Casper 8 Startup Disc (Boot CD) Free Download
Lora Ceasor
With that out of the way: I've created an Ubuntu 14.04.03 Live USB Flash Drive (32GB) using UNetbootin, as well as the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator. In both cases, I was able to successfully deploy my Ubuntu ISO (which I've confirmed is intact via md5sum analysis). In both cases, persistence worked successfully (I had to manually enable it when using Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator, but UNetBootin adds the -persistent kernel argument automatically to syslinux.cfg), no problems.
I need to have a persistence file larger than 4GB, as I'm creating a bunch of these flash drives for Field Application Engineers (FAEs), and they need to be able to use them on the road to diagnose installations for custom systems my company currently supports. It's fine if they burn out due to excessive write cycles, and each FAE gets a dozen of them if needed for each trip.
Also, we need to keep the first partition on the disk as a FAT partition in case the FAE needs to drop files onto the disk from Windows, Mac, Linux, etc, as Windows machines refuse to mount FAT partitions on a flash drive unless they are the first and only FAT partition on the disk.
I followed all of the advised steps, but booting fails. When I attempt to boot from my newly-created flash drive, I am directed to a prompt instead of Ubuntu properly booting, though I briefly see the graphical Ubuntu startup screen animation.
This time it at least finds the boot partition and starts attempting to boot the Live USB disk, but seems to fail along the way, with a bunch of "casper" related warnings. I can't seem to save those logs though, so I'm unable to provide them at this time. My current default kernel arguments are:
There is a work around recently updated in the thread for the bug, which I will elaborate on below as the other thread doesn't seem to have as much visibility (comes up lower in the google search when I was trying to work it out).
Use universal USB installer, etc to set up the OS partition with casper-rw file large enough to be able to make changes - needed for later step to workaround bug (I did it with 2gb, but surely it requires less)
mkusb works with some linux distros derived from Ubuntu too. I have not tested with the newest Linux Mint versions, but it works with previous versions because the boot structure is/was similar enough to Ubuntu.
I did have to make some details that may make Yu Jia's instructions a bit clearer. (Please note, these instructions may not be fully appropriate for default Ubuntu ISO image as I think some of the file locations may be altered by the Systemback configuration).
So - I copied this file to my 'casper-rw' partition, but then I realised that my GRUB boot menu looked was referencing /casper/initrd.gz (in four places) which resides within /boot/grub on the UUI partition.
Many thanks to all, and I hope my experience helps someone else!(Note - I'm a sufficiently new to Stack Exchange usage that I can't comment - hence my answer is new, rather than a comment on Yu Jia's).
My latest ISO image is something like 3.8 GB (it's a customised Ubuntu 16.04) and after three tries I have to create the initial OS partition at 5 GB and use a 1 GB persistence setting in the installer - otherwise you run out of storage when updating the initramfs functions.
Unallocated partition is added later in step3, sdc2 is for Ubuntu and sdc3 is for persistence. Since this is an 8GB pendrive, I used 3.32GB as persistent drive but will work with any size. Label this partition as casper-rw.
It's seems to be the booting process interrupted just after loading the initial RAM disk. This is due to the failure to mount the root file system (filesystem.squashfs). As everything works fine before editing the partition one or more of the following may be the reason for the failure.
I have been having a similar problem with the Lubuntu 14.04.3 i386 ISO image and gave up. I then tried the Lubuntu 15.04 AMD64 ISO image (I had earlier given up on 15.04 because of a bug that occurs at bootup, but it turns out to be only a small issue*).
The casper-rw partition works fine with the later system (following the usual instructions), so it seems the problem is nothing to do with process, but to do with a problem specific to some 14.04 ISO images.
I am unable to install ZorinOS Lite on my ancient laptop. The Acer Aspire has the Dual-Core Mobile T2060, a 32-bit chip. I believe that my problem lies with the graphics drivers provided in the Live USB that I created using 'Startup Disk Creator'. The machine will boot all the way to the desktop if I select SAFE GRAPHICS after displaying some wild graphical noise. It will not complete the boot process if I select 1. from the Install/Try menu. With safe graphics, the external monitor is not supported. But the biggest deal is that I am never given the option to install. I can only run from the Live USB stick. The machine is using the graphics support built into the Intel CPU. This machine is from 2007 and works very well hardware-wise, but the Vista OS is a disaster. Any and all suggestions welcome. BTW I am running ZorinOS 15.3 Ultimate on my AMD Ryzen tower.
