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

[Angelos Tzotsos]

On 02/19/2012 09:41 PM, Alex Mandel wrote:
> 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 :/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Live-demo mailing list
>>> 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
>

I just tested burned 5.5RC1 iso to a 4GB USB drive through Ubuntu 11.10
The USB works on 3 machines without problems.

So, yes, I think using a newer version of Ubuntu family will work ok.
I also agree with Alex that iso file has to be placed on hard disk of 
the computer for this to work.

Angelos

-- 
Angelos Tzotsos
Remote Sensing Laboratory
National Technical University of Athens
http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos