SOLVED - Running other distro ISO's Debian Buster Live USB

[kkman007]

Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section

I have managed to create a live USB of Debian Buster 10.5 which works with Legacy Boot as well as UEFI Secure Boot.

What I am trying to do/learn is if it is possible to run other distros using either their ISO or extracted files from my Live USB.

For example I am able to use it to boot Ubunto ISO's in legacy mode and UEFI ( without Secure Boot ), but when I try to do the same using Secure Boot, I receive a message saying invalid signature for vmlinuz.

Obviously this is because the USB does not have access to the Ubuntu ISO's internal BOOTX64.EFI.

So my question is; is there any way to include those in a way that will allow booting using secure boot.

As a suggestion, I have been trying to find information about fbx64.efi and BOOTX64.CSV which allow defining a fallback BOOTX64, but I dont think that it will work for my use case.

So am I wasting my time? Or is there a way I have not looked at.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

PS. Once I know what the limitations are I will finish my work and hope to release the steps I followed to create the Live USB in case of it being helpful to other.

Just finished a write up of how I created a Live Debian Buster 10.5 Secure Boot USB

SORRY I REMOVED THE LINK BECAUSE SOMEONE THOUGT I WAS SPAMMING.

PPS. I am not using a live USB to build a live USB. I am building from scratch a live USB using debootstrap and chroot. I end up with a LXDE desktop under 200MB including the latest google chrome browser and include all free and nonfree firmware.

********* SOLVED **************

OK, I know some have said that this was off topic, but having a debian live USB capable of running multiple 3rd part distro is somthing that some may find usful.

I have managed to add multiple BOOTx64.EFI to the USB EFI partition, in the same way as this is done on the HDD. I have also managed to automate the process by using grub keyboard fuctions to run each step.

First for reference, I am using the USB created in the mentioned link above.
I will use Lubuntu as an example 3rd party distro to add to the live USB.

I extracted the grubx64.efi and BOOTx64.EFI from the ISO
mounted the USB EFI partition and created a directory which I used to copy the said files.

You cn repeat this for as many other distro's you want.

Next I modified the main UEFI grub menu and added the following menu entries to allow loading of Ubuntu grub and BOOTx64 EFI entries

menuentry "Debian Buster 10.5 UEFI Secure Mode - Boot 3rd Party Distro (EG : Lubuntu)" {
echo "Debian Buster 10.5 UEFI Secure Mode - Boot 3rd Party Distro (EG : Lubuntu)"
}
menuentry " Step 1 ) Load 3rd Party GrubLoader" {
search --set=root --file /other/grubx64.efi
chainloader ($root)/other/grubx64.efi
boot ($root)/other/grubx64.efi
}
menuentry " Step 2 ) Load 3rd Party BootLoader" {
search --set=root --file /other/grubx64.efi
chainloader ($root)/other/BOOTx64.EFI
}
menuentry " Step 3 ) Enter 3rd Party Grub Menu" {
search --set=root --file /area3/grub.cfg
set prefix=($root)/area3
configfile ($root)/area3/grub.cfg
}

I have automated the process by defining a grub key which run the three menus in turn, so the user will only see the top menu, and once selected the submenus will be run.
For simplicity I have not shown the submenu method as the above is simple to see and understand.
Lastly by adding a exit menu we can return the the Debian grub and bootloader there by allow to run Buster once more.

The only extra work is a small script to extract the files needed from the ISO and updaing the EFI partition.

Thank you again for your input.
PS. Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section.

[Dai_trying]

You do realise that images for live buster LXDE already exist dont you? along with other desktops too

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... bt-hybrid/

[kkman007]

Yes I do.

Have you looked at their size? My build using debootstrap and chroot ( with a google chrome browser ) is around 200MB, including free and non free firmware.

Also can you update them on the live medium?

Thats the point. My build is designed to run in memory and allow the end user of the live USB to update/upgrade it.

Burning the debian ISO to a USB gives you an ISO9660 device which cannot be changed. You can use persistence but that is somthing else.

If I am wrong please help me understand.

The idea for this is to allow non techincal users to use a live environment which they can ungrade as and when they need without the need of any other resource.

Anyway thank you for the input.

