What is the best bootloader for ISO's and Frugal installs?

[steve_s]

Howdy all! Long time no post...

I have a laptop with a swap partition and an ext3 partition. I run a few frugals booting from regular grub.

I wanna download some ISO's and boot em. Grub legacy (which I have) needs some heavy hacking and is finicky with em even still.

What bootloader would y'all use? I have even looked into grub2, Plop, Burg, but either they don't show good ways to boot Frugal or don't boot straight ISO's.

Suggestions? Boot legacy into another bootloader? Suggestions on that?

[starhawk]

grub4dos.

Almost completely idiot-proof, which is good, because I'm an idiot. LOL.

...well, OK, we all have our moments, just some of us more than others

Boots Windblows, too, if you're into that. Did that to "fix" an XP install once where I buggered the bootloader by mistake and didn't feel like hunting down a CD two years after putting it up, well, somewhere, you know?

[Les Kerf]

The only reason to use anything other than Grub4Dos is the very rare occasion that it doesn't work. I even use Grub4Dos to boot our iMac.
Les

[rcrsn51]

The simplest setup for booting ISOs is a flash drive and ISObooter.

[starhawk]

ISOBooter sounds tremendously better than Unetbootin. The only way I've found of removing a Unetbootin install (or fixing it so that it will reinstall correctly) is to replace the entire partition table in gparted... that thing clings like a limpet.

[neerajkolte]

I have used isobooter previously it's great.

But now I don't keep whole ISO in my usb. I extract files from them and make multiboot usb with Syslinux, seems to boot faster.
Thanks.

- Neeraj.

[rcrsn51]

ISOBooter sounds tremendously better than Unetbootin. The only way I've found of removing a Unetbootin install (or fixing it so that it will reinstall correctly) is to replace the entire partition table in gparted... that thing clings like a limpet.

Instead of another personal anecdote (which has become a forum staple), why not test ISObooter yourself and report back?

[starhawk]

Away from home at the moment, and no spare USB sticks...

[cthisbear]

steve_s...not happy you've been away so long.

Welcome back stranger.

:::::::::::

Dare I say that I use Hiren's boot cd.

My post....

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2253658

The files needed and instructions are in my 3rd last post.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 5&start=30

Chris.

[mikeb]

But now I don't keep whole ISO in my usb. I extract files from them and make multiboot usb with Syslinux, seems to boot faster.
Thanks.

The reason most likely is that grub4dos 0.94 adds a delay to starting for you to resort to the old MBR (for the paranoid I suppose)

version 0.93 does not and is therefore several seconds faster.

You actually need the version of bootlace.com that writes the mbr rather than grldr.... you can use later grldr (ext4 and full colour menu support) with older faster bootlace...its what I always do.

The command is bootlace.com /dev/sda (or whatever drive it is)..its what the wizards use. I think both versions of grub4dos are on their site...if not I have a copy.

mike[/quote]

[steve_s]

steve_s...not happy you've been away so long.

Welcome back stranger.

...Chris.

Ha! Thanks, Chris. Yeah, couldn't really say why I've been out so long, but got to hacking on the laptop and this topic came up. Glad to be back on this, the most knowledgeable and helpful forum out there.

Ok, gonna check out Isoboot a little more thoroughly as Christmas produced a couple of more flash drives to play with. Thanks, rcrsn51.

Grub4dos, starhawk, does it need a Window's partition?

Hiren's to boot? Explain that, Chris. It just gives you options to boot iso's and/or frugal? Or just talking about the iso's?

Thanks, all.

[mikeb]

Grub4dos, starhawk, does it need a Window's partition?

its a misnomer... can work on windows and posix partitions.

Only limitation is the mbr does not like grldr to be on ext4 but an alternative arrangement is used for the puppy implementation. grldr CAN boot ext4 partitions though.

mike

[mekalu2k4]

---- I am a total noob for Linux / but using LInux for about 8months happily -----

ISObooter appears to be very rugged. I tried different programs, but finally found ISObooter is simple to use, configure. Right now, I have about 5 different ISOs (Puppy, Lxpup, Ubuntu, Linux LIte etc) on one 64gb USB drive and can boot into any OS and use the machine in live mode without any problem. My base machine is Puppy Linux 5.7 and I installed from this very USB drive only. I did build new ISO with my personal files, settings etc and then used on other machines as well without any problems.

One point to note: You need a Linux machine / OS to prepare/ configure the ISObooter to generate the menu list. So, it will not work on Windows OS(IMO). So, boot a machine in live mode and then insert this usb to configure it. But once you put your ISOs and configure the drive once - you can use it any number of times you need.

Hope this helps.

[rcrsn51]

One point to note: You need a Linux machine / OS to prepare/ configure the ISObooter to generate the menu list. So, it will not work on Windows OS(IMO).

There is an ISObooter for Windows here, but it never received any feedback.

[mekalu2k4]

Hircrsn51,
Thanks for letting me know. Somehow I did not come across this. I believe it is a good tool. will try and post if everything is fine

[steve_s]

Wow, so freakin cool.

Posting a screenshot from Hiren's boot disk livecd booting from iso on flash drive.

I'm doing the posting via Saluki linux as iso on the same flash drive.


FYI, when rcrsn51 says leave partition 4 blank he means (a la gparted) to leave it as an unallocated area. I initially had it set as Fat and left it blank, but that didn't work; it has to remain unallocated.

Great tool! Will need to tweak for some iso's but man, that is just what I was looking for. Nice job!

[rcrsn51]

FYI, when rcrsn51 says leave partition 4 blank he means (a la gparted) to leave it as an unallocated area. I initially had it set as Fat and left it blank, but that didn't work; it has to remain unallocated.

Thanks. I changed the wording from "empty" to "unallocated".

[steve_s]

Good.

I ended up setting the partitions as fat32, swap, then ext3, leaving about 4 gigs unallocated at the end for partition 4.

[mekalu2k4]

You guys are really amazing. first thing is that this tool works. second thing is that your screen shot showing a few ISOs of windows OS. Now I have a volley of questions - please bear with me!

1. I am now working only Linux. Would like to have Wine or Oracle VM for windows (mainly for office- Outlook to store my office mails). Which one is best - Wine Vs Oracle VM?

2. Is it possible to boot into ISO of a windows OS (as you got on your key) and to do the work?

3. If yes to question 2; then Is it possible to make a ISO Win 8 + Office 2013 ?

For now these are the questions, I do not want to harass you guys much for now. This forum is a killer, keeping me busy all through the vacation.

I wish everyone on this forum - A very happy and successful new year 2015 !!

[rcrsn51]

leaving about 4 gigs unallocated at the end for partition 4.

You don't even need to do that. You can fill the flash drive with the other partitions, as long as Partition #4 is not defined.

When ISObooter runs, it uses the fourth slot in the MBR partition table to mount the ISO, so the OS can find its required files (like a Puppy SFS file) that are hiding inside.