USB live wont boot - linux

[overkill22]

Hi overkill22

There is good advice above but, as well, just thinking about your problem and alternative solutions. Part of the issue is to get a Puppy going and then there are more options - we use the term, "chicken and egg - what comes first?".

So, you can boot into Mint and other Distros but not Puppy and you can use the dd command. As it so happens one of Puppy's relations is Fatdog and it is a hybrid iso meaning it can be either burnt to CD OR dd onto a USB stick. Once you have Fatdog you can install a Puppy other ways. (And I know that Puppy can be easily made into a hybrid relatively easily but lets stick with Fatdog for the moment.)

Here is the Fatdog page: http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/.
1. Download the iso from one of the mirrors.
2. Plug in your usb and "lsblk" to see what is its reference - should be sdb if that is the only usb device plugged in. Change below if it is not sdb
3. sudo umount /dev/sdb
4. Open terminal where you have downloaded the iso and then use it for following
4. sudo dd bs=4M if=input.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync
Takes a while. That should be it. Now reboot and select the USB from your laptop - one of the F10, F11, F12 keys normally. And it should boot OK.

I managed to install the iso on the usb and it boot until the bootmanager. When I select Fat Dog I have an error of memory (couldn't find memory) and then kernel panic.

[overkill22]

tried to install fat dog with unetbootin, nothing to do.

i'm really losing hope. Why is it so difficoult to just install a live distro on a USB stick?

[peterw]

Hi overkill22

I have never seen your problems before. Normally, everything just works.

First to check the detail. You sudo dd bs=4M if=input.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync and I, maybe should have been more specific by saying sudo dd bs=4M if=Fatdog64-710.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync I presume you download that 710.iso.

Secondly, what is the make and model of that laptop. It seems strange that it could not find the memory and panicked.

So it got to the menu screen and when you selected the appropriate entry it started to load but got stuck when it did not find any RAM. I usually do a frugal install which only takes a few minutes, but tonight I will find time to carry out my instructions and then I may be able to advise better.

[peterw]

Sometimes the make of the USB stick has issues. What is the make and what is its capacity?

[overkill22]

Hi overkill22

I have never seen your problems before. Normally, everything just works.

First to check the detail. You sudo dd bs=4M if=input.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync and I, maybe should have been more specific by saying sudo dd bs=4M if=Fatdog64-710.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync I presume you download that 710.iso.

Secondly, what is the make and model of that laptop. It seems strange that it could not find the memory and panicked.

So it got to the menu screen and when you selected the appropriate entry it started to load but got stuck when it did not find any RAM. I usually do a frugal install which only takes a few minutes, but tonight I will find time to carry out my instructions and then I may be able to advise better.

I used the right commands, and installed it correctly, sudo and iso too.

I don't know what's the issue really. I've been using live and usbs since forever, even though I can't find a solution by myself because I'm not so savvy.

Here's my specs

Code: Select all

$ inxi -Fxz 
System:    Host: UX305FA Kernel: 4.11.0-14-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0) 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.4.6 (Gtk 3.18.9) Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya 
Machine:   System: ASUSTeK (portable) product: UX305FA v: 1.0 
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: UX305FA v: 1.0 
           Bios: American Megatrends v: UX305FA.213 date: 10/12/2015 
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core M-5Y71 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB 
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 5587 
           clock speeds: max: 2900 MHz 1: 911 MHz 2: 1099 MHz 3: 966 MHz 
           4: 901 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: Intel Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) 
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 5300 (Broadwell GT2) 
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes 
Audio:     Card-1 Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Card-2 Intel Broadwell-U Audio Controller 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:03.0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.11.0-14-generic 
Network:   Card: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 263.8GB (26.4% used) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SanDisk_SD7SN3Q2 size: 256.1GB 
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdb model: DataTraveler_2.0 size: 7.8GB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 9.5G used: 6.7G (75%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 
           ID-2: /home size: 221G used: 55G (26%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.30GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0C mobo: 27.8C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 25500 
Info:      Processes: 236 Uptime: 54 min Memory: 2021.1/7884.5MB 
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35