[barlafuss]

following, very interesting.
Thanks

[Bloom]

If you would like to have a bootable usb stick with multiple distributions on it, there's software for that. I like MultiSystem very much, but it's all in French (although I think the software speaks English): http://liveusb.info/dotclear/
Instructions for installing it:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install software-properties-common # in case this isn't installed yet
sudo apt install wget # in case this isn't installed yet
sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main'
wget -q -O - http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot/multisystem.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install multisystem
sudo usermod -a -G adm "$USER" # add your own user to the adm group, this is needed to operate MultiSystem

It looks like this:

Adding ISO files is simply dragging and dropping them on the MultiSystem window.
If you want to boot usb from an old computer that doesn't support that, you can use the Plop Boot Manager to create a floppy or a cd-r which allows you to boot from usb on such a system.

[kkman007]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I wanted to learn how/if I can have multiple BOOTX64.EFI files on the same USB device, the same way HDD EFI do, so I can boot other distros.

As I said above, I already have worked out how to build a custom Live USB of Buster 10.5 which can boot using Secure Boot. The problem I was looking at was how to allow the USB to host other distro's.

This is not essential to my work but will help me understand the differences between UEFI on USB and HDD.
I am currently focusing on the EFI partition and how I can create multiple directories, each holding the BOOTX64.EFI for each distro.

The sticking point is chainloading from the debian grub to another distro grub so the signature files are loaded and I dont get "invalid signature" problems when I try loading other distros.

I can get this all to work as long as I disable Secure Boot, which is what I am trying to avoid.

Thanks again.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I wanted to learn how/if I can have multiple BOOTX64.EFI files on the same USB device, the same way HDD EFI do

It is not possible to have multiple BOOTX64.EFI loaders even on a hard disk drive because it is the fallback EFI loader and is only started by UEFI firmware implementations if it is located on the EFI system partition under /EFI/BOOT/ — if it is anywhere else then a custom NVRAM entry is needed to boot it, which won't work on a USB stick for obvious reasons.

And anyway your Secure Boot question is not relevant for these boards so you should ask on the Ubuntu forums instead, I've moved this thread to the Offtopic section.

[kkman007]

Thank you Head_on_a_Stick for telling me where to go.

I wanted to ask Debian experts about how to setup Debian to handle multiboot from a USB. I used Ubuntu as an example.

I will take your advice and ask for help from Ubuntu forum, BUT the question I asked is relavent to Debian.

At least in my humble opinion. I hope you dont mind too much if I keep the question open in the hope of getting some useful help.

If you think it is offtopic then I dont want you to waste your time with such matters.

You may be correct in your view that what I am trying to do is not possible, but I hope you dont mind if I seek other views.

On a side note, I am experimenting in chainloading grub and that may be the way to go.
One last note, you where of great help in my last post, and thanks to the work you did on your project I was able to solve my Safe Boot problems. So I have great respect for your work and efforts.

[kkman007]

I dont understand, how this thread was push to OffTopic section without any option for me to reply. This was about Debian and NOT Ubuntu.
Is there any procedure or can anyone push a topic here.
To me this is very hard handed... A shame as I was starting to like the forum.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I dont understand, how this thread was push to OffTopic section without any option for me to reply. This was about Debian and NOT Ubuntu.

I moved the thread because your problem appears to be about the non-Debian kernels being unverified by Secure Boot. I know that the Debian kernels are signed with Microsoft's Secure Boot keys but I have no idea how Ubuntu handles this and that question would seem to be more appropriate on their forums.

The thread is still open and you may yet receive assistance from somebody who understands Ubuntu's Secure Boot support so there is no need to despair.

[kkman007]

OK... Although I still think it is not off topic, thank you for your reply.

The area where it is relavent to Debian is the grub bootloader and how it could change the boot order of the EFI's installed on the USB to reload another distros grub.

I have been trying this, and so far I have been able to switch the bootloader. Although my problem seems to be reseting the order. I know that may not make too much sense, but I lack better understanding in how the boot process in UEFI works and so am looking for help on the grub side.

I will try and write up what I have got so far, but I need to test my work to get a better handle on the matter.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The area where it is relavent to Debian is the grub bootloader and how it could change the boot order of the EFI's installed on the USB to reload another distros grub.

Debian's GRUB doesn't "reload another distros grub", it loads another distribution's kernel & initramfs images (or perhaps another distribution's grub.cfg file if $configfile is specified in the menuentry).

For Secure Boot support on removable devices the UEFI grub-install(8) command in Debian will copy /usr/lib/shim/shimx64.efi to $ESP/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and that will then load $ESP/EFI/BOOT/grubx64.efi (if the --removable switch is called).

[Deb-fan]

^ English, in english Hoas!

