[Live-demo] Booting from OSGEOLive USB flash drive issue

[Alex Mandel]

On 02/19/2012 05:01 AM, Angelos Tzotsos wrote:
> On 02/18/2012 11:32 PM, activityworkshop wrote:
>> On 18/02/12 07:55, live-demo-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:
>>> Hi  all,
>>>
>>> I'm experiencing some issues to boot my OsgeoLive 5.0 USB flashdisk.
>>> Following all step provided by the link
>>> http://live.osgeo.org/en/quickstart/usb_quickstart.html and all the
>>> steps
>>> have been achieved successfully. But when I Boot the computer with
>>> the USB
>>> flash drive nothing happen a get black screen with a flashing cursor.
>>>
>>> Thank you for your help...
>>>
>>> Regards
>>
>> I'm getting the same problem with 5.5.  I've got the mini-5.5-beta4
>> iso downloaded and checked the md5 sum.
>> I've followed those same instructions (running the Startup Disk
>> Creator from within OSGeoLive 4.5 running from CD), and it seemed to
>> go fine, apart from getting really slow round about 94%.  But it said
>> it had finished successfully.
>>
>> Two different computers refuse to boot from this stick, one offers a
>> blank screen with "boot:" which refuses to do anything (typing "boot"
>> says there's no image called boot, typing enter just hangs it); the
>> other computer just doesn't see it as bootable at all.
>>
>> Both these computers boot fine from another USB stick (a Debian live
>> image copied to the stick with dd), so it's not the case that they
>> just can't boot from a USB stick.  Of course it could just be a
>> hardware problem with the second stick perhaps, but it mounts fine and
>> appears to be intact (I can read the docs, for example).  I just can't
>> boot from it to test it out.
>>
>> Sorry, I failed :/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Live-demo at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/live-demo
>> http://live.osgeo.org
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
>>
> 
> I have created the USB through installed versions of Ubuntu 11.10 and
> 11.04.
> I recall a laptop refusing to boot from this USB in the past, but in
> general I don't get this.
> Probably it has to do with creating the usb from within OSGeoLive DVD.
> 
> I will test with 5.5 RC1 and report back
> 
> Angelos
> 
> PS I am opening a trac ticket for this
> 

My experience has been that the Ubuntu version used to make the usb
stick has to be the same or newer than the one being put on the stick.

By that notion 4.5 which is based on ubuntu 10.04 can not be used to
make a stick for 5.0 or 5.5 which is based on ubuntu 11.04. I believe
this is an ubuntu bug.

Also when created a startup disk the iso file needs to be on the hard
drive of the computer, you can't use a booted DVD as the source for the
startup disk creator.

Thanks,
Alex