- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Nov 5-9:38 pm by caprea.
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haertig
I’m wondering if one could use an antiX live DVD to facilitate the following:
(1) Old computer, does not support booting from GPT partitioned disk, does not support booting from USB (but it does support booting from CD/DVD)
(2) Connect GPT HDD to SATA-to-USB3 adapter dongle and plug into a USB3 port (old computer has a PCIe card installed to provide USB3.0, but natively it’s only USB2.0)
(3) Boot from antiX live DVD into antiX initial menu
(4) Use “from=usb” option to continue boot from external GPT HDD, that has some other Linux distro (not antiX) installed(Old computer and OS on external disk are both 64 bit, as is the antiX live DVD)
This would be a rarely used system troubleshooting/debugging type of thing, but I’m wondering if it is possible.
Brian Masinick
It may be possible to hack a solution to do what you want but it would be a hack and it would take some tweaking and experimenting.
I suggest you experiment and take notes so you can repeat any success and potentially share your findings as a bonus.
Even if the experiments fail it is likely to be a good learning experience.
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Brian Masinickolsztyn
I’m wondering if one could use an antiX live DVD to facilitate the following:
If I understand correctly at all, you have a Linux or Windows system installed on external SATA drive and connected via SATA to USB interface. You want to start boot from antiX DVD and boot such system on external SATA. If this my understanding is correct and the other system on SATA is not antiX then you can boot it from antiX DVD via antiX boot menus.
Just go to discover grub menus or kernels or boot loaders (in case of Windows). Select from the menu which system to boot.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersActually, my situation is this:
My main desktop died. I tried everything, replacing power supply, replacing memory, checking thermals … but it still wouldn’t stay up reliably. So while it is dead (the new motherboard just arrived about 5 minutes ago!), I have been using a backup computer. An old one. Old BIOS, no USB boot, etc. I did an antiX frugal install on that old computer, and copied over the most critical files from my dead computer by accessing copies of them from my server that runs household backups. I had to install various software into antiX to get all the functionality I needed. This setup worked, and I have been using it for a month while I’ve been troubleshooting and testing my dead desktop computer.
Later, I was thinking that it might have been easier if I had a way to pull the (internal) SATA drive from the dead computer, connect it via USB to the backup computer, and boot from it. No installing software, no copying files from my backup server. Just boot and everything should be there. Albeit running slower than on the original desktop, but still usable. The backup computer does not boot from USB, so I thought the antiX DVD might facilitate that once I learned of antiX’s from=usb capability. Linux is quite good at pulling a drive from computer A, installing it on computer B, and then booting and operating just fine. Try that with Windows!
So my question is really a theoretical one, for potential use “next time”, if something like this ever happens to me again. I could of course just remove the drive from my desktop and install it (internally) in the backup computer. But that would have required me to remove a different HDD from the backup to make room to install the drive from my desktop. That’s getting a little messier – I would prefer an external connection of the drive to the backup computer so I could use it as my desktop without having to physically mess with it’s innards. If my backup computer was newer, and could boot from USB natively, this would have been easy. No need to contemplate using the antiX DVD as a middleman in the boot process.
FWIW, This was my first time using antiX, and I fell in love with it for this use. I love the persistence options, the ability to load everything into RAM, the frugal install capability, the easy remastering, the ease of customizing your system then grabbing an image of the running OS and burning that to a bootable DVD … WOW! Whoever thought up putting all these features into a Linux distro was a genius. As a bonus, it’s Debian based, so I am very experienced and comfortable with that. So I’m not complaining that I had to do a frugal install yada, yada, yada – it just would have been faster if I could have booted from the desktop drive and didn’t have to learn a new distro (there’s really nothing to “learn” about a new distro really – but this persistence, remastering, etc. are something I had to learn). But then, if I had booted from the dead desktop’s drive, I wouldn’t have discovered antiX! I probably won’t use antiX as my main desktop, however, my stack of 50 million OTHER Linux live DVD’s is going to hit the recycling bin. antiX can easily replace most any live DVD I have, except maybe SystemRescueCD, which is great for fixing a sick computer – that one already has all the needed tools pre-installed.
Brian Masinick
Interesting story; I was thinking of mentioning SystemRescueCD; it’ll certainly spot the various devices and bootable partitions, and it may have a few extra tweaks in that one category, but antiX is excellent for repairing many systems too; chances are you could get the job done with either of these since you display a solid knowledge of what you are doing.
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Brian MasinickI thought the antiX DVD might facilitate that once I learned of antiX’s from=usb capability.
As far as I know, the option from=usb applies to booting another antiX installation. I do not think this parameter would work with another linux ot Windows.
Since your issue has just been solved by the new motherboard, the original question becomes indeed just theoretical.
From such perspective antiX Live has an undeservedly hidden in nesting menus the capability of discovery of boot loaders, kernels and grub boot menus on all attached disks and their partitions. It is called ‘Rescue menus’ as submenu on boot menu tree.
This powerful function discovers all linux and windows systems and presents a menu of them to chose for booting, along with on which disks and partitions they are.
Reportedly (and unfortunately) the dev team is stretched thin and there seems no daring attempts to tinker with antiX boot code to make these menus more streamlined. I would not be surprised if most users do not even realize some of antiX boot functions.
But in any case congrats on your issue being resolved with installation of the new motherboard…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters
caprea
With the from=usb option it is possible to boot from an antiX-live cd or dvd and then continue from an antiX-live usb stick.
The prerequisite for this is that the live-cd and the live-usb stick have exactly the same kernel and probably also the same antiX version (antiX21 or 19 etc.).
It is however possible, for example, to boot an antiX21-full usb-live stick from an antiX21-core cd.Edit: Might SuperGrub2Disk or bootmanager plop will help you further here.
- This reply was modified 6 months ago by caprea.
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