[jetman]

kof94, on Apr 30 2007, 04:39 PM, said:

Ok, I only have one thing to say... SLAX ROCKS

Your ntfs-3g driver + fuse (what is fuse by-the-way) works a treat.

I just did the heavy lifting of putting the pieces together. Smart guys over in the UK did the real work on NTFS-3g. FUSE is a module that permits filesystem drivers to exist in userspace, as opposed to kernelspace. Bottom line is that a sophisticated driver like NTFS-3g can be developed+debugged like a regular program, no hassles w/ complicated schemes to test code inside the kernel itself. Much faster turnaround time in the development cycles and lots more mechanisms can be used as filesystems. NTFS-3g has had several revs in the last five months alone.

Quote

I really pushed the boat out moving stuff around on my Win partitions and editing files. I admit this was probably stupid but hay 'no pain, no gain' .

Unlike previous encounters with ntfs-3g this time I didn't encounter chkdsk on reboot and as far as I'm aware I havn't killed anything. This is great!!!

Anyway, besides that, I was also very pleasantly surprised at the speed, especially since I was running everything from a DVD.

Bart/WinPE has a lot to live up to now with this kind of speed and access.

There are a couple of things I need to sort out though.

The first is wireless networking.

Since moving house I've had to stump for wireless networking. Needless to say on more than one occasion I've threatened to buy a long cat-5 and start drilling holes in the house just so I don't have to put up with it.

That aside... Slax was unable to config my wlan card. This may be my inexperience or just a lack of drivers, any ideas on how to solve either?

Most wireless cards can be made to work using NDISWrapper, a cool hack to make Windows networking drivers work w/ Linux. As always, read the instruction carefully and you should be connected in a less than an hour. I don't think you have to add modules for that, exc if you need WPA encryption (wpa_supplicant.)

WRT BartPE, I'm putting less an less into that one, since discovering Slax. In fact, there are a couple of Linux AV pgms in the module section which are really viable bec of NTFS-3g. I haven't done a complete regen/rebuild of my BartPE config (just AV/spyware def updates) in almost a year. I periodically run CHKDSK just to be safe, but I haven't had a failure since I started using it on New Year's Eve. In fact, I run a swap file from a NTFS partition.

A custom Slax KillBill/Server is way smaller than BartPE, but has a full computing env including multimedia and a full-function office suite. Modules are way easier to put together than Bart plugins. All portable and extensible using multi-session CDs ! Experiment w/ diff modules using CD-Rs+Track-At-Once, multisession writes. Then, once you've got a system tweaked the way you want it, use those files to integrate into your DVD-R. Those are the words of a stingy guy who hates wasting media on one-off experiments !

Quote

The second is, I was unable to view the contents of my boot DVD and I was unable to mount the drive via right click (You can tell I'm a Windows user ). I gather this might be because I'm actually running Slax from it but I wondered if this was normal behavior?

Apart from that though, quite a successful outing if you ask me. I'm now torn between going back and playing some more or doing what originally planned and install Ubuntu... life is so unfair sometimes.

A dbl-click should work to display the contents of your boot (DVD) drive, but there should also be a Mount cmd on the context menu as well. BTW, when you mount it, you still have to open it, but a dbl-click does both. Other than having to explicitly mount partitions/drives, KDE is reasonably Windows-like. As least for folks like us....

[kof94]

Quote

I just did the heavy lifting of putting the pieces together. Smart guys over in the UK did the real work on NTFS-3g.

I realised that but without people willing put the pieces together where would we be!?

Quote

A dbl-click should work to display the contents of your boot (DVD) drive, but there should also be a Mount cmd on the context menu as well. BTW, when you mount it, you still have to open it, but a dbl-click does both. Other than having to explicitly mount partitions/drives, KDE is reasonably Windows-like. As least for folks like us....

I ran mount from right click after discovering an empty drive when I double-clicked my on my DVD but nothing happened! I'll take another look.

