Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 09:33:22PM -0400, Bernie Innocenti wrote:

El Sun, 30-08-2009 a las 20:12 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard escribió:

Yes, the name of the tool is misleading: It works with other fs types 
too - its main purpose it partitioning, not fs formatting.  I 
succesfully booted USB sticks formatted as ext2 (as far as I recall - 
I last worked with it a year ago).


On a side note, which filesystem should be chosen in order to minimize 
wearing to USB sticks?


I would assume that the any DOS filesystem will continouously rewrite 
to the FAT blocks.  Maybe the best choice would be ext4 with the 
journal disabled?


For read-only parts: some compressed filesystem (to minimize read wear), 
e.g. squashfs or the FUSE2-based fusecompress write-protected.


For read/write parts: some filesystem without journaling, best a log fs 
(i.e. "rotating" fs), e.g. nilfs2.


...but that is looking only at wear.  Taking reliability and performance 
into account too, I would use ext4 without journaling (possibly even for 
read-only stuff too, just write-protected, to ease administration and 
possibly also memory concumption and performance due to simpler and 
shared cache handling!).


A hint about ext4 disabling journaling: There is 2 ways of doing it - 
setting a flag in the ext4 metadata and setting a flag in the root dir 
metadata.  The first is the obvious one, but was introduced only in 
Linux 2.6.30 (or was it 2.6.29?).  The other method works also with 
earlier incarnations of ext4, but works only if you set it as the very 
first activity on the filesystem, as newly created objects inherit 
features from the dir they were created in.



 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Luke Faraone]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 21:37, Mitch Bradley  wrote:

>
>> On a side note, which filesystem should be chosen in order to minimize
>> wearing to USB sticks?
>>
>  My vote would be squashfs.


What about for the writable part of the filesystem, since squashfs is
read-only?


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

El Sun, 30-08-2009 a las 20:12 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard escribió:

> Yes, the name of the tool is misleading: It works with other fs types 
> too - its main purpose it partitioning, not fs formatting.  I 
> succesfully booted USB sticks formatted as ext2 (as far as I recall - I 
> last worked with it a year ago).

On a side note, which filesystem should be chosen in order to minimize
wearing to USB sticks?

I would assume that the any DOS filesystem will continouously rewrite to
the FAT blocks.  Maybe the best choice would be ext4 with the journal
disabled?

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 10:10:09AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

On 08/30/2009 10:05 AM, Dan Krejsa wrote:


Well, to begin with, neither the makebootfat documentation nor the 
source code seem to make any mention of aligning disk and filesystem 
data structures consistent with the erase block size for the flash on 
a particular USB disk.


Now, perhaps this is _usually_ an implicit result of the FAT cluster 
sizes, the geometry chosen, and makefatboot's default layout, but it 
is certainly not explicit.


Oh - that's bad :-(

I wrongly assumed that makebootfat was capable of setting cluster sizes.




To do proper alignment, you want to align ALL of these on a multiple of
the cluster size:

- The partition start
- The first FAT
- The length of each FAT
- The size of the root directory (for FAT16)

Neither of these are usually aligned unless special effort is taken to
that effect.  The other thing that might be worthwhile is to not use FAT
at all, but use ext2/3/4, which means only the partition start becomes
an alignment issue.  It should still work to have the fake-FAT-in-MBR, I
suspect.


Yes, the name of the tool is misleading: It works with other fs types 
too - its main purpose it partitioning, not fs formatting.  I 
succesfully booted USB sticks formatted as ext2 (as far as I recall - I 
last worked with it a year ago).



 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Dan Krejsa]

Hi Jonas,

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 6:21 AM, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:36:05AM -0400, Luke Faraone wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:
>>
>>  makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but also
>>> use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking* right by
>>> various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and USB-HDD.
>>>
>>
>> Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that meets
>> the
>> criteria of
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win(without
>> the problems caused by
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting
>> )?
>>
>>
>> I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if
>> USB-{FDD,
>> ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want to minimize
>> wear.
>>
>
> Please read the following:
> http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7
>
> If you, after reading above, still feel that your questions are relevant
> (hint: I don't), then please elaborate on them.
>

Well, to begin with, neither the makebootfat documentation nor the source
code seem
to make any mention of aligning disk and filesystem data structures
consistent with the erase block
size for the flash on a particular USB disk.