[peterw]

Hi overkill22

Just tried my instructions with Fatdog and it worked fine. Checking its details I see:
Linux fatdog64-9e6 4.4.35 - so up to date kernel

The USB has been labelled FATDOG_LIVE and there are 3 partitions
sdb 8:16 1 7.5G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 1 360M 0 part
└─sdb2 8:18 1 10M 0 part
And the 7.5 GB disk has these files
/media/xxxxx/FATDOG_LIVE$ ls
boot.catalog fatdog.png grub.cfg initrd isolinux.cfg vmlinuz
efiboot.img fix-usb.sh help isolinux.bin vesamenu.c32

By way of an explanation sdb1 and sdb2 are necessary to enable booting onto a Windows 8 + laptop with UEFI and secutre boot enabled

You should be able to check to see if your USB stick is the same as mine in Mint

Looking at your machine, I see:
System: Host: UX305FA Kernel: 4.11.0-14-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.4.6 (Gtk 3.18.9) Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya
Machine: System: ASUSTeK (portable) product: UX305FA v: 1.0
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: UX305FA v: 1.0
Your CPU and machine was made in 2015 and I wonder if the driver for it is in the earlier kernels on some Puppies. And I think that the RAM on your machine is 4 GB and is identified as "cache: 4096 KB" - So why isn't Fatdog seeing it?

Unless the USB "DataTraveler_2.0 size: 7.8GB" is incorrectly written or the CPU driver is not in the kernel then I can't see what is wrong.

[bigpup]

Puppy should be able to boot with no problem on this computer.
Those specs indicate, a normal computer, that Puppy boots on all the time.

Have you tried to put Puppy on a different USB flash drive?
Tried to use a different USB port to plug the drive into?
On the USB flash, are all the file names in lower case?

In the computers bios. Are you sure secure boot is disabled and or legacy boot is enabled?

I know you said the md5 checks OK.

I would still try a fresh new download of the iso.
Get them from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

Could try Xenialpup. it has a much newer Linux kernel.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/test/xenialpup/

Do not know why this would be of any help, but I have seen posts in the forum about having to make two partitions on the USB flash drive.
First one, say 1GB in size, formatted fat32, flagged boot.
Second one, what is left, formatted anything, Ext 3 would be good format to put the Puppy save on.
Install Puppy to the first partition.

[overkill22]

Puppy should be able to boot with no problem on this computer.
Those specs indicate, a normal computer, that Puppy boots on all the time.

Have you tried to put Puppy on a different USB flash drive?
Tried to use a different USB port to plug the drive into?
On the USB flash, are all the file names in lower case?

In the computers bios. Are you sure secure boot is disabled and or legacy boot is enabled?

I know you said the md5 checks OK.

I would still try a fresh new download of the iso.
Get them from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

Could try Xenialpup. it has a much newer Linux kernel.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/test/xenialpup/

Do not know why this would be of any help, but I have seen posts in the forum about having to make two partitions on the USB flash drive.
First one, say 1GB in size, formatted fat32, flagged boot.
Second one, what is left, formatted anything, Ext 3 would be good format to put the Puppy save on.
Install Puppy to the first partition.

ok, I'll try that.
In between your two posts I replied but the post went missing.

I'm trying to change the kernel into the iso of fat dog, but don't know exactly how.
I think it could be a kernel issue.
What should I do to change the kernel to 4.10 or 4.11 on puppy?

Meanwhile I'll try your suggestions.

[overkill22]

Do not know why this would be of any help, but I have seen posts in the forum about having to make two partitions on the USB flash drive.
First one, say 1GB in size, formatted fat32, flagged boot.
Second one, what is left, formatted anything, Ext 3 would be good format to put the Puppy save on.
Install Puppy to the first partition.

With which method should I install Puppy in this case?

[overkill22]

nope. nada. niente.

I've tried to install in all the ways I know, mixed up, did woodoo, but still it's not working.