Quote

Most wireless cards can be made to work using NDISWrapper, a cool hack to make Windows networking drivers work w/ Linux. As always, read the instruction carefully and you should be connected in a less than an hour. I don't think you have to add modules for that, exc if you need WPA encryption (wpa_supplicant.)

I decided to install Ubuntu 7.04 a minute ago and had similar problems with no connection. Granted I do use a WEP key and I don't broadcast my ssid so this may be causing me some problems. Drilling holes in the house is starting to become more appealing by the minute though.

On the subject of Ubuntu I like some of the new features but what a pig to install.

During live boot up I had an error which I ignored and carried on cos it disappeared so quickly. Then at first boot, post-install, I was taken to some kind of disc check/filesystem check which failed and then rebooted the machine before I could read anything. Following that everything went fine but I'm still left with a nagging question 'is anything broken or not'. How frustrating...

All-in-all the rest of this week I'm probably gonna spend a lot more time with Slax and Ubuntu so I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

[jetman]

kof94, on Apr 30 2007, 06:31 PM, said:

<snip>

I decided to install Ubuntu 7.04 a minute ago and had similar problems with no connection. Granted I do use a WEP key and I don't broadcast my ssid so this may be causing me some problems. Drilling holes in the house is starting to become more appealing by the minute though.

<snip>

The Q-n-D WiFi/NDISWrapper Mini-HOWTO:

Look, once you have the .inf+.sys file for your WiFi card it's pretty much:

####   Let's say you have a Broadcom 43xx based Wi-Fi card like I do, just copy the bcmwl5.inf+bcmwl5.sys
####   into /root and run the following....
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
####   The following displays whether the Windows driver installed correctly
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
####  You should see something like the following:
####  bcmwl5 : driver installed
####		device (14E4:4320) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)
####  If not, try ndiswrapper -r bcmwl5  to remove the driver, then go back to the top for one more go
####
####  If you try a 'do over', do yourself a favor and remove ndiswrapper w/ 'modprobe -r ndiswrapper' after 
####  removing the driver.  If a do over doesn't boot WiFi, reboot and start at the top....
####
####  No one seems to recommend this exc the ndiswrapper people....  /sbin/depmod -a
/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
####  The following shows what the new device name is....
/sbin/iwconfig
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 channel 11
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 ap ap-mac-address
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 key restricted  <wep-string-in-hex>
####  /sbin/iwconfig eth1 commit
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 essid "your-ap-name"
/sbin/ifconfig eth1 inet 192.168.3.100 broadcast 192.168.3.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
/sbin/ifconfig eth1 up
/sbin/route add default gw 192.168.3.1
####  or you could use dhcpcd -d -t 30 wlan0 for an automatic IP and skip the 
####  1st ifconfig and the route stmts

Above is an extract from the 2nd-gen script I use to fire up my WiFi-Wired router, so it's perfected. Actually, it's almost a verbatim rip from the NDISWrapper wiki. I literally got my Moto WPCI810G going in under an hour. It took about another day or so til I found the formula for turning the box into a WiFi-Wired router (basically a high-perf ICS PC), which talks to a Netgear wireless router, then out to the Net via the landlord's cable modem. Under (my) Knoppix, the WiFi device is always eth1, but under Slax it's always wlan0, as it's supposed to be. What's happening is:

1) Install the Windows driver
2) Display the driver's installation status
3) Load the NDISWrapper kernel module
4) Display the newly installed wireless device's name and params
5) Configure the wireless device
6) Setup the IP settings (via ifconfig) for a new network device
7) Turn it on
8) Manually setup the default gateway for Internetworking, altho dhcpcd does all of the IP stuf, if you use an auto IP from the AP/router.

I manually set the IP and default route bec I use port forwarding (from the Netgear) for P2P/RDP/VNC apps. Just to get started, one can skip those commands and simply bring up the device and prime it via dhcpcd. I wanted to go w/ disabled SSID broadcasts too, but I had to get the router working very quickly and simply couldn't coax Windows into dealing w/o a SSID. But I was able to get WPA-PSK going under Windows+Knoppix+Slax, which is much more robust than WEP, so I could live w/ the SSID broadcasts.