Now, perhaps this is _usually_ an implicit result of the FAT cluster sizes,
the geometry chosen, and
makefatboot's default layout, but it is certainly not explicit.

- Dan
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

El Sun, 30-08-2009 a las 09:20 -0700, H. Peter Anvin escribió: 
> On 08/30/2009 04:41 AM, Luke Faraone wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard  > > wrote:
> > 
> > makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but
> > also use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking*
> > right by various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and
> > USB-HDD.
> > 
> > Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that meets
> > the criteria of
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win 
> > (without
> > the problems caused by
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting)?
> > 
> > 
> > I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if
> > USB-{FDD, ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want to
> > minimize wear.
> > 
> 
> Wear leveling needs to be done in a separate layer if you're doing to
> use a conventional filesystem.

I didn't know it was even possible to peel the built-in FTL of USB
sticks and use them as bare NAND devices suitable for MTD or UBI.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 10:31:07AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

On 08/30/2009 10:15 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


So if I have now triggered your interest in this technique, Peter, 
then perhaps we will see interesting funky tricks in syslinux in the 
future?




Well, this is really independent of Syslinux... it's a special MBR; if 
you notice, makebootfat has the instructions on how to build such a 
hybrid stick with Syslinux.


Oh, ok.

I thought that syslinux (and pxelinux, isolinux etc.) was closely tied 
to the mechanism of a MBR, and even ships with some MBR...


I'll keep on dreaming, then :-)


 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 03:21:18PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:36:05AM -0400, Luke Faraone wrote:

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:

makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, 
but also use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of 
*looking* right by various BIOSes - both when looking for 
USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and USB-HDD.


Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that 
meets the criteria of 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win(without 
the problems caused by 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting 
)?



I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if 
USB-{FDD, ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want 
to minimize wear.


Please read the following: 
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7


If you, after reading above, still feel that your questions are 
relevant (hint: I don't), then please elaborate on them.


Sorry - I now realize that my response above might be seen as rude.

Thing is, I really didn't talk about how to do things right at all, but 
that in *addition* to do formatting, the makebootfat tool can setup an 
MBR that tricks BIOS into treating the USB stick as a bootable device - 
no matter if the BIOS looks for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP or USB-HDD.


In other words, with makebootfat (if it really holds up to its promise), 
you can create USB sticks that are bootable on more hardware:


Instead of "bootable on hardware that supports USB-FDD boot method" or 
"bootable on hardware that supports USB-ZIP boot method" or "bootable on 
hardware that supports USB-HDD boot method" - makebootfat creates sticks 
that are "bootable on hardware that supports either USB-FDD, USB-ZIP or 
USB-HDD boot methods".


...or, as Peter Anvin points out (if I understand correctly), 
makebootfat creates sticks that are "bootable on hardware that supports 
either USB-FDD, USB-ZIP or USB-HDD boot methods and does note choke on 
the combo tricks in the MBR cheat design".



In other words, makebootfat does not magically deal with the challenges 
of NAND wear - the issue is another: Reliable NAND storage is worthless 
for booting Sugar if your hardware does not recognize the media as 
bootable in the first place!



Hope that helps :-)

 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 09:32:48AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

On 08/30/2009 06:21 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


Please read the following:
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7

If you, after reading above, still feel that your questions are 
relevant (hint: I don't), then please elaborate on them.




It's an interesting technique -- what he's doing is creating an MBR 
with a fake FAT superblock.  What it does make me wonder is how many 
BIOSes end up doing something stupid (e.g. go to a floppy-only mode 
where INT 13h AH=08h doesn't work right) instead of something right.


Unfortunately I have not stats on the success rate of the technique - on 
the paper it sounds cool, and from the little experimentation I've done 
it acutally succeeded in a few cases to provide me a USB stick that was 
bootable on different BIOSes - which if using syslinux I could only make 
boot on one or the other.


I do not master the details of juggling with this (e.g. I only know that 
INT 13h is "something related to very early BIOS booting...").


So if I have now triggered your interest in this technique, Peter, then 
perhaps we will see interesting funky tricks in syslinux in the future?



;-)

 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:36:05AM -0400, Luke Faraone wrote:

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:

makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but 
also use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking* 
right by various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and 
USB-HDD.


Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that meets the
criteria of
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win(without
the problems caused by
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting
)?


I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if USB-{FDD,
ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want to minimize
wear.