Hope to find a solution by tomorrow (here's 3.20am), or at least try to find out what is the real problem instead to go and try stuff blind.

thank you all for your help, I'll reply in 6/8 hours from now.

[peterw]

overkill22

I have had some further thoughts about why Fatdog did not complete the boot process. You can pass extra instructions to the boot process. A list of some pf them can be seen if you press the F1 to F4 buttons when you get to the Fatdog menu. So for example, whatever one of the 9 menu items you choose, you select press tab and add the instructions. What I would like you to try is after initrd add "mem=1950m waitdev=10" without the quotations marks.

[overkill22]

overkill22

I have had some further thoughts about why Fatdog did not complete the boot process. You can pass extra instructions to the boot process. A list of some pf them can be seen if you press the F1 to F4 buttons when you get to the Fatdog menu. So for example, whatever one of the 9 menu items you choose, you select press tab and add the instructions. What I would like you to try is after initrd add "mem=1950m waitdev=10" without the quotations marks.

I'll try this with fatdog.
Meanwhile, how can I investigate about the puppy problem / install another kernel directly in the iso of the usb?

[bigpup]

Thanks for sticking with this and trying to get it working!
This is really not normal for Puppy.

There are a bunch of questions to answer and things to try.
Need specific answers!!

When you try something need to see:
You do what?
You see what?
Any small thing, could be the clue to what is causing this.
WE ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU TELL US!!!!

Puppy should be able to boot with no problem on this computer.
Those specs indicate, a normal computer, that Puppy boots on all the time.

Have you tried to put Puppy on a different USB flash drive?
Tried to use a different USB port to plug the drive into?
On the USB flash, are all the file names in lower case?

In the computers bios. Are you sure secure boot is disabled and or legacy boot is enabled?

I know you said the md5 checks OK.

I would still try a fresh new download of the iso.
Get them from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

Could try Xenialpup. it has a much newer Linux kernel.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/test/xenialpup/

Do not know why this would be of any help, but I have seen posts in the forum about having to make two partitions on the USB flash drive.
First one, say 1GB in size, formatted fat32, flagged boot.
Second one, what is left, formatted anything, Ext 3 would be good format to put the Puppy save on.
Install Puppy to the first partition.

Unetbootin should be good to use to do the install to first partition.

[peterw]

overkill22.

All the programmes bundled into a Puppy (or any other Linux Distro for that matter) are made to work with a particular kernel. They are not directly interchangeable. Having said that sometimes you can swap two close numbered kernels and since they are very similar they work in practice and some programmes are so simple they work in all Puppies. So to get a Linux with a later kernel you have to find one. I am not sure which Puppy has which.

Your laptop is good with 3 USB3 ports and no USB2. I wonder if you have the possibility to try your USBs (Datatraveller USB2) in another machine just to see if that affects the issue.

[overkill22]

Thanks for sticking with this and trying to get it working!
This is really not normal for Puppy.

There are a bunch of questions to answer and things to try.
Need specific answers!!

When you try something need to see:
You do what?
You see what?
Any small thing, could be the clue to what is causing this.
WE ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU TELL US!!!!

I think I was telling every step I took. The picture in the first page could be the most useful hint since it report what puppy is looking for.
But for the boot problem I don't know what I can tell you. After I select to boot from usb in the bios, there is a black screen, and then mint starts. While I'm expecting boot from USB > puppy bootmanager > puppy live OS.

Unetbootin should be good to use to do the install to first partition.

I've tried this way too, no luck either.

I short: I can't boot puppy. IF somehow I manage to boot puppy (but not in the proper way eg. I have to plug another USB with another live distro and use its bootmanager to load puppy), then puppy cannot load because of some missing files or stuff (see image in the first page).

[overkill22]

overkill22.

All the programmes bundled into a Puppy (or any other Linux Distro for that matter) are made to work with a particular kernel. They are not directly interchangeable. Having said that sometimes you can swap two close numbered kernels and since they are very similar they work in practice and some programmes are so simple they work in all Puppies. So to get a Linux with a later kernel you have to find one. I am not sure which Puppy has which.