Where do the .inf/.sys files come from ? From the driver disc for the device, of course. You do have the driver disc ? Well, assuming you don't, you can obviously go back to the card's vendor and d/l a driver kit or you can resort to digging into the bowels of the beast and extract them from Windows itself. The Windows Device Manager entry for the device has a Device tab w/ a Device Details button, which should give you the location of the .sys and .inf files. If the .inf isn't indicated, it's somewhere under \WINDOWS\INF.

For completeness sake, there are some built-in kernel modules that do WiFi directly. My bcm4306 is almost supported w/ the bcm43xx kernel module under Knoppix. Almost, as it requires a slightly illegal util which extracts (cuts) downloadable firmware from the .sys file of the Windows driver and loads it via the bcm43xx kernel module. It was great until the great WPA migration weekend, at which time the bcm43xx kernel module decided it didn't grok WPA. WPA means wpa_supplicant, which is a matter for another post.

Truth is, unless you have one of a handful of wireless cards (don't ask, as I don't know other than the Orinoco cards), no distro does universal turnkey WiFi. More WiFi drivers are coming out w/ every kernel update but NDISWrapper really is our friend....Jet

PS: Kof, this wasn't exclusively for your benefit, but once I started typing, I figured I go ahead and make this into a mini-HOWTO for everyone else....

PPS: The Code box w/ the script uses full paths for the programs as installed on Knoppix. Your mileage will vary, in order to use it on another distro. As always, copy+paste w/ brain engaged.

This post has been edited by jetman: 30 April 2007 - 09:07 PM

[kof94]

Well wireless networking in Linux sucks.

I cannot for the life of me get this to work in Ubuntu. I've now resorted to trailing a large cat-6 cable across the landing and downstairs to the router, much to my Wife's discussed. Actually that's not true she finds it bloody hilarious .

The drills coming out tomorrow along with some cable clips and a hammer. Shortest route is a straight line and all that!

As far as Ubuntu was concerned, it knew exactly what my wlan card was and assigned a driver to it, just didn't want to work. I've even gone as far as broadcasting my ssid and disabling all security, still no go.

Oh well, as least I'm on the net now. I'll probably return to this again but to be honest I was losing my patience with it and that doesn't help anyone.

This post has been edited by kof94: 01 May 2007 - 05:03 PM

[jetman]

kof94, on May 1 2007, 05:02 PM, said:

Well wireless networking in Linux sucks.

I cannot for the life of me get this to work in Ubuntu. I've now resorted to trailing a large cat-6 cable across the landing and downstairs to the router, much to my Wife's discussed. Actually that's not true she finds it bloody hilarious

Not true. You simply haven't relinquished "ready-to-wear" WiFi Windows drivers yet. When I did my 1st Unix (actually FreeBSD) WiFi project about four years ago, I had Orinoco/Agere cards and they worked almost instantly. I think they're the only company that has completely OSS driver support for Linux/BSD/Unix. I was spoiled too, but I got over that, as you will. But by your remarks, I probably would've found last nite's scene entertaining, as did your spouse.

Quote

The drills coming out tomorrow along with some cable clips and a hammer. Shortest route is a straight line and all that!

As far as Ubuntu was concerned, it knew exactly what my wlan card was and assigned a driver to it, just didn't want to work. I've even gone as far as broadcasting my ssid and disabling all security, still no go.

Go ahead and wire up a little Ethernet "security blanket", then when you've got your patience back, you'll see it wasn't that tough after all. I can share a couple more pointers:

1) The sequence of iwconfig cmds to setup WiFi seems to be sensitive to the order of each element (AP/SSID/WEP key/channel) is sent to the card. This was esp true, in order to enable WPA.

2) Since you can specifically choose an AP by MAC address, you should have no trouble disabling SSID again. I gave up on that bec Windows simply wouldn't cooperate.