Really nothing useful to add was going to say the same as somebody else already has, there's already projects which do this, multiboot usb's. Look them over, find one which does what you're trying or closet to it and then study how they do it, how it's setup. Almost surely this is an endeavor to reinvent the wheel. Multibooting whichever media is bound to be well covered by now. Spend some time looking at examples of all the other wheels around.

Ps, still an interesting subject and therefore worth investing some time into learning about for anybody with an interest.

[kkman007]

Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section

********* SOLVED **************

OK, I know some have said that this was off topic, but having a debian live USB capable of running multiple 3rd part distro is somthing that some may find usful.

I have managed to add multiple BOOTx64.EFI to the USB EFI partition, in the same way as this is done on the HDD. I have also managed to automate the process by using grub keyboard fuctions to run each step.

First for reference, I am using the USB created in the mentioned link above.
I will use Lubuntu as an example 3rd party distro to add to the live USB.

I extracted the grubx64.efi and BOOTx64.EFI from the ISO
mounted the USB EFI partition and created a directory which I used to copy the said files.

You cn repeat this for as many other distro's you want.

Next I modified the main UEFI grub menu and added the following menu entries to allow loading of Ubuntu grub and BOOTx64 EFI entries

menuentry "Debian Buster 10.5 UEFI Secure Mode - Boot 3rd Party Distro (EG : Lubuntu)" {
echo "Debian Buster 10.5 UEFI Secure Mode - Boot 3rd Party Distro (EG : Lubuntu)"
}
menuentry " Step 1 ) Load 3rd Party GrubLoader" {
search --set=root --file /other/grubx64.efi
chainloader ($root)/other/grubx64.efi
boot ($root)/other/grubx64.efi
}
menuentry " Step 2 ) Load 3rd Party BootLoader" {
search --set=root --file /other/grubx64.efi
chainloader ($root)/other/BOOTx64.EFI
}
menuentry " Step 3 ) Enter 3rd Party Grub Menu" {
search --set=root --file /area3/grub.cfg
set prefix=($root)/area3
configfile ($root)/area3/grub.cfg
}

I have automated the process by defining a grub key which run the three menus in turn, so the user will only see the top menu, and once selected the submenus will be run.
For simplicity I have not shown the submenu method as the above is simple to see and understand.
Lastly by adding a exit menu we can return the the Debian grub and bootloader there by allow to run Buster once more.

The only extra work is a small script to extract the files needed from the ISO and updaing the EFI partition.

Thank you again for your input.
PS. Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section.

[cuckooflew]

Re: The multiple requests on moving this "off topic" thread.All those requests are only serving to make it even more off topic, and it is a mixture of several topics, starting with " Running other distro ISO's---", those other distros, are actually of no interest to some of us , including me.. Did you count how many times you said ?:

Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section

?
I did , I counted 4 times, plus a couple of other times, but worded slightly different, ....You know, it is really starting to look like some kind of spam to me,
especially with your promotional link that you threw in, to your personal blog, or web site,...But any way, now that kind of explains why you are making such a big deal about wanting to have it moved to a strictly Debian topic, but it is not strictly Debian, ...
I think you need to do what you should have done when you first joined the forum, [url=http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 10653Forum guidelines. Please read before first post![/url]

10.Moderators might move your thread to a more suitable category (for instance from 'General Discussion' to 'General Questions'). This is no cause for alarm and a shadow topic, linked directly to the new location, will always be left at the original location.
11.If you feel like your post/ thread has been locked, edited or even removed in error please contact the moderator team via e-mail at team@forums.debian.net.

=============

by kkman007 » 2020-08-23 22:58
Can I ask as this question has a solution which is for Debian Buster that this thread is removed from the Off Topic section

Yes you can ask, but you should follow the procedures mention in the "Read before you post" guidelines.
I can remove it from the "off topic board", to the spam bin, where no one will see it, Is that what you want ?

by kkman007(partial)>So am I wasting my time? Or is there a way I have not looked at.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

PS. Once I know what the limitations are I will finish my work and hope to release the steps I followed to create the Live USB in case of it being helpful to other.

Just finished a write up of how I created a Live Debian Buster 10.5 Secure Boot USB (http://link removed, for the quote, and no need to repeat it)

"So am I wasting my time?", Yes, you are wasting your time in repeatedly asking that the topic be moved elsewhere.
"Any help/advice would be appreciated.", You exposed the truth here, I advise you read the forum guidelines, but you also show me your motives for the topic, you want members here to explain how to do this, so you can use the information in your blog, ...since maybe you have missed a lot of things,...
I suggest the topic be closed, and locked, it is solved and there is nothing more to discuss. Or maybe I should just move the 1 post with the link off the board, ? Your call now.

