Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

another experiment proposal for Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski:

Zeroize the GPT of a copy of boot-grub2-f36.iso and adjust MBR partition 1.
Do this in bash for the $'\x...' gestures:

  # Create the playground
  cp boot-grub2-f36.iso test.iso

  # Zeroize the main GPT
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 seek=512 count=32256 conv=notrunc of=test.iso

  # Zeroize the header block of the backup GPT
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 seek=1334219 count=1 conv=notrunc of=test.iso

  # Set the boot flag to MBR partition 1
  echo $'\x80' | dd bs=1 seek=446 count=1 conv=notrunc of=test.iso

  # Change the partition type to 0x17 (as with BIOS-only ISOLINUX isohybrid)
  echo $'\x17' | dd bs=1 seek=450 count=1 conv=notrunc of=test.iso

  # Set the start of MBR partition 1 to LBA 64, so that it is mountable
  echo $'\x40' | dd bs=1 seek=454 count=1 conv=notrunc of=test.iso

  # Append 63 blocks of 512 bytes to compensate for the new start LBA
  # with the old partition size. (Else partition editors will hate the
  # image because it is too small for the partition.)
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 count=63 >>test.iso

Check whether partition editors like the result and see the boot flag:

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l test.iso
  ...
  Disklabel type: dos
  ...
  Device Boot Start End Sectors   Size Id Type
  test.iso1  *   64 1334282 1334219 651.5M 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

Put test.iso onto the USB stick as usual.

The result is supposed to boot from USB stick only via legacy BIOS.
EFI would still see the System Partition on a CD or DVD because it is
announced by the El Torito catalog.

If it does not boot on the Dell XPS 15 L502X, try whether it boots on
some other BIOS machine.
I only roughly tested that
  qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 512 -hda test.iso
boots to the GRUB menu.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > If test_oldlayout.iso does not boot, then i am quite clueless.

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> I'm afraid that this is the case.

What a naughty machine. :))

I'll think about making a BIOS-only GRUB ISO, just for testing.
(Am busy with finding out how to merge the two Debian DLBD ISOs to a
single bootable all-in-one ISO with 78 GiB, 58,000 packages and official
attire.)


Some info about peculiar BIOS machines:

In the course of lengthy
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/+bug/1922342
we found machines which would probably boot fine with the current
candidate for a new Fedora ISO but show a delay of ~ 6 minutes with the
current Ubuntu ISOs.
Obviously their firmwares don't play well with GRUB when the dummy MBR
partition with the boot flag is present:
- tablet computer "motion computing j3400".
- mainboard Gigabyte H61M-D2H-USB3
- possibly mainboard Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3
  (It is slow on booting, but we got no confirmation that removing the
  dummy MBR partiton would make it faster)
All are about 10 years old.

On the other hand we re-confirmed that not only some laptops but also the
following stationary machines do not boot at all from USB stick if no
MBR boot flag is present:
- HP Compaq dc7700
- HP Compaq dc7900
(again about 10 years old).
So these machines will most probably not boot with the current candidate
for a new Fedora ISO.

It might be helpful to publish a shell script as workaround for the HPs,
which puts the dummy MBR partition entry into the new Fedora ISO.
From Ubuntu's
  
https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/tree/scripts/casper-helpers#n313
by Steve Langasek:

  # detection of dash vs busybox/bash
  if [ "$(echo -e foo)" = "-e foo" ]; then
  escape_arg=""
  else
  escape_arg=-e
  fi
  echo $escape_arg -n '\0200\00\01\00\00\00\01\00\00\00\00\00\01\00\00\00' \
  | dd of=$DEVICE bs=1 seek=462 conv=notrunc count=16

(This is done after fdisk added a GPT partition for persistent data and
made the MBR partition table specs compliant, like in the new Fedora ISO.
$DEVICE is the USB stick from which the ISO booted. I would propose the
affected Fedora users to do this with the ISO image before putting it on
the USB stick. Maybe it has to be repeated on the stick after the first
boot if the software in the ISO creates a new GPT partition, too.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

Hello, Thomas.
Thanks for your patience. I would've gotten the results sooner,
but life got in the way.

On Tuesday, 26 April 2022 at 23:18, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,

> If test_oldlayout.iso does not boot, then i am quite clueless.

I'm afraid that this is the case. I'll try to re-do the ISO mangling
procedure again, but I don't think I made any mistakes in copy-pasting
your command lines.

> I doubt that the heavily illegal GPT partition for the overall ISO in
> the old Fedora ISOs does the trick.
> I also doubt that the presence of the macboot.img is significant for a
> legacyBIOS. It is mentioned with type 0x00 in the MBR partition table
> and as "Apple UFS" in GPT.
> 
> So only success with test_oldlayout.iso will bring more insight.
> But that might also perpetuate the really undesirable test_oldlayout.iso.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, then. :/

Regards,
Dominik
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oppression to develop psychic muscles.
-- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Neal Gompa wrote:
> I don't know if it's been mentioned,

IIRC, Chris Murphy did.

> but until very recently, pretty
> much all TianoCore based UEFI implementations failed to boot
> protective MBR marked GPT partitions.
> [...]
> https://github.com/tianocore/edk2/commit/b3db0cb1f8d163f22b769c205c6347376a315dcd

First of all: Thanks for fixing this.

But yes, the problem is known and a workaround is known in form of the little
dummy MBR partition which takes the plight of carrying the boot/active flag.
Old Tianocore will find the 0xEE partition first, see no boot flag there,
and break the loop before it inspects the dummy partition.

Ubuntu's current ISOs have this dummy MBR partition of type 0x00 and size 1.
They seem to boot with the EFI implementations which are around.


(Not a complaint towards Tianocore but just an observation:

That loop is still barely specs compliant. But now it is on the liberal side.
UEFI 2.8 says
  "5.2.3 Protective MBR
   [...]
   One of the Partition Records shall be as defined in table 12, reserving
   the entire space on the disk after the Protective MBR itself for the GPT
   disk layout.
   [...]
   The remaining Partition Records shall each be set to zeros.
  "
Well, i guess "table 12" was meant as "table 20" which describes the partition
slot of type 0xEE. Whether "shall" should be implemented as "must" is a matter
of hairsplitting.
A picky loop would not break at the first success but rather check all four
partition slots. On the other hand it would be nice if it would project the
"may be ignored" of
  "5.2.1 Legacy Master Boot Record (MBR)
   [...]
   A Partition Record that contains an OSType value of zero or a SizeInLBA
   value of zero may be ignored.
  "
onto the rules for a Protective MBR.