3) Did you look the system or kernel logs for more init details about your WiFi cards ? My WPCI810G is detected (under Knoppix), but the bcm43xx driver doesn't know that to do w/ it, for lack of firmware. Which reqs human intervention.

Anyway, scarf a Guinness or something and relax....Jet

[kof94]

Quote

Go ahead and wire up a little Ethernet "security blanket", then when you've got your patience back, you'll see it wasn't that tough after all.

Exactly my thoughts. I went back to have another go and discovered NDISWrapper was actually unable to use the generic Broadcom driver I use or the bodged Belkin/Broadcom driver that came with the card.

Although it's probably only bodged under Windows cause it installs extra sortware that peaks the CPU to 100% after about half an hour on the net.

I'm gonna have another go tonight with a fresh sense of humour and see what happens.

I nearly forgot, I switched to WPA as well last night (after all of the above) is this a good idea now or am I just asking for trouble?

This post has been edited by kof94: 02 May 2007 - 02:59 AM

[jetman]

kof94, on May 2 2007, 02:54 AM, said:

[Exactly my thoughts. I went back to have another go and discovered NDISWrapper was actually unable to use the generic Broadcom driver I use or the bodged Belkin/Broadcom driver that came with the card.

Although it's probably only bodged under Windows cause it installs extra sortware that peaks the CPU to 100% after about half an hour on the net.

I'm gonna have another go tonight with a fresh sense of humour and see what happens.

I nearly forgot, I switched to WPA as well last night (after all of the above) is this a good idea now or am I just asking for trouble?

Hmmm. Not sure what you mean by generic Broadcom driver WRT to NDISWrapper. See, the generic Broadcom driver I know is the kernel module that comes w/ Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I think that's bcm43xx, at least that's what I know it to be under ZenWalk Live (Slax done better) and Knoppix 5.1. Isn't used with NDISWrapper. Now, referring back to my mini-HOWTO, check your kernel log for details about why the driver didn't like your card. OTOH, using the NDISWrapper and the Belkin files is more troubling. Just to see what success others have had w/ your gear, one can try LinuxQuestions HCL.

WPA ? Absolutely better than WEP. As I've been reading and hearing lately, WEP can be cracked so easily my grandmother could probably figure it out ! WPA isn't even hard to setup w/ Linux. Just another program to add to the mix. I can't call myself an expert on all of these subjects, but my PCs earn their keep daily under Windows and Linux. I'm even typing this from my mini-WiFi router via IceWeasel (what a lousy name !)

Anyway, TTYL....Jet

[kof94]

The first post I read on LinuxQuestions HCL about my card:

Quote

After much frustration trying to find native drivers and trying to get ndiswrapper working, I've given up on this card. My recommendation would be to avoid this device completely. It is extremely difficult to get working -- I have not found one review or tutorial anywhere that didn't say it was impossible. I'm on my way right now to exchange it for something made by Ralink... the non-Linux-compatible Broadcom chipset is a headache.

This guy was also running it under Ubuntu.

Hay-ho all is not lost, I'll have my wired connection in a tidy, permanent condition in a few days so none of this will matter so much. I wouldn't be so hasty if it wasn't such a necessity. Ubuntu without the internet is like cutting an arm off!

I'm gonna keep play with this though. I might be able to grab another card (not Belkin/Broadcom) of a work colleague to try out so I'll see what happens then.

At the end of the day this is all good practice. I'm determined to be less Windows dependent and more Linux savvy so the more I play with the better.

Thanks for your help Jet.

[jetman]

kof94, on May 2 2007, 03:42 PM, said:

The first post I read on LinuxQuestions HCL about my card:

<snip>

This guy was also running it under Ubuntu.

Hay-ho all is not lost, I'll have my wired connection in a tidy, permanent condition in a few days so none of this will matter so much. I wouldn't be so hasty if it wasn't such a necessity. Ubuntu without the internet is like cutting an arm off!

I'm gonna keep play with this though. I might be able to grab another card (not Belkin/Broadcom) of a work colleague to try out so I'll see what happens then.