[kkman007]

The link was the steps I used. If you think its spam I am happy to delete it. Just let me know. I can just copy the text. Your assumtion is incorrect.
The only reason I repeated my requet was because I thought it was usful.

PS. I have received no direct help from anyone on this forum for me to use on "my artical". The closest was help from Head_on_a_Stick which showed me how he built his live iso using live-build, which I am not using.

On second thought I will remove the link.

Your suggestion is false, but if after reading this thread, that was your conclusion. Then I am sorry for giving such an impression.

[cuckooflew]

Well, that is your choice, no one said you must remove it , it looks like you copied pasted most of it here any way, .. I did get a screen shot of the post, just in case you decided to edit it, ... Some people might be interested, but the topic stays in off topic, and the repeated requests for moving it hopefully stop.

You do realise that images for live buster LXDE already exist dont you? along with other desktops too

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... bt-hybrid/

Yes, and those are the most reliable, coming from a reliable source.
I use the netinstall image, for a smaller sized base, and then build on it, when I have it the way I want it to be, with a few tools I use, I make a live usb device.

[kkman007]

This was the write up I did about the steps I used to create the Live USB. Hope it of use to someone.

Lets start by installing the needed packages
sudo apt install gdisk grub-efi grub-efi-amd64-bin grub-pc-bin -y
Before we continue, we need a way to find the USB mounting point. The best way I have found is to run the following command, twice. Once when the USB device is not plugged in and then again when the device has been plugged in. You should be able to see the additional device.
sudo lsblk -all
In my case I saw “sda” followed by its parititions EG: “sda1”.
So, lets create a bash variable which will point to our USB device, this is done by prefixing “/dev/” to our device mapping we found above.
mountpoint=/dev/sda
The next step is somtimes needed to ensure the USB device is clean for creating the partitions needed.
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=$mountpoint seek=1 count=12204
This basically distroys the start of the device removing any partition information which ensures things work without weired effects.
Next we run the following command to zap or clean the device.
sudo sgdisk — zap-all $mountpoint
At this point we need to remove and reinsert the device. We do this to get the system to reload/clear any old partition information it loaded before about the device.
Lets just check that the device name is still the same by checking the path still exists
ls $mountpoint
If we see now errors, then we continue, otherwise we need to run the “lsblk” command again to find the new path and change the “mountpoint” variable to point to the new path. This is very unlikely but better safe than sorry
We run the clear “sgdisk” command again and hopfully we will see a nice confirmation that it had no problems clearing the device.
sudo sgdisk — zap-all $mountpoint
The above steps have resulted in a nice clean USB ready to work with.
Now we can create the partition structure we will be using
sudo sgdisk — clear \
— new 1::+1M — typecode=1:ef02 — change-name=1:’BIOS boot partition’ \
— new 2::+100M — typecode=2:ef00 — change-name=2:’EFI System’ \
— new 3::-0 — typecode=3:8300 — change-name=3:’SplashOSLive’ \
$mountpoint
The first partition is our BIOS boot partition used for legacy boot. The second will hold the GRUB and EFI settings to allow UEFI boot. The last partition is where we will copy any systems we wish to boot to.
The EFI partitions needs a FAT filesystem, whilst the data partition can be any. As I want to boot a linux system, I will use ext2 filesystem. So lets format the partitions.
sudo mkfs.fat -F32 ${mountpoint}2
sudo mkfs.ext2 -F -L “SplashOSLive” ${mountpoint}3
Now lets mount the EFI partition, make it writtable and create the file structure.
mkdir sda2
sudo mount -t vfat ${mountpoint}2 sda2 -o rw,umask=0000
sudo chmod -R 777 sda2/
sudo mkdir -p sda2/EFI/BOOT
The mount allows us write access to the EFI drive, the chmod grants full access to the partition and we create a directy “/EFI/BOOT” to hold our grub configuration.
We are ready to install grub to make our USB bootable. We will start by installing the UEFI bootloader.