It would be unfortunate if this fragile compromise would be broken by
increased pickiness of EFI implementations. To my understanding only the
liberal interpretation of a "shall" and a slightly displaced "may" in the
specs protects it.
)


I am somewhat astonished that no BIOS machine was encountered yet in the
tests of boot-grub2-f36.iso which would refuse to boot with its pure
GPT-marking MBR table but would boot if the boot/active flag is set somwhere
in the MBR partition table.
Testers of grub-mkrescue ISOs and of Ubuntu ISOs encountered such machines.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 5:17 PM Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Brian C. Lane wrote:
> > If this fixes the boot issues with the XPS 15 then it's probably worth
> > using this instead of the 'clean' GPT method and then revisit later once
> > BIOS support finally goes away.
>
> (Now i am not sure whether i shall hope for a significant test result.)
>
> It should be noted that Ubuntu publishes 'nearly clean' GPT with boot
> flag MBR partition since a year. 22.04 is out and still bears this layout.
> So there are not many machines around which suffer from the yet unknown
> particular demand of the Dell XPS 15 L502X.
>
> I am still pondering what to try next when the experiment results are in.
>
> If test_oldlayout.iso boots, then the next step would possibly to deface
> the GPT of boot-grub2-f36.iso by changing the type of MBR partition 1 from
> 0xEE to 0x83 or 0x00. If that does not boot, then i would ask for setting
> the boot flag of partition 1.
> (These are not proposed solutions. The experiments shall just tell what
> exactly the BIOS expects and does not get from boot-grub2-f36.iso.)
>
> If test_oldlayout.iso does not boot, then i am quite clueless.
> I doubt that the heavily illegal GPT partition for the overall ISO in
> the old Fedora ISOs does the trick.
> I also doubt that the presence of the macboot.img is significant for a
> legacyBIOS. It is mentioned with type 0x00 in the MBR partition table
> and as "Apple UFS" in GPT.
>
> So only success with test_oldlayout.iso will bring more insight.
> But that might also perpetuate the really undesirable test_oldlayout.iso.
>

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but until very recently, pretty
much all TianoCore based UEFI implementations failed to boot
protective MBR marked GPT partitions. I know this because I fixed that
issue last year[1] when working on hybridizing Fedora Cloud images,
and the issue has existed since at least 2007.

That doesn't mean that all proprietary UEFI implementations retain
this bug from their forked TianoCore implementations that make up
their UEFI codebases, but it would not surprise me if a lot of them
do.

[1]: 
https://github.com/tianocore/edk2/commit/b3db0cb1f8d163f22b769c205c6347376a315dcd



-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Brian C. Lane wrote:
> If this fixes the boot issues with the XPS 15 then it's probably worth
> using this instead of the 'clean' GPT method and then revisit later once
> BIOS support finally goes away.

(Now i am not sure whether i shall hope for a significant test result.)

It should be noted that Ubuntu publishes 'nearly clean' GPT with boot
flag MBR partition since a year. 22.04 is out and still bears this layout.
So there are not many machines around which suffer from the yet unknown
particular demand of the Dell XPS 15 L502X.

I am still pondering what to try next when the experiment results are in.

If test_oldlayout.iso boots, then the next step would possibly to deface
the GPT of boot-grub2-f36.iso by changing the type of MBR partition 1 from
0xEE to 0x83 or 0x00. If that does not boot, then i would ask for setting
the boot flag of partition 1.
(These are not proposed solutions. The experiments shall just tell what
exactly the BIOS expects and does not get from boot-grub2-f36.iso.)

If test_oldlayout.iso does not boot, then i am quite clueless.
I doubt that the heavily illegal GPT partition for the overall ISO in
the old Fedora ISOs does the trick.
I also doubt that the presence of the macboot.img is significant for a
legacyBIOS. It is mentioned with type 0x00 in the MBR partition table
and as "Apple UFS" in GPT.

So only success with test_oldlayout.iso will bring more insight.
But that might also perpetuate the really undesirable test_oldlayout.iso.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brian C. Lane]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 10:43:39AM +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> i uploaded a new GNU xorriso development tarball for the next experiment
> with the Dell XPS 15 L502X of Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski.

I followed your instructions and confirmed that this method still works
with qemu bios/uefi/cdrom/hd as well has UEFI laptop, MacBook Air, and
old Dell Inspiron 1525.

If this fixes the boot issues with the XPS 15 then it's probably worth
using this instead of the 'clean' GPT method and then revisit later once
BIOS support finally goes away.

Thanks,

Brian

-- 
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i uploaded a new GNU xorriso development tarball for the next experiment
with the Dell XPS 15 L502X of Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski.

The program will not interfere with the libraries or the /usr/bin/xorriso
binary which gets installed by Fedora from the xorriso package.
There are no special hard dependencies.
But i assume that the Fedora xorriso gets built with these optional
dependencies:
- libreadline development package
- zlib development package
- libacl development package
None of them should be needed for the experiment.

Download:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/xorriso/xorriso-1.5.5.tar.gz

MD5:
  e622b2547202529fbee6c9186fe39c40
  (This might change with future uploads of the xorriso-1.5.5 snapshot.
   The next stable release will be 1.5.6.)

Build:

  cd /...some.../...playground.../...directory...
  tar xzf /...where_it_was_downloaded.../xorriso-1.5.5.tar.gz
  cd xorriso-1.5.5
  ./configure --prefix=/usr
  make

This will produce a binary named
  ./xorriso/xorriso

Installation is not necessary. Just execute the path that is given by
  ls $(pwd)/xorriso/xorriso

Check whether it is willing to run:

  /...path.../xorriso/xorriso -version

It should report:

  GNU xorriso 1.5.5 : RockRidge filesystem manipulator, libburnia project.