Please read the following: 
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7


If you, after reading above, still feel that your questions are relevant 
(hint: I don't), then please elaborate on them.



Kind regards,

 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Luke Faraone]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:

> makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but also
> use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking* right by
> various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and USB-HDD.

Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that meets the
criteria of
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win(without
the problems caused by
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting
)?


I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if USB-{FDD,
ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want to minimize
wear.

Thanks,
Luke Faraone
http://luke.faraone.cc
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

[dropping fedora list which flat out drops unsubscribed mail anyway]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 11:18:00AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

Bernie Innocenti wrote:

El Sat, 29-08-2009 a las 10:25 -0400, Luke Faraone escribió:


Well, the USB format idea was left unimplemented as we (I) couldn't 
get it working, but we should probably take a look at makebootfat to 
achieve the same goals.


Or just use parted instead of fdisk to wipe the MBR and create it from 
scratch.  It does the right thing on the USB sticks I tried.




Note that the Syslinux tool "mkdiskimage" can be used to create disk 
images (or disk) with arbitrary geometry.


...which is an important part of the puzzle, and the one that have been 
discussed the most in this thread.


However, please note that "the right thing" regarding partition table IS 
NOT ENOUGH for all BIOSes to recognize the USB stick as a bootable 
device!


makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but 
also use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking* right 
by various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and USB-HDD.



 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

El Sat, 29-08-2009 a las 10:25 -0400, Luke Faraone escribió:


> 
> Well, the USB format idea was left unimplemented as we (I) couldn't
> get it working, but we should probably take a look at makebootfat to
> achieve the same goals.

Or just use parted instead of fdisk to wipe the MBR and create it from
scratch.  It does the right thing on the USB sticks I tried.


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Luke Faraone]

resending to list via my proper email:

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 10:15, Bernie Innocenti  wrote:
>
>>
>> it would be great if someone could expand this paragraph:
>>
>>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Soas#Boot
>>
>> This page is not even linked from it:
>>
>>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/USB_format
>>
>
Well, the USB format idea was left unimplemented as we (I) couldn't get it
working, but we should probably take a look at makebootfat to achieve the
same goals.



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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

El Sat, 29-08-2009 a las 15:17 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard escribió:
> BTW, are all these details about USB booting being collected somewhere 
> on a wiki page?

it would be great if someone could expand this paragraph:

  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Soas#Boot

This page is not even linked from it:

  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/USB_format


A few months ago, I got this useful piece of information which makes a
lot of previously unbootable machines work:

- Mensaje reenviado 
De: H. Peter Anvin 
Para: Bernie Innocenti 
Cc: sysli...@zytor.com, Jeremy Katz , Development
discussions related to Fedora Core , Sugar
Devel 
Asunto: Re: Unbootable machine
Fecha: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:10:37 -0700

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> On 06/02/09 03:43, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>>> 221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders
>> I don't know where fdisk, the Linux kernel, or whatever come up with
>> these kinds of geometries.  They're almost universally non-bootable.
> 
> Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:
> 
> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
  ^^

Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
255 heads, 63 sectors.

-hpa


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 09:26:41AM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 02:40:38AM +0200, Bernie Innocenti wrote:

On 06/01/09 08:39, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
I need much more details; *all* Award BIOSes make in the past 10-12 
years have version number 6.00PG.


Ouch, I no longer have access to it.  I asked the owner to let me 
know.



Also look for how you have configured your BIOS... some Award BIOSes 
have USB-ZIP, USB-HDD, USB-FDD configurations; you generally want 
USB-HDD.


In my (older non-Sugar) experience, USB-HDD is best, then USB-ZIP, and 
if none of those options are available then pick USB-FDD (which is then 
most likely names something else).


Whatever you pick, make sure to mention the choice when reporting 
trouble, to help recognize similarities in use cases.



I booted from the BBS menu (F8), the item was labelled something like 
"USB HDD 2.0".


Another important thing (not sure if it has been mentioned before) is 
to *cold* boot with stick already inserted.  That is, insert the USB 
stick before turning on the machine - and after using BIOS or some 
operating system then power down the machine completely, wait a few 
seconds, and then boot it.


The reason for this (as I understand it) is that the simple BIOS USB 
drivers often do not reliably handle switching state.


