[Bug 423616] Re: casper boot doesn't work with some boot options

[Roland Kwee]

To see the usefulness of the live-media boot option, please refer to (my
edit in) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromLinux

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Title:
  casper boot doesn't work with some boot options

Status in “casper” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: casper

  I'm booting a system on a USB key from an old laptop having no bios option to boot from usb, nor bios recognition of usb at boot.
  This is useful to install new ubuntu distros without burning CDs even on old and very old machines, avoiding producing trash.
  The usb keys are obtained by ubuntu usb live creation on FAT32 usb keys (Karmic and Jaunty).
  The method used is to boot a kernel and ram image previously copied on hard disk from USB in /boot/usb-boot directory, but using as root the usb key.

  In any case I wasn't able to open the system as the live cd, asking
  for language and keyboard - I was only able to boot the system this
  way :

  title		Xubuntu from USB	
  uuid		26d5b9d3-5e38-400f-906c-ea685407c590 #uuid of hard disk
  kernel 		/boot/usb-boot/vmlinuz floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 root=UUID=46F1-C9E3 boot=casper noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true lang=it locale=it_IT
  initrd 		/boot/usb-boot/initrd.gz
  boot

  where : 46F1-C9E3 is the uuid of the usb key.
  floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 is an option needed both in Karmic and Jaunty to avoid booting to stop looking for fd0 (I/O Error on fd0) - BTW - with this option the system works but complains as "Unknown option" - if option is absent, system doesn't work; I also tryed to grub-install with --no-floppy option but no effect.

  The system work when only the previous option are included, but both
  in Jaunty and Karmic, those options do not work :

  1) keyboard=it or keyb=it or xkeyboard=it (no effect) 
  2) bootkbd=it (system doesn't boot, and this is the standard option from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions)
  3) console-setup/layoutcode=it (system doesn't boot)
  4) file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed persistent (system doesn't boot) 

  When system doesn't boot, it looklikes looking for a media it can't
  read (/dev/sdb, /dev/sr0......), and we get a loop.

  Do I need to copy extra files in /boot/usb-boot?

  5) option bootkbd=it in syslinux.cfg let system booting, but no effects;
  6) manual change allows to set keyboard (Applications/Settings/Keyboard) and setxkbmap it works too

  For my use, the "persistent" option is not  indispensable; A boot with
  the right keyboard would be preferable for multiple installs;

  7) option xforcevesa doesn't work (no boot) option vesa has no effect

  Thx

  Paolo

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