  GNU xorriso 1.5.5
  ISO 9660 Rock Ridge filesystem manipulator and CD/DVD/BD burn program
  Copyright (C) 2021, Thomas Schmitt , libburnia project.
  xorriso version   :  1.5.5
  Version timestamp :  2022.04.22.113324
  Build timestamp   :  -none-given-
  libisofs   in use :  1.5.5  (min. 1.5.5)
  libjte in use :  2.0.0  (min. 2.0.0)
  libburnin use :  1.5.5  (min. 1.5.5)
  libburn OS adapter:  internal GNU/Linux SG_IO adapter sg-linux
  libisoburn in use :  1.5.5  (min. 1.5.5)
  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
  This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

The "libjte" line will only appear if zlib development was present at
compile time. All reported libraries are part of the tarball and linked
statically.

-

Now for the partition layout with GRUB which comes nearest to the layout
that was produced with ISOLINUX (quite like the result of isoybrid --uefi).
Begin like with the last experiment:

  # Extract the EFI partition
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=512 skip=1313268 count=20288 of=test_efi.img

  # Extract the MBR code
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=1 count=446 of=test_mbr.img

  # Pad MBR up to 32768 bytes, so that it overwrites the loaded system area
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 count=32322 >>test_mbr.img

The xorriso run shall bring the ISO as near to the old layout as possible:

  xorriso=/...path.../xorriso/xorriso

  new_iso=test_oldlayout.iso

  # xorriso in its native mode does not truncate -outdev
  test -e "$new_iso" && rm "$new_iso"

  "$xorriso" \
-indev boot-grub2-f36.iso \
-outdev "$new_iso" \
-map test_efi.img /images/efiboot.img \
-as mkisofs \
  -part_like_isohybrid \
  --grub2-mbr test_mbr.img \
  --boot-catalog-hide \
  -b /images/eltorito.img \
 -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
 --grub2-boot-info \
  -eltorito-alt-boot \
  -e images/efiboot.img \
-no-emul-boot -isohybrid-gpt-basdat \
  -R -J \
-- \
-padding included \
-compliance no_emul_toc \
-stdio_sync off

Inspect the resulting boot equipment and partition layout:

  "$xorriso" -indev "$new_iso" -report_el_torito plain -report_system_area plain

This should report:

  El Torito catalog  : 71  1
  El Torito images   :   N  Pltf  B   Emul  Ld_seg  Hdpt  Ldsiz LBA
  El Torito boot img :   1  BIOS  y   none  0x  0x00  4  72
  El Torito boot img :   2  UEFI  y   none  0x  0x00  20288  328252
  El Torito img path :   1  /images/eltorito.img
  El Torito img opts :   1  boot-info-table grub2-boot-info
  El Torito img path :   2  /images/efiboot.img
  System area options: 0x4a00
  System area summary: MBR grub2-mbr cyl-align-off GPT
  ISO image size/512 : 1333960
  Partition offset   : 0
  MBR heads per cyl  : 64
  MBR secs per head  : 32
  MBR partition table:   N Status  TypeStart   Blocks
  MBR partition  :   1   0x80  0x000  1333960
  MBR partition  :   2   0x00  0xef  131300820288
  MBR partition path :   2  /images/efiboot.img
  GPT:   N  Info
  GPT disk GUID  :  2040609c42db0e43ad879c51ee608215
  GPT entry array:  2  248  separated
  GPT lba range  :  64  1333896  1333959
  GPT partition name :   1  490053004f004800790062007200690064003100
  GPT partname local :   1  ISOHybrid1
  GPT partition GUID :   1  2040609c42db0e43ad869c51ee608215
  GPT type GUID  :   1  a2a0d0ebe5b9334487c068b6b72699c7
  GPT partition flags:   1  0x1001
  GPT start and size 

Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dusty Mabe]

On 4/20/22 17:25, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 

Thanks Thomas for the reply. You've given us some good information to 
consider/pursue.

Dusty
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> Whatever, if you want to try already now with the buggy result,

It comes to me that the MBR signature will be missing too. So it won't
be recognized by BIOS and its x86 code won't start.

The signature could be inserted by

  echo $'\x55'$'\xAA' | dd of="$new_iso" conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=510 count=2


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > Does it boot with ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso ?

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> It doesn't. Same error.
> [...]
> $ grub2-mkrescue -o output-mbr.iso --mbr-force-bootable minimal
> gives me the "Operation System not found" BIOS error again.

> > Building something nearer to the old ISO layout:
> >   new_iso=test_mjgappended.iso

> Unfortunately, that one doesn't boot.

So it is really a new BIOS quirk.
It is astounding how much the old jackalope ISO snuggles itself into such
firmwares.


> I'll try modifying the ISO from the beginning of this thread according
> to your instructions from another subthread.

If it is about the variant with options -part_like_isohybrid and
-isohybrid-gpt-basdat then i have to warn of a bug in xorriso which
i found while preparing the next experiment.
The bug prevents the production of the MBR partition table in this case
and thus makes the resulting ISO unbootable on EFI from USB stick.

BIOS booting should be ok. But the wrong result is not a candidate for
a generally bootable ISO. Maybe it is not even significant for a test.

I am currently testing a remedy, but this will last a few days because
i have to be quite paranoid with changing the boot equipment code in
libisofs.
When it's ready, i will ask you to download and compile a GNU xorriso 1.5.5
development snapshot. (The compilation has no special dependencies.)



