Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
SystemRescueCD on the main hard drive
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

 
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Other Things Gentoo
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
hujuice
Guru
Guru


Joined: 16 Oct 2007
Posts: 336
Location: Rome, Italy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 1:48 pm    Post subject: SystemRescueCD on the main hard drive Reply with quote

Here is simply a practice that I adopt from years and that I find excellent for my purposes. Lightly OT with respect to Gentoo.

SystemRescueCD (SRCD) is a Live GNU/Linux distro, based on Gentoo, mostly oriented to perform rescue tasks.
SRCD is also useful to make a fresh Gentoo install. Gentoo folks find it comfortable.

But it is years that I'm very happy to have SRCD on the main hard drive of my computers. All cold tasks, like partition management, bootloader juggling and so on, have a quick, always present working environment to use. It can also be useful on remote machines where running a live system could be a pain.
SRCD is less than half Gb in size, really small with respect to modern hard drives.

Having it available is really simple: copy four files - sysrcd.dat, sysrcd.md5, initram.igz, rescue64|rescue32 - in a volume reachable by the bootloader and add a bootloader entry having rescue64 as kernel and initram.igz as initiramfs.
For example, in my extlinux configuration I have:
Code:
# System Rescue CD
LABEL SystemRescueCD
    MENU LABEL SystemRescueCD
    KERNEL /rescue64
    INITRD /initram.igz
    APPEND setkmap=it


Finally, a fresh Gentoo installation for me is:
    Run SRCD from USB, manage partitions and copy SRCD files
    install extlinux from SRCD and write some bootloader configuration
    reboot from the main hard drive and install Gentoo as usually


I hope that someone can find it useful.

Regards,
HUjuice
_________________
Who hasn't a spine, should have a method.
Chi non ha carattere, deve pur avere un metodo.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Section_8
l33t
l33t


Joined: 22 May 2004
Posts: 627

PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure if this accomplishes the same thing, but I just emerge systemrescuecd-x86 and systemrescuecd-x86-grub, which emerges the current SRCD .iso image, and SRCD grub menu entries so I can just boot SRCD straight from the hard drive when needed for maintenance.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Naib
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6051
Location: Removed by Neddy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Section_8 wrote:
I'm not sure if this accomplishes the same thing, but I just emerge systemrescuecd-x86 and systemrescuecd-x86-grub, which emerges the current SRCD .iso image, and SRCD grub menu entries so I can just boot SRCD straight from the hard drive when needed for maintenance.
unless a BIOS update removes the bootloader ;)
_________________
Quote:
Removed by Chiitoo
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nativemad
Developer
Developer


Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 918
Location: Switzerland

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Grub2 is able to boot directly from the iso itself, so no need to extract it for every upgrade! :wink:
Code:
menuentry "SystemRescueCd (isoloop)" {
    search --no-floppy --label boot --set=root
    loopback loop /systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso
    linux (loop)/isolinux/rescue64 isoloop=systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso
    initrd (loop)/isolinux/initram.igz
}

_________________
Power to the people!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Naib
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6051
Location: Removed by Neddy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nativemad wrote:
Grub2 is able to boot directly from the iso itself, so no need to extract it for every upgrade! :wink:
Code:
menuentry "SystemRescueCd (isoloop)" {
    search --no-floppy --label boot --set=root
    loopback loop /systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso
    linux (loop)/isolinux/rescue64 isoloop=systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso
    initrd (loop)/isolinux/initram.igz
}
or just emerge the sysrescueCD grub entry package
_________________
Quote:
Removed by Chiitoo
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
hujuice
Guru
Guru


Joined: 16 Oct 2007
Posts: 336
Location: Rome, Italy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Section_8 wrote:
I'm not sure if this accomplishes the same thing, but I just emerge systemrescuecd-x86 and systemrescuecd-x86-grub, which emerges the current SRCD .iso image, and SRCD grub menu entries so I can just boot SRCD straight from the hard drive when needed for maintenance.


I think it's the same. I didn't know that package (but I don't use grub).
_________________
Who hasn't a spine, should have a method.
Chi non ha carattere, deve pur avere un metodo.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Other Things Gentoo All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum