDIA = usbflash PCPART0 = 
JAA 19: DROPOUT = puppy_racy_5.5.sfs
I had to manually "copy" from the display, because I didn't come up with any way to get the file out of the machine (memory).

I'm trying to boot from a Kingston G3 8GB USB-stick (pre-)formatted as FAT32.

Adding boot parameter "pdev1" (in the syslinux.cfg) doesn't help?
It only seems to do search on ATA (search_func parameter = "ata").

BTW there is a difference: in 5.2.2 init there are:

Code: Select all

mount -t proc none /proc
mount -t sysfs none /sys
mount -t rootfs -o remount,rw rootfs /
ln -s /proc/mounts /etc/mtab #resize2fs,e2fsck need this.
a little after the boot parameter handling.
In 5.5 init those are in the beginning under an "if":

Code: Select all

#120215 internationalize... (based on work by L18L)
if [ ! $1 ];then
 mount -t proc none /proc
 mount -t sysfs none /sys
 mount -t rootfs -o remount,rw rootfs /
 ln -s /proc/mounts /etc/mtab #resize2fs,e2fsck need this.
Attachments
init.zip
(28.52 KiB) Downloaded 151 times

turboscrew
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue 29 Nov 2011, 09:24

#12 Post by turboscrew »

I tried burning a CD, booting it and installing wit the installer from within the racy 5.5 onto the USB stick and it works fine.

I checked the results of the two ways, and the only difference seems to be the boot:

16 -r--r--r-- 1 jaa jaa 13671 May 27 07:19 racy_5.5_inst/ldlinux.sys
56 -r--r--r-- 1 jaa jaa 55296 May 19 11:51 racy_5.5/ldlinux.sys

and

syslinux.cfg:

Code: Select all

cat racy_5.5/syslinux.cfg 
###---for FLASH MEMORY drives only---###
ui menu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 20
ontimeout puppy
menu title SYSLINUX system loader

LABEL puppy
	MENU LABEL System GNU/Linux Puppy
	COM32 linux.c32
	KERNEL /vmlinuz
	INITRD /initrd.gz
	APPEND pmedia=usbflash pfix=fsck,copy pkeys=fi boot_delay=0 bootmem_debug debug earlyprintk=vga,keep elevator=noop initcall_debug load_ramdisk=1 loglevel=7 max_loop=256 prompt_ramdisk=0 rootdelay=0 ro video=800x600 vmalloc=384M

cat racy_5.5_inst/syslinux.cfg 
default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash pkeys=fi

Funny that racy 5.2.2 boots fine with the racy_5.5 stuff, but racy 5.5 doesn't.
Racy 5.5 boots with the racy_5.5_inst stuff fine.

Post Reply