Whatever, if you want to try already now with the buggy result, begin
like with the last experiment. You can re-use the files from the
last time:

  # Extract the EFI partition
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=512 skip=1313268 count=20288 of=test_efi.img

  # Extract the MBR code
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=1 count=446 of=test_mbr.img

  # Pad MBR up to 32768 bytes, so that it overwrites the loaded system area
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 count=32322 >>test_mbr.img

The xorriso run shall bring the ISO as near to the old layout as possible:

  new_iso=test_oldlayout.iso

  # xorriso in its native mode does not truncate -outdev
  test -e "$new_iso" && rm "$new_iso"

  xorriso \
-indev boot-grub2-f36.iso \
-outdev "$new_iso" \
-map test_efi.img /images/efiboot.img \
-as mkisofs \
  -part_like_isohybrid \
  --grub2-mbr test_mbr.img \
  --boot-catalog-hide \
  -b /images/eltorito.img \
 -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
 --grub2-boot-info \
  -eltorito-alt-boot \
  -e images/efiboot.img \
-no-emul-boot -isohybrid-gpt-basdat \
  -R -J \
-- \
-padding included \
-compliance no_emul_toc \
-stdio_sync off

After bug correction the result will look like this:

  $ xorriso -indev "$new_iso" -report_system_area plain -report_el_torito plain
  [...]
  System area options: 0x4a00
  System area summary: MBR grub2-mbr cyl-align-off GPT
  ISO image size/512 : 1334000
  Partition offset   : 0
  MBR heads per cyl  : 64
  MBR secs per head  : 32
  MBR partition table:   N Status  TypeStart   Blocks
  MBR partition  :   1   0x80  0x170  1334000
  MBR partition  :   2   0x00  0xef  131303220288
  MBR partition path :   2  /images/efiboot.img
  GPT:   N  Info
  GPT disk GUID  :  63f762129e2da8499aee97f68461f45f
  GPT entry array:  2  248  separated
  GPT lba range  :  64  1333936  1333999
  GPT partition name :   1  490053004f004800790062007200690064003100
  GPT partname local :   1  ISOHybrid1
  GPT partition GUID :   1  63f762129e2da8499aef97f68461f45f
  GPT type GUID  :   1  a2a0d0ebe5b9334487c068b6b72699c7
  GPT partition flags:   1  0x1001
  GPT start and size :   1  1313032  20288
  GPT partition path :   1  /images/efiboot.img
  El Torito catalog  : 77  1
  El Torito images   :   N  Pltf  B   Emul  Ld_seg  Hdpt  Ldsiz LBA
  El Torito boot img :   1  BIOS  y   none  0x  0x00  4  78
  El Torito boot img :   2  UEFI  y   none  0x  0x00  20288  328258
  El Torito img path :   1  /images/eltorito.img
  El Torito img opts :   1  boot-info-table grub2-boot-info
  El Torito img path :   2  /images/efiboot.img

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l "$new_iso"
  [...]
  Disklabel type: dos
  [...]
  Disk identifier: 0x

  Device  Boot   Start End Sectors   Size Id Type
  test_oldlayout.iso1 *  0 1333959 1333960 651.4M 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
  test_oldlayout.iso2  1313008 1333295   20288   9.9M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

With the bug still in xorriso, the lines which begin by "MBR" will be
missing. fdisk will report no partitions. (Normal BIOS would not care
about these defects.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 17:34, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > Looks like it's a common issue with USB stick booting on these old Dell
> > XPS 15s:
> > https://askubuntu.com/questions/611135/operation-system-not-found-during-usb-boot
> > https://askubuntu.com/questions/451931/operation-system-not-found-dell-xps-15z-l511z
> > https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Operation-System-Not-Found-not-a-typo/td-p/5177162
> > https://www.dell.com/community/SupportAssist-Enterprise/Trying-to-boot-from-USB-but-getting-quot-Operation-system-not/td-p/5966292
> 
> These look like the problem we face. But no remedy to see.
[...]
> Whatever, from the boot success of the old Fedora ISO we know that the
> problem can be avoided. The riddle is to find out what does the trick.
> 
> Building something nearer to the old ISO layout:
[...]

Unfortunately, that one doesn't boot.

> --
> 
> If above boots on the Dell XPS 15 L502X, we should confirm that the MBR
> boot/active trick is really, really not the decisive difference to
> boot-grub2-f36.iso.
> I.e. whether the resulting ISO from this repack run does _not_ work:
[...]

Indeed, this one doesn't boot, either.

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Dusty Mabe wrote:
> Currently we use isohybrid [1] (also from syslinux package) to modify the
> ISO to be able to be booted on a USB key. Would we be able to still get that
> functionality without isohybrid from the syslinux package?

Yes. The GRUB2 MBR code will get the equivalent treatment already when
the ISO image gets created. A postprocessing run will not be needed for
getting the ability to boot from USB stick.
The ESP will be marked by an entry in a GPT partition table.

But some BIOS implementations might not recognize the bootability of the
stick when pure GPT is used. We have the example of Dell XPS 15 L502X
which is not fully explored yet. GRUB2 development encountered other
machines which did not boot if not some MBR partition beared the
boot/active flag.

This is not particularly a GRUB problem. But the isohybrid program of
ISOLINUX always creates a MBR partition with boot/active flag.
The price is that isohybrid never produces a valid GPT.


> https://github.com/coreos/coreos-assembler/blob/b8f61207c7a4ce345a1f136823dac6c628086273/src/cmd-buildextend-live#L642

Insofar the comment in line 639 of src/cmd-buildextend-live is not fully
correct:
  "Add MBR, and GPT with ESP, ..."
The ESP is marked by isohybrid --uefi in a UEFI compliant way in the MBR
partition table as partition of type 0xEF.
isohybrid creates a GPT indeed. But is is not valid because not announced
by a MBR partition of type 0xEE. Further the GPT partition entry which
marks the ESP does not have the prescribed type GUID for EFI, but rather
the type GUID for a Microsoft basic data partition.

The new partition layout in boot-grub2-f36.iso would make the comment
fully correct: The GPT is valid and the ESP entry has the right type GUID.
But then you would have to disable the run of /usr/bin/isohybrid and
thus need no comment at all.

You would also have to switch from genisoimage to xorrisofs in the
"x86_64" case. Several options would have to be changed.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 09:20, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> i wrote:
> > > Does the following bash hack "repair" the USB stick so that it boots on
> > > the affected machine ?
> > >   echo $'\x80' | dd of=/dev/sdX conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=446 count=1
> 
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > No, it doesn't. Still getting "Operation System not found".
> 
> A new firmware riddle.
> 
> Does it boot with ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso ?
> (That's supposed to be pure GPT with the little extra MBR partition.)

It doesn't. Same error.

[...]
> > I'll try the grub2-mkrescue ISO next.
> 
> Once made with and once without extra option
>   --mbr-force-bootable
> please.
> (We are now using a long stick to poke around in the mist.)

Image generated with:

$ grub2-mkrescue -o output-mbr.iso --mbr-force-bootable minimal

gives me the "Operation System not found" BIOS error again.

I'll try modifying the ISO from the beginning of this thread according
to your instructions from another subthread.

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dusty Mabe]

On 4/13/22 19:52, Brian C. Lane wrote:
> A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)
> 
> Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
> of the iso as described in his post:

Hey Brian, thanks for sharing. Is this an effort to drop the isolinux/syslinux
stack from the equation? 

In Fedora CoreOS we're using isolinux (for BIOS) and GRUB2 for UEFI for the ISO
image we deliver. We're not opposed to using GRUB2 for BIOS too (happy to in 
fact),
but we want to make sure things keep working.

Currently we use isohybrid [1] (also from syslinux package) to modify the ISO 
to be
able to be booted on a USB key. Would we be able to still get that functionality
without isohybrid from the syslinux package? 

[1] 
https://github.com/coreos/coreos-assembler/blob/b8f61207c7a4ce345a1f136823dac6c628086273/src/cmd-buildextend-live#L642
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Łukasz Posadowski]

https://postimg.cc/bD87J8tF
Tested on old Dell r720 with bios boot.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Łukasz Posadowski]

https://postimg.cc/bD87J8tF

Booted on the old Dell r710 via classic bios.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> Looks like it's a common issue with USB stick booting on these old Dell
> XPS 15s:
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/611135/operation-system-not-found-during-usb-boot
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/451931/operation-system-not-found-dell-xps-15z-l511z
> https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Operation-System-Not-Found-not-a-typo/td-p/5177162
> https://www.dell.com/community/SupportAssist-Enterprise/Trying-to-boot-from-USB-but-getting-quot-Operation-system-not/td-p/5966292

These look like the problem we face. But no remedy to see.


> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=226003

This was probably a problem with the MBR on hard disk which wanted to hop
on a PMBR but was directed to the wrong partition by the boot/active flag.


Whatever, from the boot success of the old Fedora ISO we know that the
problem can be avoided. The riddle is to find out what does the trick.

Building something nearer to the old ISO layout:

  new_iso=test_mjgappended.iso

  # Extract the EFI partition
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=512 skip=1313268 count=20288 of=test_efi.img

  # Extract the MBR code
  dd if=boot-grub2-f36.iso bs=1 count=446 of=test_mbr.img

  # Pad MBR up to 32768 bytes, so that it overwrites the loaded system area
  dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 count=32322 >>test_mbr.img

  # xorriso in its native mode does not truncate -outdev
  test -e "$new_iso" && rm "$new_iso"

  # The boot lures need to be thoroughly re-arranged.
  # To avoid the need for being superuser let xorriso load the file tree
  # of the original ISO. (Not only mounting but also reading the file
  # -rwx-- /mountpoint/EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI would need root rights.)
  xorriso \
-indev boot-grub2-f36.iso \
-outdev "$new_iso" \
-as mkisofs \
  -iso_mbr_part_type 0x83 \
  --grub2-mbr test_mbr.img \
  -append_partition 2 0xef test_efi.img \
  -part_like_isohybrid \
  --boot-catalog-hide \
  -b /images/eltorito.img \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
--grub2-boot-info \
  -eltorito-alt-boot \
  -e '--interval:appended_partition_2:all::' \
-no-emul-boot -isohybrid-gpt-basdat \
  -R -J \
-- \
-padding included \
-changes_pending yes \
-stdio_sync off

The resulting ISO is MBR partitioned:

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l test_mjgappended.iso
  ...
  Disklabel type: dos
  ...
  DeviceBoot   Start End Sectors   Size Id Type
  test_mjgappended.iso1 *  0 1313135 1313136 641.2M 83 Linux
  test_mjgappended.iso2  1313136 1333423   20288   9.9M ef EFI 
(FAT-12/16/32)

but has the inofficial smell of GPT by bearing a GPT header and a GPT
partition slot which marks the EFI partition (not by the EFI type GUUID).
Quite like the current Fedora ISOs do.

--

If above boots on the Dell XPS 15 L502X, we should confirm that the MBR
boot/active trick is really, really not the decisive difference to
boot-grub2-f36.iso.
I.e. whether the resulting ISO from this repack run does _not_ work:

  new_iso=test_bootactive.iso

  # xorriso in its native mode does not truncate -outdev
  test -e "$new_iso" && rm "$new_iso"

  # The original boot layout can be reused with one little adjustment
  xorriso -indev boot-grub2-f36.iso \
  -outdev "$new_iso" \
  -boot_image any replay \
  -boot_image any mbr_force_bootable=on \
  -padding included \
  -changes_pending yes \
  -stdio_sync off

--


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 09:08, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 08:46, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 12:17, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> [...]
> > > xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable may be added to the grub-mkrescue
> > > arguments. If we indeed face this bug, then a grub-mrescue ISO with EFI
> > > equipment should not boot on the affected machine, unless this extra
> > > option was given at production time.
> > 
> > I'll try the grub2-mkrescue ISO next.
> 
> And indeed, it doesn't boot. Same "Operation System not found" message.

Looks like it's a common issue with USB stick booting on these old Dell
XPS 15s:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/611135/operation-system-not-found-during-usb-boot
https://askubuntu.com/questions/451931/operation-system-not-found-dell-xps-15z-l511z
https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Operation-System-Not-Found-not-a-typo/td-p/5177162
https://www.dell.com/community/SupportAssist-Enterprise/Trying-to-boot-from-USB-but-getting-quot-Operation-system-not/td-p/5966292
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=226003

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > Does the following bash hack "repair" the USB stick so that it boots on
> > the affected machine ?
> >   echo $'\x80' | dd of=/dev/sdX conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=446 count=1

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> No, it doesn't. Still getting "Operation System not found".

A new firmware riddle.

Does it boot with ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso ?
(That's supposed to be pure GPT with the little extra MBR partition.)


> FWIW, I can see the following messages in dmesg when inserting the stick
> into another machine:
> [18881.575576] GPT:Primary header thinks Alt. header is not at the end of the 
> disk.
> [18881.575580] GPT:1334219 != 15974399
> [18881.575582] GPT:Alternate GPT header not at the end of the disk.
> [18881.575583] GPT:1334219 != 15974399

That has to be expected because the ISO image is smaller than the storage
device on which it was put.
(That's a reason why i promoted MBR partition table for ISOs, until the
first EFI impementations showed up which demand a smell of GPT.)