At the end of the day this is all good practice. I'm determined to be less Windows dependent and more Linux savvy so the more I play with the better.

Thanks for your help Jet.

I'm shocked and amazed ! I've never had a single whisper of trouble from any Belkin offering. Guess there's a 1st time for everything. If at 1st you don't succeed and all that. The biggest prob and obstacle is what you pointed out: being disconnected. Nowadays, that's like taking drugs from the addict. At least when you're hooked on the 'Net, you're in the comfort of your own home and not hanging out w/ dirtbags in abndoned buildings.

Should have something really interesting going by next Thurs. Hope so anyway. Later....Jet

[kof94]

jetman, on May 3 2007, 12:30 AM, said:

I'm shocked and amazed ! I've never had a single whisper of trouble from any Belkin offering. Guess there's a 1st time for everything. If at 1st you don't succeed and all that. The biggest prob and obstacle is what you pointed out: being disconnected. Nowadays, that's like taking drugs from the addict. At least when you're hooked on the 'Net, you're in the comfort of your own home and not hanging out w/ dirtbags in abndoned buildings.

Ooooookay..... .

jetman, on May 3 2007, 12:30 AM, said:

Should have something really interesting going by next Thurs. Hope so anyway. Later....Jet

I'm intrigued... keep talkin'...

[deadbug]

[quote name='jetman' post='635595' date='Mar 16 2007, 03:20 AM']If you need to know how to integrate XP/2K3/BartPE:

 
  "chain /BPE1.DAT" 

Now I've tried this in isolinux.cfg:

 
DEFAULT /boot/isolinux/aio.c32
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 300
TOTALTIMEOUT 450
####
MENU BACKGROUND /boot/isolinux/splash.png
MENU TITLE Super-Disc  **  09Mar07 Edition
####
####  The 1st byte of the fgnd color is brightness.
####                                    blue
MENU COLOR title        1;36;44    #ff0000ff   #00000000   std
####                                    blue
MENU COLOR unsel        37;44      #ff0000ff   #00000000   std
####                                   white
MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40    #c0ffffff   #ff000000   std
####                                     red
MENU COLOR hotkey       1;37;44    #ffff0000   #00000000   std
####                                   green
MENU COLOR hotsel       1;7;37;40  #ff00ff00   #ff000000   all
####
LABEL bpe1
MENU  Bart's PE (CDROM)
KERNEL /BPE1.DAT

LABEL bpe2
MENU  Bart's PE (IN RAM)
KERNEL /boot/isolinux/chain.c32
APPEND /BPE2.DAT
 

but when I try bpe1 I get "Invalid or corrupt kernel image" and when I try bpe2 I get "Cannot read Master Boot Record".

I assume that I'm missing something really obvious here.

I'm building the ISO with CDimage (GUI). I cannot see an explicit option to enable (or disable) boot-info-table, but since others here can get this to work using CDimage, I assume it must be there.

What am I missing?

Thanks

[deadbug]

deadbug, on May 12 2007, 02:30 PM, said:

What am I missing?

I guess I must be missing a sense of humour! I renamed BPE1.DAT to BPE1.bin and bingo it works!

Excuse me while I fume quietly in the corner for a while ...

[jetman]

deadbug, on May 12 2007, 09:31 AM, said:

I guess I must be missing a sense of humour! I renamed BPE1.DAT to BPE1.bin and bingo it works!

Excuse me while I fume quietly in the corner for a while ...

No fault, no foul. It's odd that the file ext was significant there. I certainly wouldn't have expected that and mite have made the same mistake. But now we all know better !