This also means that a last desperate test could be to 1) boot that 
other operating system (Windows or Mac), 2) insert USB stick and 3) 
reboot (*without* shutting down completely).  It might work, but you 
then have the heavy and slow burden of your USB boot routine including 
a full bootup and shutdown of another operating system. :-/


As a related note (I was sure it was mentioned already in another thread 
but can't find it now) the tool makebootfat includes a custom Master 
Boot Record (MBR) presenting itself as both USB-FDD and USB-ZIP, 
tricking more BIOSes into starting their boot routines using same setup 
on a USB stick: http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/boot-readme.html


Also, the bootloader Gujin contains a stripped-down driver for ext4 so 
might be interesting for a fast-booting USB setup: 
http://gujin.sourceforge.net/




BTW, are all these details about USB booting being collected somewhere 
on a wiki page?



 - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> 
> Sorry, I mistyped the numbers.  It was really 255 heads, 63 sectors:
> 
> (parted) p
> Model: LEXAR JD EXPRESSION (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sdb: 123,86,26
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
> BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 123,255,63.  Each cylinder is 8225kB.
> Partition Table: msdos
> 

Ah, okay.  Does 64x32 work, too?

I'm trying to gather as much information about what makes sticks boot...

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>
>> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors.
> 
> Indeed, repartitioning the USB stick with 32 sectors and 255 heads fixed
> boot for a previously unbootable computer.
> 

32x255?  That's an odd mix?  Does 32x64 work on that machine, too?

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/04/09 20:51, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>>
>>> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors.
>>
>> Indeed, repartitioning the USB stick with 32 sectors and 255 heads fixed
>> boot for a previously unbootable computer.
>>
> 
> 32x255?  That's an odd mix?  Does 32x64 work on that machine, too?

Sorry, I mistyped the numbers.  It was really 255 heads, 63 sectors:

(parted) p
Model: LEXAR JD EXPRESSION (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 123,86,26
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 123,255,63.  Each cylinder is 8225kB.
Partition Table: msdos


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Sascha Silbe]

On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 03:57:05PM +0200, Bernie Innocenti wrote:


Thanks, Peter.  I think we should document this tip in the Sugar on a
Stick wiki page and perhaps change the Fedora livecd-iso-to-disk 
script

to create the MBR with parted rather than fdisk.
You could also just tell fdisk what to use (-H 64 -S 32). parted (the 
CLI tool) doesn't seem to provide a way to specify those values, so you 
rely on it to do The Right Thing.


CU Sascha

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/02/09 07:10, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>> On 06/02/09 03:43, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
 Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
 221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders
>>> I don't know where fdisk, the Linux kernel, or whatever come up with
>>> these kinds of geometries.  They're almost universally non-bootable.
>>
>> Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
>   ^^
> 
> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
> 255 heads, 63 sectors.

Indeed, repartitioning the USB stick with 32 sectors and 255 heads fixed
boot for a previously unbootable computer.

Thanks, Peter.  I think we should document this tip in the Sugar on a
Stick wiki page and perhaps change the Fedora livecd-iso-to-disk script
to create the MBR with parted rather than fdisk.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>>
>>> Also look for how you have configured your BIOS... some Award BIOSes
>>> have USB-ZIP, USB-HDD, USB-FDD configurations; you generally want USB-HDD.
> 
> In my (older non-Sugar) experience, USB-HDD is best, then USB-ZIP, and 
> if none of those options are available then pick USB-FDD (which is then 
> most likely names something else).
> 

This is absolutely the order of preference.

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>
>> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors.
> 
> Shouldn't fdisk guess these values automagically?
> And, more importantly, who are we going to blame if it doesn't? ;-)
> 

I don't know.  It might be an fdisk issue; Linux fdisk has *always*
behaved in this way, but I haven't looked at that code at all.

-hpa
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> On 06/02/09 03:43, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>>> 221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders
>> I don't know where fdisk, the Linux kernel, or whatever come up with
>> these kinds of geometries.  They're almost universally non-bootable.
> 
> Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:
> 
> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
  ^^

Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
255 heads, 63 sectors.

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
> 221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders

I don't know where fdisk, the Linux kernel, or whatever come up with
these kinds of geometries.  They're almost universally non-bootable.

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Caroline Meeks wrote:
> Luke and Sasha are working on a new USB format that they feel will allow
> more machines to boot and support VM + Stick
> 
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/USB_format
> 
> Perhaps the issue you are running into (which we have definitely seen
> before) is related to some of the ones they are looking at and part of
> why they need two boot partitions that are slightly different.
> 

I don't understand why 128 heads.  64 heads is the more compatible version.

I presume the notion of partition 1 and 4 is to deal with things that
have an odd notion of zipdisks.  I have personally not seen any devices
which will only boot with partition 1 or only with partition 4, if you
have any such information I would appreciate it.

Part of me also wonders if using EXTLINUX might not be easier for you, too.

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> Hello Peter & Jeremy,
> 
> I've found an ordinary desktop PC (with Phoenix Award BIOS 6.00PG) that
> won't boot off a USB stick created by livecd-tools-024 with syslinux
> (tested both versions 3.75 and 3.81).
> 
> The boot process drops to the "boot:" prompt with an error message:
> 
>   could not find kernel image: linux
> 
> The same USB stick boots fine on any other computer I could find.
> Does it seem like a syslinux bug?  And if turns out to be a known BIOS
> bug, is there a good workaround?
> 

I need much more details; *all* Award BIOSes make in the past 10-12
years have version number 6.00PG.

Also look for how you have configured your BIOS... some Award BIOSes
have USB-ZIP, USB-HDD, USB-FDD configurations; you generally want USB-HDD.

There are some BIOSes which will boot from USB *only* if it was
formatted with 64 heads, 32 sectors; apparently due to some odd notion
that only zipdrives would be USB.

-hpa

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/02/09 13:48, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> On 06/02/09 07:10, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>>> Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:
>>>
>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>>> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
>>   ^^
>>
>> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors.
> 
> Shouldn't fdisk guess these values automagically?
> And, more importantly, who are we going to blame if it doesn't? ;-)

For the record, GNU parted gets it right:

ber...@giskard:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
^C5017+0 records in
5017+0 records out
2568704 bytes (2.6 MB) copied, 1.63415 s, 1.6 MB/s

130!ber...@giskard:~$ sudo parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 1.8.8
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel
New disk label type? msdos
(parted) unit chs
(parted) print
Model:  USB DISK 2.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 249,220,34
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 249,255,63.  Each cylinder is 8225kB.
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End  Type  File system  Flags

(parted) mkpart 
File system type?  [ext2]? fat32 
Start? 0
End? 100%
Warning: You requested a partition from 0,0,0 to 249,220,34.  
The closest location we can manage is 0,1,0 to 248,254,62.  Is this still
acceptable to you?
Yes/No? y
(parted) p
Model:  USB DISK 2.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 249,220,34
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 249,255,63.  Each cylinder is 8225kB.
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End Type File system  Flags
 1  0,1,0  248,254,62  primary   lba  


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/02/09 07:10, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>> Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
>   ^^
> 
> Equally weird.  The only "standard" ones are 64 heads, 32 sectors and
> 255 heads, 63 sectors.

Shouldn't fdisk guess these values automagically?
And, more importantly, who are we going to blame if it doesn't? ;-)

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: RIPEMD160

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 02:40:38AM +0200, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>On 06/01/09 08:39, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> I need much more details; *all* Award BIOSes make in the past 10-12
>> years have version number 6.00PG.
>
>Ouch, I no longer have access to it.  I asked the owner to let me know.
>
>
>> Also look for how you have configured your BIOS... some Award BIOSes
>> have USB-ZIP, USB-HDD, USB-FDD configurations; you generally want USB-HDD.

In my (older non-Sugar) experience, USB-HDD is best, then USB-ZIP, and 
if none of those options are available then pick USB-FDD (which is then 
most likely names something else).

Whatever you pick, make sure to mention the choice when reporting 
trouble, to help recognize similarities in use cases.


>I booted from the BBS menu (F8), the item was labelled something like
>"USB HDD 2.0".

Another important thing (not sure if it has been mentioned before) is to 
*cold* boot with stick already inserted.  That is, insert the USB stick 
before turning on the machine - and after using BIOS or some operating 
system then power down the machine completely, wait a few seconds, and 
then boot it.

The reason for this (as I understand it) is that the simple BIOS USB 
drivers often do not reliably handle switching state.