A GPT problem is unlikely to influence the first stage of BIOS booting.


> [18881.575584] GPT: Use GNU Parted to correct GPT errors.

If you follow this advice then possibly the boot/active flag of the
0xEE MBR partition will be reset to 0.
(I remember that Ubuntu had a sanitizing step after booting which made
the USB stick specs compliant and thus prevented further booting of the
stick on the affected BIOS machine until the dummy partition was recreated.
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1899308
especially
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1899308/comments/60
)


> I'll try the grub2-mkrescue ISO next.

Once made with and once without extra option
  --mbr-force-bootable
please.
(We are now using a long stick to poke around in the mist.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 08:46, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 12:17, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
[...]
> > xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable may be added to the grub-mkrescue
> > arguments. If we indeed face this bug, then a grub-mrescue ISO with EFI
> > equipment should not boot on the affected machine, unless this extra
> > option was given at production time.
> 
> I'll try the grub2-mkrescue ISO next.

And indeed, it doesn't boot. Same "Operation System not found" message.

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 12:17, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > > > Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only)
> 
> BIOS-only on a laptop might mean the firmware quirk which demands
> to see the "boot/active" flag at some MBR partition table slot.
> 
> See a thread of grub-bug (and later grub-devel) from 2015/16
>   https://marc.info/?l=grub-bug=145052506901159=2
> where Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
>   "Subject: [bug #46716] Protective MBR partition is not marked as bootable
>[...]
>Changing the byte at offset 0x1be to 0x80 in the resulting iso makes
>it bootable on such boards."
> 
> This led to the creation of xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable in
> xorriso-1.4.3.
> 
> Does the following bash hack "repair" the USB stick so that it boots on
> the affected machine ?
> 
>   echo $'\x80' | dd of=/dev/sdX conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=446 count=1

No, it doesn't. Still getting "Operation System not found".
FWIW, I can see the following messages in dmesg when inserting the stick
into another machine:
[18881.575576] GPT:Primary header thinks Alt. header is not at the end of the 
disk.
[18881.575580] GPT:1334219 != 15974399
[18881.575582] GPT:Alternate GPT header not at the end of the disk.
[18881.575583] GPT:1334219 != 15974399
[18881.575584] GPT: Use GNU Parted to correct GPT errors.
[18881.575593]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3
[18881.598493] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[18881.943729] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[18881.945322] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[18881.946584] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A

[...]
> xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable may be added to the grub-mkrescue
> arguments. If we indeed face this bug, then a grub-mrescue ISO with EFI
> equipment should not boot on the affected machine, unless this extra
> option was given at production time.

I'll try the grub2-mkrescue ISO next.

Regards,
Dominik
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 19:00, Brian C. Lane wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 03:12:59PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 
> wrote:
> > I've tested your ISO with:
> > 
> > - Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media
> > 
> > Booted and started the installer reasonably fast
> > 
> > - same machine USB media (written to whole device using dd)
> > 
> > Boot fails with "Operation system not found" error.
> > Same USB stick boots fine on another machine (UEFI+SecureBoot), so
> > the medium is fine.
> 
> In my experience this mean the BIOS didn't find anything it wants to
> boot. Does a current F35 iso boot on this system when written to USB?

Fedora 35 MATE-Compiz Live ISO boots fine.

Regards,
Dominik
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 04:41, John Reiser wrote:
> > - Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media
> 
> It would be very nice to run /sbin/dmidecode, which is on the .iso,
> and report the "BIOS Information" section, such as:

Here's mine:

Handle 0x, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: Dell Inc. 
Version: A12
Release Date: 09/07/2012
Address: 0xE
Runtime Size: 128 kB
ROM Size: 2560 kB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
ESCD support is available
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/360 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
Smart battery is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Function key-initiated network boot is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 0.1

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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oppression to develop psychic muscles.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brandon Nielsen via devel]

On 4/15/22 5:06 PM, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,


Initial test with a CD-R and an HP Compaq 8510w are mixed.
It boots to GRUB, but it spins a long time blinking the HDD light displaying
nothing but "Welcome to GRUB". It eventually spits out "failure reading
sector 0x4f838 from 'hd31'."


'hd31' looks strange for HDD as well as for CD-ROM. Do have that many ?



Looked strange to me as well, I don't think I do...

Anyway, a reburn fixed it. I can now confirm a CD-R and the 
aforementioned HP Compaq 8510w boot fine with the test ISO.

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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Geraldo Simião Kutz]

Tested this iso with an USB stick on this machine here and it passed the
tests and Anaconda started correctly.

Machine: Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP G42 Notebook PC
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1484 v: 77.19 BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: F.17
date: 07/06/2010
CPU Dual core Pentium T4500 2.3GHz
RAM 6GB

Geraldo Simião

@geraldosimiao:matrix.org

Em seg, 18 de abr de 2022 14:44, Thomas Schmitt 
escreveu:

> Hi,
>
> i wrote:
> > > xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable
>
> Chris Murphy wrote:
> > with the bit set it means older versions of
> > Tianocore or anything based on Tianocore up until maybe 6 months ago,
> > won't boot.
>
> Is this maybe about the code snippet of Tianocore which Alexander E.
> Patrakov showed in the course of the grub-bug thread of 2015/16 ?
>
>   https://marc.info/?l=grub-bug=145052969801875=2
>   "
>   OK, Tiano Core validates the protective partition as follows:
>
>   //
>   // Verify that the Protective MBR is valid
>   //
>   for (Index = 0; Index < MAX_MBR_PARTITIONS; Index++) {
> if (ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].BootIndicator == 0x00 &&
> ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].OSIndicator == PMBR_GPT_PARTITION
> &&
> UNPACK_UINT32 (ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].StartingLBA) == 1
> ) {
>   break;
> }
>   }
>   if (Index == MAX_MBR_PARTITIONS) {
> goto Done;  // i.e. not valid
>   }
>
>   So here is an alternative suggestion: don't mark the protective
> partition,
>   create another dummy MBR partition of type 0x00, mark it as bootable.
>   "
>
> That's what --mbr-force-bootable does.
> The shown code will find type 0xEE == PMBR_GPT_PARTITION in partition 1
> with boot/active flag == 0x00 and be happy.
>
> Others which are more picky will hopefully ignore partitions of type 0x00.
> UEFI 2.8 , 5.2.1 Legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) says:
>   "The following test must be performed to determine if a legacy MBR is
>valid:
>* The Signature must be 0xaa55.
>* A Partition Record that contains an OSType value of zero or a
>  SizeInLBA value of zero may be ignored."
>
> For now, "may be ignored" seems to be enough of protection against trouble.
>
>
> An alternative to --mbr-force-bootable could be to offer a 16-byte file
> for download together with the instructions to patch it into a pure and
> specs conformant ISO with GPT. Of course, only if a 10 year old laptop
> refuses to recognize the original ISO on USB stick.
>
> The bytes would have to be
>
>   { 128, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0 }
>
> Assumed the file is named "dummy_mbr_part2.img" the patch instruction
> would be
>
>dd if=dummy_mbr_part2.img of=boot-grub2-f36.iso \
>   conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=462 count=16
>
> -
>
> Ubuntu is testing this for you since about a year. :))
>
> Afaik the first official ISO of this layout was
>   ubuntu-21.04-desktop-amd64.iso
> and they did _not_ revoke it half a year later with
>   ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso
>
>   $ xorriso -indev ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso -report_system_area plain
>   ...
>   Volume id: 'Ubuntu 21.10 amd64'
>   System area options: 0x4201
>   System area summary: MBR protective-msdos-label grub2-mbr cyl-align-off
> GPT
>   ISO image size/512 : 6086880
>   Partition offset   : 16
>   MBR heads per cyl  : 0
>   MBR secs per head  : 0
>   MBR partition table:   N Status  TypeStart   Blocks
>   MBR partition  :   1   0x00  0xee1  6086879
>   MBR partition  :   2   0x80  0x0001
>   GPT:   N  Info
>   ...
>
>   $ /sbin/fdisk -l ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso
>
>   Disk ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso: 2.9 GiB, 3116482560 bytes, 6086880
> sectors
>   Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>   Disklabel type: gpt
>   Disk identifier: EF83665C-2F29-48D6-8C3F-80F5A69CFEB7
>
>   DeviceStart End Sectors  Size Type
>   ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso1  64 6077751 6077688  2.9G Microsoft
> basic da
>   ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso2 6077752 60862158464  4.1M EFI System
>   ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso3 6086216 6086815 600  300K Microsoft
> basic da
>
> -
>
> Whatever, we do not yet know for sure whether the boot failure with the
> Dell XPS 15 L502X is caused by the lack of a boot/active flag.
>
> We also don't know yet whether the failure with "CD-R and an HP Compaq
> 8510w"
> that was reported by Brandon Nielsen is due to drive-media problems with
> the CD-R or due to problems with the ISO.
>
>
> Have a nice day :)
>
> Thomas
> ___
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> Fedora Code of 

Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable

Chris Murphy wrote:
> with the bit set it means older versions of
> Tianocore or anything based on Tianocore up until maybe 6 months ago,
> won't boot.

Is this maybe about the code snippet of Tianocore which Alexander E.
Patrakov showed in the course of the grub-bug thread of 2015/16 ?

  https://marc.info/?l=grub-bug=145052969801875=2
  "
  OK, Tiano Core validates the protective partition as follows:

  //
  // Verify that the Protective MBR is valid
  //
  for (Index = 0; Index < MAX_MBR_PARTITIONS; Index++) {
if (ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].BootIndicator == 0x00 &&
ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].OSIndicator == PMBR_GPT_PARTITION &&
UNPACK_UINT32 (ProtectiveMbr->Partition[Index].StartingLBA) == 1
) {
  break;
}
  }
  if (Index == MAX_MBR_PARTITIONS) {
goto Done;  // i.e. not valid
  }

  So here is an alternative suggestion: don't mark the protective partition,
  create another dummy MBR partition of type 0x00, mark it as bootable.
  "

That's what --mbr-force-bootable does.
The shown code will find type 0xEE == PMBR_GPT_PARTITION in partition 1
with boot/active flag == 0x00 and be happy.

Others which are more picky will hopefully ignore partitions of type 0x00.
UEFI 2.8 , 5.2.1 Legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) says:
  "The following test must be performed to determine if a legacy MBR is
   valid:
   * The Signature must be 0xaa55.
   * A Partition Record that contains an OSType value of zero or a
 SizeInLBA value of zero may be ignored."

For now, "may be ignored" seems to be enough of protection against trouble.


An alternative to --mbr-force-bootable could be to offer a 16-byte file
for download together with the instructions to patch it into a pure and
specs conformant ISO with GPT. Of course, only if a 10 year old laptop
refuses to recognize the original ISO on USB stick.

The bytes would have to be

  { 128, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0 }

Assumed the file is named "dummy_mbr_part2.img" the patch instruction
would be

   dd if=dummy_mbr_part2.img of=boot-grub2-f36.iso \
  conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=462 count=16

-

Ubuntu is testing this for you since about a year. :))

Afaik the first official ISO of this layout was
  ubuntu-21.04-desktop-amd64.iso
and they did _not_ revoke it half a year later with
  ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso

  $ xorriso -indev ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso -report_system_area plain
  ...
  Volume id: 'Ubuntu 21.10 amd64'
  System area options: 0x4201
  System area summary: MBR protective-msdos-label grub2-mbr cyl-align-off GPT
  ISO image size/512 : 6086880
  Partition offset   : 16
  MBR heads per cyl  : 0
  MBR secs per head  : 0
  MBR partition table:   N Status  TypeStart   Blocks
  MBR partition  :   1   0x00  0xee1  6086879
  MBR partition  :   2   0x80  0x0001
  GPT:   N  Info
  ...

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso

  Disk ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso: 2.9 GiB, 3116482560 bytes, 6086880 
sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: gpt
  Disk identifier: EF83665C-2F29-48D6-8C3F-80F5A69CFEB7

  DeviceStart End Sectors  Size Type
  ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso1  64 6077751 6077688  2.9G Microsoft basic 
da
  ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso2 6077752 60862158464  4.1M EFI System
  ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso3 6086216 6086815 600  300K Microsoft basic 
da

-

Whatever, we do not yet know for sure whether the boot failure with the
Dell XPS 15 L502X is caused by the lack of a boot/active flag.