BTW, welcome to the world of Super-Disc. Good luck w/ your proj. What is aio.c32 ? It doesn't show up in any of my SYSLINUX kits....Jet

[deadbug]

jetman, on May 12 2007, 05:25 PM, said:

BTW, welcome to the world of Super-Disc. Good luck w/ your proj. What is aio.c32 ? It doesn't show up in any of my SYSLINUX kits....Jet

I had a nice multiboot using CDshell but given all the activity here and the fact that the Ultimate Boot CD went over to isolinux, I decided to have a go too (it was either that or watch the Eurovision song contest tonight ). My CDshell version had a set of cascading menus to cope with installing WXP with no SP, SP 1, SP2, SP2 + fixes (and each option as regular, unattended and unattended+apps). And then more menus for W2K (4 service packs) and UBCD and a bunch of other bits. That was quite painful in CDshell I can tell you. So when I switched over I took complex.c from syslinux and turned it into a clone of my old menu system and called it aio.c (which compiles to aio.c32).

I've got UBCD integrated reasonably nicely and the Windows stuff seems to at least start installing, so now I'm back to my old problem of getting Debian to install from a netinstall.iso file. I finally tried the "pretend to be installing from USB" trick that I mentioned ages ago and it _nearly_ works ... I think it would have a much greater chance of working if it successfully detected the CDROM at some stage ... anyone here know how the flow of control goes after vmlinuz drags initrd into the picture (it was _so_ easy when I opened up SLAX some time ago but Debian seems a tad more complex!).

[jetman]

deadbug, on May 12 2007, 05:42 PM, said:

I had a nice multiboot using CDshell but given all the activity here and the fact that the Ultimate Boot CD went over to isolinux, I decided to have a go too (it was either that or watch the Eurovision song contest tonight ). My CDshell version had a set of cascading menus to cope with installing WXP with no SP, SP 1, SP2, SP2 + fixes (and each option as regular, unattended and unattended+apps). And then more menus for W2K (4 service packs) and UBCD and a bunch of other bits. That was quite painful in CDshell I can tell you. So when I switched over I took complex.c from syslinux and turned it into a clone of my old menu system and called it aio.c (which compiles to aio.c32).

Hmmm... Unless you're really keen on maintain boring, old menu code, you mite take a look at menu.c32 in the later revs of SYSLINUX. While the Freshmeat proj doesn't reflect this, it's up to 3.50+. No official releases in the past several months, but pretty stable in my opinion. Per the docs, MENU and VESAMENU (the graphical menu system) work from the same config file format. There are screenshots of both on SYSLINUX web site.

Quote

I've got UBCD integrated reasonably nicely and the Windows stuff seems to at least start installing, so now I'm back to my old problem of getting Debian to install from a netinstall.iso file. I finally tried the "pretend to be installing from USB" trick that I mentioned ages ago and it _nearly_ works ... I think it would have a much greater chance of working if it successfully detected the CDROM at some stage ... anyone here know how the flow of control goes after vmlinuz drags initrd into the picture (it was _so_ easy when I opened up SLAX some time ago but Debian seems a tad more complex!).

I can't help w/ Debian per se, due to their "true-believer" ideas about free software. WRT Debain-spinoffs, I've integrated Knoppix & DSL w/o a hitch and nearly the same results w/ Kubuntu. You can boot any Linux kernel (vmlinuz) easily, the only issue is disk layout, for a successful outcome. As detailed in the 1st msg of the topic, any given kernel+init ramdisk can be relocated anywhere. Depending on the distro, you mite be able to relocate the support files (compressed filesystem, etc) to cram as many similar distros onto the same disc. Otherwise, one can always duplicate the root dir of the desired ISO in your custom disc layout.

Take Knoppix, DSL, and Slax. They all have cheat codes which permit their support files to be tucked into a custom sub-dir, as they've been designed w/ the intent to be remastered into a custom CD/DVD. OTOH, there's Kubuntu, which has almost no cheat codes at all, so I had to copy /casper, /precopy, and /ubuntu into root of my disc layout. As far as Kubuntu is concerned, it's still on its stand-alone CD, but that means I couldn't add (not that I'd even want to) one of the other Ubuntus to my Super-Disc. Make sense ?