This also means that a last desperate test could be to 1) boot that 
other operating system (Windows or Mac), 2) insert USB stick and 3) 
reboot (*without* shutting down completely).  It might work, but you 
then have the heavy and slow burden of your USB boot routine including a 
full bootup and shutdown of another operating system. :-/


  - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/02/09 03:43, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
>> 221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders
> 
> I don't know where fdisk, the Linux kernel, or whatever come up with
> these kinds of geometries.  They're almost universally non-bootable.

Ok, I wiped mbr and made fdisk create a new one:

Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3968 * 512 = 2031616 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3790b2f

   Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *   11011 2005793c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)


I'll try it tomorrow.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

On 06/01/09 08:39, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> I need much more details; *all* Award BIOSes make in the past 10-12
> years have version number 6.00PG.

Ouch, I no longer have access to it.  I asked the owner to let me know.


> Also look for how you have configured your BIOS... some Award BIOSes
> have USB-ZIP, USB-HDD, USB-FDD configurations; you generally want USB-HDD.

I booted from the BBS menu (F8), the item was labelled something like
"USB HDD 2.0".


> There are some BIOSes which will boot from USB *only* if it was
> formatted with 64 heads, 32 sectors; apparently due to some odd notion
> that only zipdrives would be USB.

Good to know.  Mine looks like this:

ber...@giskard:~/src/kernel$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055208960 bytes
221 heads, 2 sectors/track, 9081 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 442 * 512 = 226304 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000aa8c2

   Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *   19082 2007006+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Matthew Woehlke]

Sascha Silbe wrote:
> BTW: How does Windows handle USB sticks with "unknown" 
> formatting?

I'd guess it offers to format them for you. (I want to say I have seen 
this recently, which means it was probably some time I was using my 
ext2-formatted usb stick.)

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Sean DALY]

I believe the U3 crudware gets around the Windows limitation by
pretending to be a hub, presenting 3 or 4 logical volumes to Windows
from a single USB key. I know there is a Windows-only installer which
is difficult to get rid of (you have to give U3 piles of personal
information for the "right" to download the uninstaller, whose license
forbids you to distribute it, etc.)

Sean


On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Luke Faraone  wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 13:57, Sascha Silbe
>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Part of me also wonders if using EXTLINUX might not be easier for you,
>>> too.
>>
>> Part of our problem is that we don't know what quirks actually exist in
>> real hardware, so we're trying to come up with something that hopefully is
>> as compatible as possible. Using FAT is part of that.
>> If we'd know for sure using ext2 would work equally there's no reason not
>> to use it. BTW: How does Windows handle USB sticks with "unknown"
>> formatting?
>
> Windows cannot handle USB devices that have more than one partition, as far
> as I am aware. Windows treats unknown partitions as unformatted, and, if it
> displayed the disk at all, would prompt the user to format the device.
>
> ext(2, 3) is supported in Windows via a free (as in beer) kernel driver.
>
> If ext3 were to cause problems, we could loopmount a ext3 partition on a fat
> filesystem, but there would be no reason that it would have negative
> effects.
>
> --
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> http://luke.faraone.cc
>
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Jonas Smedegaard]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: RIPEMD160

On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 02:19:54PM -0400, Luke Faraone wrote:
>On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 13:57, Sascha Silbe <
>sascha-ml-ui-sugar-de...@silbe.org> wrote:
>
>>  Part of me also wonders if using EXTLINUX might not be easier for you,
>>> too.
>>>
>> Part of our problem is that we don't know what quirks actually exist in
>> real hardware, so we're trying to come up with something that hopefully is
>> as compatible as possible. Using FAT is part of that.
>> If we'd know for sure using ext2 would work equally there's no reason not
>> to use it. BTW: How does Windows handle USB sticks with "unknown"
>> formatting?
>
>
>Windows cannot handle USB devices that have more than one partition, as far
>as I am aware. Windows treats unknown partitions as unformatted, and, if it
>displayed the disk at all, would prompt the user to format the device.
>
>ext(2, 3) is supported in Windows via a free (as in beer) kernel driver.
>
>If ext3 were to cause problems, we could loopmount a ext3 partition on a fat
>filesystem, but there would be no reason that it would have negative
>effects.

ext3 is on-disk compatible with ext2, so I would expect an ext2 driver 
to properly mount an ext3 partition as ext2 (which is perfectly fine, it 
will just not use journaling for that mount session).

The runtime more optimal ext4 (with journaling disabled, so that it runs 
faster than ext2 or ext3 but does not wear out the usb stick too fast) 
on the other hand is *not* on-disk compatible and will require a driver 
that explicitly handles ext4 (including that non-journal feature which 
was added in 2.6.29 ar thereabout).


  - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Luke Faraone]

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 13:57, Sascha Silbe <
sascha-ml-ui-sugar-de...@silbe.org> wrote:

>  Part of me also wonders if using EXTLINUX might not be easier for you,
>> too.
>>
> Part of our problem is that we don't know what quirks actually exist in
> real hardware, so we're trying to come up with something that hopefully is
> as compatible as possible. Using FAT is part of that.
> If we'd know for sure using ext2 would work equally there's no reason not
> to use it. BTW: How does Windows handle USB sticks with "unknown"
> formatting?


Windows cannot handle USB devices that have more than one partition, as far
as I am aware. Windows treats unknown partitions as unformatted, and, if it
displayed the disk at all, would prompt the user to format the device.

ext(2, 3) is supported in Windows via a free (as in beer) kernel driver.

If ext3 were to cause problems, we could loopmount a ext3 partition on a fat
filesystem, but there would be no reason that it would have negative
effects.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Sascha Silbe]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 09:38:23AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:


http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/USB_format
I don't understand why 128 heads.  64 heads is the more compatible 
version.
I simply chose the largest possible power of two. As you point out, 64 
is actually better because that's what ZIP disks use. We talked about 
this on IRC today, but the wiki page hasn't been updated yet.


Part of me also wonders if using EXTLINUX might not be easier for you, 
too.
Part of our problem is that we don't know what quirks actually exist in 
real hardware, so we're trying to come up with something that hopefully 
is as compatible as possible. Using FAT is part of that.
If we'd know for sure using ext2 would work equally there's no reason 
not to use it. BTW: How does Windows handle USB sticks with "unknown" 
formatting?


CU Sascha

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Sascha Silbe]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 11:38:05AM -0400, Caroline Meeks wrote:

I've found an ordinary desktop PC (with Phoenix Award BIOS 6.00PG) 
that

won't boot off a USB stick created by livecd-tools-024 with syslinux
(tested both versions 3.75 and 3.81).

The boot process drops to the "boot:" prompt with an error message:

  could not find kernel image: linux

If it already gets to this stage, the new partition setup won't help.


The same USB stick boots fine on any other computer I could find.

Very strange and unfortunately out of my area of knowledge.
One last idea: Have you tried other USB sticks yet? Perhaps it's a 
hardware incompatibility.


Does it seem like a syslinux bug?  And if turns out to be a known 
BIOS

bug, is there a good workaround?
FWIW, the machine (Tyan S2495 based) I'm doing some USB stick testing on 
also claims to be Phone Award BIOS 6.00PG and it works fine (albeit 
slow).


CU Sascha

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Caroline Meeks]

Luke and Sasha are working on a new USB format that they feel will allow
more machines to boot and support VM + Stick

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/USB_format

Perhaps the issue you are running into (which we have definitely seen
before) is related to some of the ones they are looking at and part of why
they need two boot partitions that are slightly different.

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 1:32 AM, Bernie Innocenti  wrote:

> Hello Peter & Jeremy,
>
> I've found an ordinary desktop PC (with Phoenix Award BIOS 6.00PG) that
> won't boot off a USB stick created by livecd-tools-024 with syslinux
> (tested both versions 3.75 and 3.81).
>
> The boot process drops to the "boot:" prompt with an error message:
>
>  could not find kernel image: linux
>
> The same USB stick boots fine on any other computer I could find.
> Does it seem like a syslinux bug?  And if turns out to be a known BIOS
> bug, is there a good workaround?
>
> --
>   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
>  \X/  Sugar Labs   - http://sugarlabs.org/
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505-213-3268 - Fax
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[Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Bernie Innocenti]

Hello Peter & Jeremy,

I've found an ordinary desktop PC (with Phoenix Award BIOS 6.00PG) that
won't boot off a USB stick created by livecd-tools-024 with syslinux
(tested both versions 3.75 and 3.81).

The boot process drops to the "boot:" prompt with an error message:

  could not find kernel image: linux

The same USB stick boots fine on any other computer I could find.
Does it seem like a syslinux bug?  And if turns out to be a known BIOS
bug, is there a good workaround?

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs   - http://sugarlabs.org/
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