Yes, that's right. Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. I believe this is where the conflict lies. I could look for a driver if I could get the ZorinOS Lite to install. There's no point to changing the driver while I'm just running in Live mode.
I'm sorry, but I'm not quite seeing what I need to do. If I could get Zorin lite installed, then I could edit the grub record. But I cannot. I can only run in Live mode. The menu that would allow me to install never appears. I get the menu that allows me to choose Try/Install, but then it just boots to the desktop ... that is, if I choose Safe Graphics. If I don't choose Safe Graphics, it doesn't boot at all.
I'm sorry, I was not clear.
You can edit the grub in Live mode and see if it works. If it does, you can install, then edit the Installed Grub and then boot up normally.
You must edit grub in Live USB prior to booting.
To do this, hit the e key at the bootloader menu screen (the one that offers safe graphics.) That will bring up the Grub editor. The Live USB version looks almost unrecognizable, so the easiest way is to Scan The Page looking for quiet splash. When you find it, just place the above in front of it. Then exit and proceed to boot up.
Thank-you Aravisian. I must have done something wrong since it did not work. Apparently, one edits the grub menu by pressing TAB instead of typing e on my machine. When I did so, the following line appeared at the bottom of the screen: > /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper quiet splash --- initrd=/casper/initrd.lz4
Using the arrow keys to position the cursor between casper and quiet, I entered what you mentioned in your note above. I then hit ENTER and the machine attempted to boot. However, it behaved exactly as if I had chosen 1. from the Try/Install menu. That is, about 25 lines of messages were endlessly dumped to the machine with a screen flash between each. PLEASE NOTE that in your note that there is a space between the acpi_osi=! and i915.modeset=1. I entered that space. I then tried it without the space and it acted as though I had chosen SAFE GRAPHICS. It booted directly to the desktop giving me no option to install. Before the desktop appeared, as always it dumped tons of data to the screen much to rapidly to read any of it.
Ok. I tried just nomodeset and it almost worked exactly the same as when I put the entire acpi_osi text in. I had already tried just putting i915.modeset=1 which did not work. Anyway, I'm suspecting that I'm seeing the second menu screen in a horribly distorted fashion. It displays for roughly 2 seconds, then the construction of the desktop begins. If I knew which entry installed, I could quickly arrow down and hit enter before the 2 seconds expired.
Well, choose "Safe Graphics" and entering "nomodeset" into grub is mostly the same thing - but it was worth testing, in any case.
When it boots to the desktop, In Try Zorin MOde, does it behave normally at that time?
Are you able to access the Zorin OS installer icon on the desktop?
I didn't know that install icon was there! My vision is impaired. I am running it right now. Everything appears to be operating normally. The screen resolution is even correct for this screen. I'll let you know what happens.
I have successfully installed ZorinOS 32-bit to the internal drive. However, booting is duplex. First, I boot, but reach a blank screen that flashes once per second. I must depress and hold the start button to shutdown the machine. Second, I boot again and this time get a recovery menu. I choose the first recovery mode and the desktop appears. It functions normally. The next time I boot the cycle repeats: I get the flashing screen and must boot using recovery mode again. I have not been able to edit the grub menu. I'm not quite sure when I must enter the 'e' or maybe the TAB. Is it when the screen is blank except for a border?
Navigate to Top Level by clicking the Up Arrow on the Toolbar several times until you reach Root. Double click /etc directory. Then /default directory and finally, the grub file.
Grub will open in a Text Editor allowing a Familiar interface.
I used the pkexec thunar method and now have the grub file open in the in-terminal editor. Every option is preceded with a keyword phrase that begins with GRUB_. I'm not sure how to put acpi_osi=! i915.modeset=1 nomodeset into this file. I am afraid to experiment here because I might totally lose my ability to boot into ZorinOS. Is there a keyword phrase that I need to use?
Hurrah! I added the line exactly as you, Aravisian, put it in your latest note and ran sudo update-grub ... and it works! Not only that, it now supports the external monitor again. It now dumps tons of text to the screen during startup that it didn't before, but I don't care. Thank-you for taking time to help me with this.
I ask because I've recently copied the contents of an Ubuntu based live ISO (easypeasy, the ldistro for nwtbooks) onto a hard disk drive, but the Squashfs file system is corrupt, most likely because I copied it live. :) So it's not autologging in. Is there a username/password for this?
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