There have been a couple of misses w/ this approach, but I've found enuf "cooperative" distros that the "problem children" aren't missed at all. I've even never considered any ISO emulation tricks, bec they're very limited and the payoff doesn't justify the effort, from my perspective. Later....Jet

[jroc74]

I joined this forum today just because of this topic. Great guide!! I've been looking for something like this for awhile. I been playing around with Linux since early last year. I want to put as many LiveCD's as I can on DVD's. I created the orig Super Disc with no problems except for some minor head scratch moments:

*vmlinuz1 has been renamed to rescuecd
*vmlinuz1.igz has been renamed to rescuecd.igz for the latest version of System Rescue CD

I didnt know where exactly to look for some of the files in the syslinux folder. I also grabbed the whole memdisk folder instead of just the file. And some other minor things that's too trivial to mention. It would help some ppl (like me) if u had made the guide a lil more dumbed down.
I also didnt know that I could take the MKISOFS post in your guide and save it as a batch file. I only found that out after I found a GUI for MKISOFS for Windows. That might help a boatload of ppl, like me, who couldnt get MKISOFS to start or were/are intimidated by it. The easiest way is to load up a sample isolinux batch that comes with the GUI, setup the correct folders in the GUI, save it, click on the newly made batch file then its off to the races. If anyone tries to use the GUI u have to set the boot image. U can use the isolinux.bin file in your boot/isolinux folder. I also found ISOLinux Mate. It helps you make your menus easier with a GUI and a preview screen. (as u can tell by those appz I'm a visual creature. GUI's ftw!!)

Imma experiment with UltraISO (it has a generate bootinfotable option) to see if it can make the right type of cd/dvd. I tried PowerISO but I got a 'ISOLinux created by' screen w/checksum error message on startup.

Ok: Right now I'm trying to make a DVD with Debian Gnome, KDE and Xfce; Kubuntu, uBuntu and Xbuntu. I cant get any of the Debians to load. The uBuntu's almost load then I get kicked to a command prompt. Now one thing I noticed is when I try to boot my single live cd's off my dvd rewriter they fail. But they load fine from the cd drive. Im trying to do this cuz I dont wanna have 20 LiveCD's laying around. Again, great guide!! Now I just gotta get the uBuntu's to act right.
<---reads post above for tips

This post has been edited by jroc74: 22 May 2007 - 04:11 PM

[kof94]

I would love to use mkisofs instead of CDImage but no one will tell me of a decent set of switches that will keep Windows and Linux happy. I also require file optimisation (writing duplicate files once) because I have two vers of XP on my disc.

Where did you get your mkisofs GUI from?

Moving on, Kubuntu, Ubuntu and any other buntu will probably give you a head ache.

I personally prefer Ubuntu, the folders required are:

.disk
boot
casper
dists
pool
preseed

The rest are just there for the Windows apps!

In previous versions you didn't need the .disk folder but as of Feisty Fawn you need it. Must be a tag or something i.e. with out it the live setup cannot find the .squashfs file.

This post has been edited by kof94: 22 May 2007 - 02:36 PM

[jroc74]

I got both the mkisofs GUI and ISOLinux Mate from here:

http://members.chello.at/bobby100/ Its also has some good reading material. (for newbies like me) One section breaks down what ISOLinux does and what each file do. If u get the GUI and it doesnt start, click on the help file in the folder that u extracted the GUI to. Click installation to the left and it tells u everything u need with download links. Just put all necessary files in the folder u extracted the GUI to.

EDIT:
I'm still at it. If yall dont use it, get MagicISO. This way u can just open the iso, edit what files u need to, save it, and test. Its beautiful cuz when u edit files in the iso and save it, its like saving a regular file. No need to remake the iso all over.

EDIT:

Im getting somewhere!! I think my folder names were too long for Debian. I made em no longer than 8 letters and finally I got past the OS choice screen. Got all the way down to loading file system then....some error message and a command prompt.

