Use CD to boot to USB drive for linux live and/or installation?

[Rich Ernst]

Wow, I'm SO spoiled by running live Linux CD/images on USB that I was
looking to find a way to use a basic CD that would allow me to then
choose the USB thumb drive to boot from for Linux.

So only basic/quick booting from the CD, then right to actual
boot/running from the USB drive.

I found several options, all pretty complicated. Found PLOP,
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html, which seems to be what
I'm looking for. Burned the CD, and it shows the USB thumb drive, but
after SYSLINUX first line on the monitor (Mint 18.1), it just hangs.

Anyone else have a solution to this, either fixing(?) PLOP or the Mint
USB thumb drive live image, or alternatives?

Thanks,

Rich

[Kevin Keane Subscription]

Your easiest bet may well be to simply use syslinux directly. It has been well over 10 years since I built my own Linux CDs from scratch, so I don't really remember all the details. But it was fairly straightforward. You have to create a syslinux configuration file (which in your case probably should point to the USB drive, instead of loading grub or the kernel from the CD), and generate an ISO file from that.

You may find good tips on how to do that in the Linux from scratch project.

Kevin Keane
Whom the IT Pros Call
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-----Original message-----

Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2017 3:37 PM
Subject: Use CD to boot to USB drive for linux live and/or installation?
Wow, I'm SO spoiled by running live Linux CD/images on USB that I was
looking to find a way to use a basic CD that would allow me to then
choose the USB thumb drive to boot from for Linux.
So only basic/quick booting from the CD, then right to actual
boot/running from the USB drive.
I found several options, all pretty complicated. Found PLOP,
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html, which seems to be what
I'm looking for. Burned the CD, and it shows the USB thumb drive, but
after SYSLINUX first line on the monitor (Mint 18.1), it just hangs.
Anyone else have a solution to this, either fixing(?) PLOP or the Mint
USB thumb drive live image, or alternatives?
Thanks,
Rich
--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

[Gus Wirth]

Post by Rich Ernst
Wow, I'm SO spoiled by running live Linux CD/images on USB that I was
looking to find a way to use a basic CD that would allow me to then
choose the USB thumb drive to boot from for Linux.
So only basic/quick booting from the CD, then right to actual
boot/running from the USB drive.
I found several options, all pretty complicated. Found PLOP,
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html, which seems to be what
I'm looking for. Burned the CD, and it shows the USB thumb drive, but
after SYSLINUX first line on the monitor (Mint 18.1), it just hangs.
Anyone else have a solution to this, either fixing(?) PLOP or the Mint
USB thumb drive live image, or alternatives?

Take a look at Super Grub Disk <http://www.supergrubdisk.org/>. I've
used it successfully to recover systems where the boot loader gets hosed
and I need to boot the system to restore the boot loader.

It can boot just about anything if it can find a kernel and an initrd
that goes with it.

Gus