On 04/11/2013 03:32 PM, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
Been there, done that. 2 problems:
1) fails to boot, generally. Did not try the SL6.4 iso image yet.
2) there are 2 DVDs (Everything-DVD1, Everything-DVD2) how do you merge them
into 1 USB flash?
I seem to remember that installing from the 'Everything' DVD's was
discouraged, rather the single install DVD was recommended.
Having said that, I routinely merge the two CentOS install DVD images,
making a 'Dual-Layer' ISO and using it to feed livecd-iso-to-disk.
Here's the sequence of commands I used to build an install USB stick
with both DVD's contents for CentOS 6.4 (/dev/sdo was the USB key, and
you can get mkdvdiso.sh from [1] and I did this as root, so the iso is
in root's home, which is also the current working directory, and I put
mkdvdiso.sh in /usr/local/bin, and, of course, I installed the
prerequisites for mkdvdiso.sh... (see the page, but this script has been
around a long time).....):
mkdir tmpiso
cp centos-stuff/6.4/isos/x86_64/Cen*DVD?.iso tmpiso
mkdvdiso.sh tmpiso /root/c64-dvddl-x86_64.iso
livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr c63-dvddl-x86_64.iso /dev/sdo
(Yes, I know it says 'CD to DVD media' but this DOES actually work to
merge two DVD's into a single ISO [2].... I've done this for 6.2, 6.3,
and 6.4 install media on CentOS and it works fine, at least on CentOS.
I have not personally tried it on SL with the Everything ISO's, but it
would likely work without modifications, but any possible mods would
probably be small and easy).
Now, as to the issue with GRUB getting put in the wrong place.... you
just have to be careful during the install to tell GRUB that the target
disk isn't the USB key; it's not that hard to do interactively. After
all, upstream doesn't support USB installs for EL6 at all, and this is
actually a bit of a hack in ways. And don't let the 'livecd' part of
that throw you, either, since it works just fine for install DVD's as
well as making liveUSB versions of your liveCD, in which case you can
add an encrypted /home and do an overlay so that it becomes a read-write
liveUSB if made from a liveCD/liveDVD.
Now, I've thought about using Sandisk U3-enabled USB keys, and using the
u3-tool package ( http://u3-tool.sourceforge.net/ ) and blowing the
dual-layer ISO into the emulated CD partition of a U3-enabled stick
(after, of course, making that partition large enough with u3-tool), but
that may or may not work. It would make the emulated CD read-only and
protect the hard disk, and if the stick is partitioned correctly might
make things work better, but I've not tried it, even though I have a
pair of U3-enabled 16GB Sandisk Cruzers. I just don't know if the
emulated CD can be made to boot, that's the part I haven't tested
adequately.
[1] http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CDtoDVDMedia
[2] http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2012-February/008555.html