This post has been edited by jroc74: 22 May 2007 - 09:44 PM

[jetman]

jroc74, on May 22 2007, 12:37 AM, said:

I joined this forum today just because of this topic. Great guide!! I've been looking for something like this for awhile. I been playing around with Linux since early last year. I want to put as many LiveCD's as I can on DVD's. I created the orig Super Disc with no problems except for some minor head scratch moments:

*vmlinuz1 has been renamed to rescuecd
*vmlinuz1.igz has been renamed to rescuecd.igz for the latest version of System Rescue CD

Welcome. Renaming is cool, but beware that SYSLINUX mite be sensitive to filename lgths, particularly WRT the names of kernel and init ramdisk images. I'm not absolutely certain, but beware....

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I didnt know where exactly to look for some of the files in the syslinux folder. I also grabbed the whole memdisk folder instead of just the file. And some other minor things that's too trivial to mention. It would help some ppl (like me) if u had made the guide a lil more dumbed down.

I'll review certain instructions like the MEMDISK thing that you mention.

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I also didnt know that I could take the MKISOFS post in your guide and save it as a batch file. I only found that out after I found a GUI for MKISOFS for Windows. That might help a boatload of ppl, like me, who couldnt get MKISOFS to start or were/are intimidated by it. The easiest way is to load up a sample isolinux batch that comes with the GUI, setup the correct folders in the GUI, save it, click on the newly made batch file then its off to the races. If anyone tries to use the GUI u have to set the boot image. U can use the isolinux.bin file in your boot/isolinux folder. I also found ISOLinux Mate. It helps you make your menus easier with a GUI and a preview screen. (as u can tell by those appz I'm a visual creature. GUI's ftw!!)

ISOLINUX Mate is worth looking into. Thanx for the pointer.

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Imma experiment with UltraISO (it has a generate bootinfotable option) to see if it can make the right type of cd/dvd. I tried PowerISO but I got a 'ISOLinux created by' screen w/checksum error message on startup.

Ok: Right now I'm trying to make a DVD with Debian Gnome, KDE and Xfce; Kubuntu, uBuntu and Xbuntu. I cant get any of the Debians to load. The uBuntu's almost load then I get kicked to a command prompt. Now one thing I noticed is when I try to boot my single live cd's off my dvd rewriter they fail. But they load fine from the cd drive. Im trying to do this cuz I dont wanna have 20 LiveCD's laying around. Again, great guide!! Now I just gotta get the uBuntu's to act right.
<---reads post above for tips

My work on Kubuntu found its way into Super-Disc's predecessor, many months ago. It booted into the GUI, but that's as far as I went w/ it. Essentially, the Ubuntu family are more demo discs than live CDs, hence I've never done much w/ them in their stock form. When time permits, I want to do some customization, then perhaps they'll find their way back into good graces. But to make them work, I now believe one must do the work in Linux exclusively, as I suspect there are symlinks on the disc that can't be represented in the Windows world. Another pos consideration, is the Rock Ridge ISO attribute. Not researched WRT Ubuntu, but something to keep in mind. I did find this attr critical in making something else work and mite be helpful. However, I also discovered that Rock Ridge was like Kryptonite to the BartPE/Windows systems on the DVD !

Here's something else which may be helpful for bgnd info: the Ubuntu Customization Kit. Haven't used it yet, but it's high on my TODO list....Jet

[jetman]

kof94, on May 22 2007, 02:33 PM, said:

I would love to use mkisofs instead of CDImage but no one will tell me of a decent set of switches that will keep Windows and Linux happy. I also require file optimisation (writing duplicate files once) because I have two vers of XP on my disc.

Dude ! You don't need MKISOFS (at least not directly) bec you have Slax and K3B ! The Slax module repo (at least) has a (late) K3B 1.0-RC module (I made and uploaded it) and probably has a production 1.01 (from someone else) by now. Moreover, the batch script I provided earlier is almost certain to make a BartPE/Slax/Knoppix hybrid as is. I seem to recall that it did ! Will review and get back to you. I only abandoned it bec I got better turnaround times from UltraISO and bec of the graphical layout builder. With K3B, you get that too for free !

Maybe it's time for a K3B addendum....Jet

PS: How goes your pursuit of connectivity ?