Your laptop is good with 3 USB3 ports and no USB2. I wonder if you have the possibility to try your USBs (Datatraveller USB2) in another machine just to see if that affects the issue.

Will try to boot my latest USB on a windows computer.
At the moment I did a unetbootin puppy installation on the USB formatted with 1gb FAT32 (boot flag) and 6gb EXT4, as previously suggested. I installed puppy on the FAT32 partition.

[bigpup]

Sorry I can not help you.
I ask specific questions and need answer specific to those questions.

AS simple as. Have you tried to plug the USB flash drive into a different USB port?
It could be as simple as the USB flash drive is a USB2 and the USB3 port only works with USB 3 devices.
Something in the bios does not look at all ports for a OPS to boot from.
Who knows.

My computer actually has a usb port that only supplies power. No data transmission. Not easy to tell it by the symbol over the port.

Normal stuff does not seem to be working for you on this computer.

If the computer has a UEFI bios.
Are you sure secure boot is disabled and or legacy boot is enabled?

[overkill22]

Sorry I can not help you.
I ask specific questions and need answer specific to those questions.

AS simple as. Have you tried to plug the USB flash drive into a different USB port?

Yes. Not working either.

It could be as simple as the USB flash drive is a USB2 and the USB3 port only works with USB 3 devices.

No, I've tried with both usb2 and usb3 devices.

Something in the bios does not look at all ports for a OPS to boot from.
Who knows.

No, with other distro, same usb, the bios is seeing the usb.

My computer actually has a usb port that only supplies power. No data transmission. Not easy to tell it by the symbol over the port.

I have one too, but it doesn't make difference. that port is a usb3 that can provide power even when the laptop is off (eg. for charging the phone).

Normal stuff does not seem to be working for you on this computer.

If the computer has a UEFI bios.
Are you sure secure boot is disabled and or legacy boot is enabled?

Secure boot is definitely enabled. Don't know if legacy boot is enabled, will try that.


BTW the usb I've created that is not working on my computer, is working on an old windows laptop.

I still believe that could be a kernel problem (too old) and/or a uefi incompatibility.

and thank you again for your help and time!

[overkill22]

Thanks to your hint I was able to boot from the USB.

1. The secure boot was DISABLED >>> still couldn't see the USB with Puppy
2. Disabled FAST BOOT >>> now I can see the USB with Puppy, but still it won't boot
3. Enabled LAUNCH CSM >>> now I can see the USB with Puppy, can choose between UEFI Puppy USB and Puppy USB. With UEFI won't boot. With the other it boot!

So i managed to boot Puppy on my Asus zenbook via disabling sercure boot, disabling fast boot, disabling launch csm.

Unfortunately now there is another problem that I think it is connected to the kernel. I can't see windows or anything other than the background.
I try to open a window, I see the window completely empty. Same goes for the menu.
If I hover on the window, some writings appear but not all and the button doesn't appear.
I'm not able to boot with the video wizard to set up the driver/kernel.

I have an Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics, graphic card.

[bigpup]

So i managed to boot Puppy on my Asus zenbook via disabling secure boot, disabling fast boot, disabling launch csm

.
That was what I was saying to disable secure boot.
Good to see you figured out about the other stuff you may have needed to disable.
Usually it only needs secure boot disabled, but you are not having normal luck, are you?

Have you tried Xenialpup?

The visual stuff you see is usually the indication of just a bad download of the Puppy iso or a bad install to the USB.
I have had bad installs, because the USB drive file system has errors.
Had to reformat the drive partition to get the file system correctly working.
Do a new install and all was good.

It could also be the graphics driver trying to be used.

The Intel processor internal graphics has had driver issues in the past.
Xenialpup should have the latest version driver.

You have tried to boot it more than one time, just to see if it may have just been a bad bootup? Do it from a completely powered off, power back on retry of the bootup.