sudo grub-install — modules=”fat iso9660 part_gpt part_msdos normal boot linux configfile loopback chain efifwsetup efi_gop efi_uga ls search search_label search_fs_uuid search_fs_file gfxterm gfxterm_background gfxterm_menu test all_video loadenv exfat ext2 ntfs btrfs hfsplus udf” sda2/ — removable — boot-directory=sda2 — efi-directory=sda2 — uefi-secure-boot
The important part above is the “modules” section which allows us to define grub modules which will be included in the installation. The list should be enough for most use cases. If you have a grup.cfg file yourself you can check which modules you need by looking for lines starting with “insmod”. EG: “insmod part_gpt”.
Now lets finish the grub installation process by installing legacy grub.
sudo grub-install — target=i386-pc — boot-directory=sda2/EFI/BOOT/ $mountpoint
All that is left is to create our grub config files, copy any distro files we will use and delete a few “unwanted” files.
The default path UEFI boot loader looks for a config file to use is “/boot/grub” so lets create it.
mkdir sda2/boot
mv sda2/grub sda2/boot/grub
Lets create a sample grub.cfg file for it to use.
cat > sda2/boot/grub/grub.cfg <<EOL
set timeout=20
default=0
menuentry “UEFI Secure Boot Bootloader” {
search — set=root — file /grubefi.cfg
configfile /grub.cfg
}
EOL
Lets do the same and create a grub.cfg for the legacy boot loader, this time we will put it in “/EFI/BOOT/grub/grub.cfg”
cat > sda2/EFI/BOOT/grub/grub.cfg <<EOL
set timeout=20
default=0
menuentry “Legacy Bootloader” {
search — set=root — file /grubbios.cfg
configfile /grub.cfg
}
EOL
We could stop here and just add our own menu entries here, but since this drive is EFI and will be hidden, it will make it difficult to make changes later. Thats why we will create our own config file on the data partition “SplashOSLive”.
We need to mount our data partition for the next step.
mkdir sda3
sudo mount ${mountpoint}3 sda3
sudo chmod -R 777 sda3
Lets create our grub.cfg file.
cat > sda3/grub.cfg <<EOL
loadfont unicode
insmod all_video
insmod part_msdos
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
insmod ntfs
insmod ntfscomp
set gfxmode=800x600x32
set gfxpayload=keep
set gfxterm_font=unicode
terminal_output gfxterm
set timeout=20
default=1
menuentry “SplashOS Live Bootloader” {
echo “SplashOS Live Bootloader”
}
menuentry “ Live Boot To RAM from USB” {
search — no-floppy — set=root — file /area2/vmlinuz
linux /area2/vmlinuz toram=filesystem.squashfs quiet splash boot=live live-media-path=/area2/
initrd /area2/initrd.img
}
menuentry “ Boot Lubuntu ISO” {
set isofile=”/ubuntu/lubuntu.iso”
search — no-floppy — set=root — file $isofile
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noeject
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd
}
EOL
The above grub.cfg has two menus, we will only go through the steps to run SplashOS Live. If you want to try the “Lubuntu” menu you need to download the latest Lubuntu.iso from Ubuntu and create a folder called “ubuntu” and copy the ISO to it (Please note this does not work with Secure Boot enabled). UPDATE: Please check the end of the artical for a method to boot using Secure Boot.
For your reference SplashOS can be any Debian Buster 10.5 flavor, you just need to extract the initrd, vmlinuz and filesystem.squashfs files.
You can also create your own, which as I mentioned I will be happy to show in another artical, if there is interest.
So in my case I copy my system to the USB
mkdir sda3/area2
sudo cp /boot/initrd* sda3/area2/initrd.img
sudo cp /boot/vmlinuz* sda3/area2/vmlinuz
sudo cp /lib/live/mount/medium/filesystem.squashfs sda3/area2/filesystem.squashfs
The above will take time ( if your not using USB 3 device a lot longer ).
There are a number of files which where automatically created, which if left cause problems, so lets delete them. They are for EFI “fallback”, which because of our build steps, are NOT required.
rm sda2/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg
rm sda2/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.CSV
rm sda2/EFI/BOOT/fbx64.efi
Lastly, lets clear up our mounts and directories created
sudo umount sda2
sudo umount sda3
sudo rm -rf sda2
sudo rm -rf sda3

[cuckooflew]

Thank you for sharing these, some people do find them interesting.

Incidently, if you browsed the forum a little , you will see there is a board for

Docs, Howtos, Tips & Tricks
Share your own howto's etc. Not for support questions!

http://forums.debian.net/viewforum.php?f=16
That is the more appropriate board ,if you want to share your "how to", or tips, but look through it , there may all ready be some others on the same subject.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

@OP: please use code tags when posting terminal output, it greatly improves the readability.