Build a Gentoo install/boot/rescue LiveCD USB

xanthumn · n00b Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 9

woffer, this was posted above.... all you need to do is

murphynet · n00b Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 10

xanthumn, I haven't made any progress but did you do run livcd-ng gentoo-basic clean ? I did and am suspicious that it might have gotten rid of something of importance. I haven't tried it without the clean command as school has taken much of my time recently... just a suggestion, I'm not too optimistic about it.
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BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

That didnt work for me. I went all the way to 7500 and get the same error. Any ideas?

Mark

xanthumn · n00b Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 9

I did end up needing to run livecd-ng <profilename> clean
to drop the cloop size from 200mb (650mb uncompressed) to 67mb (200 uncompressed).

I figured out the problem I had booting the livecd
It is the stage3 I was using. I found the older
stage3-x86-1.4_rc4.tar.bz2 here.

This allowed my livecd creation to boot up fine and dandy.

It seems that the newer stage3 doesn't start devfs and mount proc before
trying to run checkroot.

Hope this helps.

-xanthumn
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scottd34 · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 8:52 am Post subject:

I was having trouble with the release version of the stage 3 tarball. No matter what I did, it stopped at the extracting stage tarball portion with an error about /opt/download/cdroot/usr/portage not existing.

Looks like scrounging up an old rc4 is working a bit better.. we shall see if it fixes it.

Any ideas about what could be wrong and a possible fix so we can use the current release version of stage 3?

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

I was able to get past that point by manually creating the portage directory before it checks for it. Let me know if you are actually able to get past the initrd phase. Thats where I am getting stuck.

Mark

scottd34 · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 9:37 am Post subject:

ya, no probs with the quick fix of adding the directory manually.. lets see if itll get past the kernel build.. it didnt on the rc version.

Well, im stuck where The Sentinel got stuck.. with the following error no matter how I adjust the two settings for cloop space and inodes in the mke2fs

Keyed · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 3:06 pm Post subject:

When livecd-ng fails with running out of space, check

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

The interesting thing about this thread is that everyone has had the same error message about running out of disk space except me. My error, during the initrd stage, says:

Using current working directory as LIVECD_ROOT.
80000+0 records in
80000+0 records out
mount: could not find any device /dev/loop#
chroot_generate: aborting.

So, has anyone else seen this at ALL? I am running with the released 1.4 stage3 on the x86 platform.

Mark

scottd34 · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 7:57 pm Post subject:

the suggestion in the post above about changing the count variable worked for me. Give it a shot.. hopefully its the same thing youre having trouble with.
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woffer · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 9:04 pm Post subject:

oops, how the hell could I miss that.. blackout or something.
Thanks xanthumn.

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Nope. Thats still not my problem.

woffer · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 10:07 pm Post subject:

Compile the loopback device module in the kernel.
It's under Block devices.
That should fix the missing loop device. (ofc insmod it before trying again)

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

woffer,

Should I make it a module or build it in? If I make it a module, how do I load it? Whats it name?

Mark

woffer · Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 10:22 pm Post subject:

Module is simpler, since you won't use it that often and you don't have to reboot to load it =)

loop.o

edit: load it by typing modprobe loop

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Now that DID work, and I was able to get all the way through the process, however, when I try to boot the CD, I just get a whole bunch of errors and then it just dies. Before building the cloop and creating the image, is it possible to chroot into the new system and make codifications, etc?

Mark

Keyed · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 1:25 am Post subject:

Yes, if you enter

BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Interesting. Seems that it has ONLY done up to a stage 2 install. Even teh kernel is not emerged and you cant even run the emerge application. What gives? How would you build a completely running OS with this? What am I missing?

Mark

Keyed · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 2:48 am Post subject:

At this point, you are using the kernel from your normal linux. When you "chroot" into cdroot, you are changing your root directory to cdroot and it runs the commands within the directory structure of cdroot. All of the executables within the cdroot tree are operational. All of your pathing is with respect to the directory tree within cdroot. It is primarily for configuration tweaks before making the cd.
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BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Ok. That I can understand, but... IN a message on page 2, someone talks about how the CD could not mount the filesystem as R/W. Has anyone found a fix for this yet or do we just have to use the 1.4-rc4 tarball for now?

Mark

Keyed · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 3:39 am Post subject:

I saw where one user had a problem with initrd, but there was another post from the same user saying that he just about had it solved.

It depends on what you are trying to do. This HOWTO was primarily written for make a livecd configured for USB stick booting. Others are using it for just making a livecd/rescue cd like the images available for download, and others want customized livecd. Some of the instructions are primarily intended for the USB booting issue.

I am just about finished building current 20030907 tarballs stage1-x86, stage2-x86, stage3-x86, stage2-pentium4, stage3-pentium4. Just using a few idle cycles, but I wanted to get the stages and put them into isoroot and regenerate the livecd iso before I tested the cd for booting.

I got the livecd-ng to generate the cd image (correctly I hope) and I have had no problems with stager and the stage building process. When I burn the cd image, I want to have everything I want on it to make for an easy rescue/restore. If it flops, all I have to iron out is the livecd part, the tarballs will be good to store on a cd or on another drive for easy access.
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BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Yeah. What I was looking to do was to create a fully functional Linux CD with Gentoo that would run a specific application. I guess a KNOPPIX look alike of sorts. I have the need for a Linux system that can be booted from a CD to run this app.

I can use KNOPPIX for this purpose, and it does very well at it, but it would be much easier to create a system from scratch rather than to attempt to tak eone apart little by little.

Is this not really possible yet with Gentoo? I did chroot into my ISO system with livecd-ng, but emerge was not there and again, no real usable OS was available fo rme either.

Mark

xanthumn · n00b Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 9

woffer: no problem, I had to scan the post several times before I saw that.

I can report near total success with building a bootable livecd

I only have some /etc/runlevels/boot/* error messages saying that checkfs, localmount, clock, and bootmisc could not be started.
However, when I check the status of each service, they say they have started. As I am writing this from within my livecd system, I don't think I need to stress too much.
Thanks for all the help everyone.

As soon as I get a USBstick, the first thing I am going to do is create a LiveUSBstick

xanthumn
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BurnedOutGeek · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2003 Posts: 27

Man. Could you possibly post some of the things that you did to make an actual livecd? That would be a BIG help!

Mark

woffer · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 8:54 pm Post subject:

Woho, my livecd work now!
but I get the same errors as xanthumn, and an extra error before that...
something about /dev/tty0 not being found while setting keymap.