We also don't know yet whether the failure with "CD-R and an HP Compaq 8510w"
that was reported by Brandon Nielsen is due to drive-media problems with
the CD-R or due to problems with the ISO.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brian C. Lane]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 03:12:59PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> I've tested your ISO with:
> 
> - Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media
> 
> Booted and started the installer reasonably fast
> 
> - same machine USB media (written to whole device using dd)
> 
> Boot fails with "Operation system not found" error.
> Same USB stick boots fine on another machine (UEFI+SecureBoot), so
> the medium is fine.

In my experience this mean the BIOS didn't find anything it wants to
boot. Does a current F35 iso boot on this system when written to USB?

Thanks,

Brian

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted - pykickstart
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Chris Murphy]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2022 at 5:17 AM Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > > > Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only)
>
> BIOS-only on a laptop might mean the firmware quirk which demands
> to see the "boot/active" flag at some MBR partition table slot.
>
> See a thread of grub-bug (and later grub-devel) from 2015/16
>   https://marc.info/?l=grub-bug=145052506901159=2
> where Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
>   "Subject: [bug #46716] Protective MBR partition is not marked as bootable
>[...]
>Changing the byte at offset 0x1be to 0x80 in the resulting iso makes
>it bootable on such boards."
>
> This led to the creation of xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable in
> xorriso-1.4.3.

This sounds equivalent to the pbmr_boot option in parted. If so, it's
a catch-22 because without the bit set it means some buggy BIOS
systems won't boot; but with the bit set it means older versions of
Tianocore or anything based on Tianocore up until maybe 6 months ago,
won't boot.


-- 
Chris Murphy
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[John Reiser]

It would be very nice to run /sbin/dmidecode, which is on the .iso,
and report the "BIOS Information" section, such as:



Is the attached any use?


In the attachment I see these interesting lines (snipped):
=
SMBIOS 3.0.0 present.

BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 0801  ## first release (01) for product line 08
Release Date: 01/25/2017  ## only 5 years old
ROM Size: 16 MB  ## probably has lots of VGA-gui "eye candy"
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
USB legacy is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
UEFI is supported  ## claims to be *not* "BIOS-only"
BIOS Revision: 5.12  ## the low-level BIOS code

Base Board Information
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Product Name: STRIX Z270H GAMING  ## only 3 hardware generations old; 
current is Z5xx
Version: Rev 1.xx
=
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Philip Rhoades via devel]

People,


On 2022-04-18 12:41, John Reiser wrote:

- Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media


It would be very nice to run /sbin/dmidecode, which is on the .iso,
and report the "BIOS Information" section, such as:



Is the attached any use?

Phil.



=
# dmidecode 3.3
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.5 present.
70 structures occupying 2511 bytes.
Table at 0x000F0730.

Handle 0x, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 1613
Release Date: 12/03/2008
Address: 0xF
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 1 MB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
ESCD support is available
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 16.13
=
of which the Vendor, Version, and Release Date are the most important.
In the installer, type Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get a TTY, re-direct the output
of dmidecode into a file, and copy the file to a machine with a more-
hospitable environment (using wired ethernet, USB flash memory, etc.)

If there are any errors or unusual behavior, then it also is 
interesting
to know if the interface for the Floppy disk drive is enabled; but 
often
this requires searching through BIOS configuration screens.  Sometimes 
a
CD or DVD can be Read under Floppy emulation, and it is easy for the 
BIOS

to try this regardless of settings.  Try disabling the Floppy
in the BIOS settings, then re-booting.
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--
Philip Rhoades

PO Box 896
Cowra  NSW  2794
Australia
E-mail:  p...@pricom.com.au# dmidecode 3.3
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.0.0 present.
Table at 0x8B1AC000.

Handle 0x, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 0801
Release Date: 01/25/2017
Address: 0xF
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 16 MB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
UEFI is supported
BIOS Revision: 5.12

Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes
System Information
Manufacturer: System manufacturer
Product Name: System Product Name
Version: System Version
Serial Number: System Serial Number
UUID: 234d2060-d7da-11dd-97c0-2c4d54d79ed3
Wake-up Type: Power Switch
SKU Number: SKU
Family: To be filled by O.E.M.

Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes
Base Board Information
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Product Name: STRIX Z270H GAMING
Version: Rev 1.xx
Serial Number: 170193764401522
Asset Tag: Default string
Features:
Board is a hosting board
Board is replaceable
Location In Chassis: Default string
  

Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > > Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only)

BIOS-only on a laptop might mean the firmware quirk which demands
to see the "boot/active" flag at some MBR partition table slot.

See a thread of grub-bug (and later grub-devel) from 2015/16
  https://marc.info/?l=grub-bug=145052506901159=2
where Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
  "Subject: [bug #46716] Protective MBR partition is not marked as bootable
   [...]
   Changing the byte at offset 0x1be to 0x80 in the resulting iso makes
   it bootable on such boards."

This led to the creation of xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable in
xorriso-1.4.3.

Does the following bash hack "repair" the USB stick so that it boots on
the affected machine ?

  echo $'\x80' | dd of=/dev/sdX conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=446 count=1

(Of course with outmost care when choosing the real sdX name.
Users who have a safe copy-image-to-USB-stick program should consider
to patch the image file instead and then copy it to the stick.
Therefore i added the "conv=notrunc" option to this proposal.)

The difference will not show up in partition editor listings, except
possibly as complaint that this boot/active flag with the 0xEE partition
is illegal.
EFI systems might refuse to boot from this stick for the same reason.

If it turns out that we here face this BIOS bug, then a decision is needed
whether those firmwares shall stay supported. If yes, then the mildest
known remedy would be to add xorrisofs option

  --mbr-force-bootable

which will cause a second MBR partition of type 0x00 from LBA 0 with
size 1 and boot/active flag. Something like:

  MBR partition table:   N Status  TypeStart   Blocks
  MBR partition  :   1   0x00  0xee1  1334255
  MBR partition  :   2   0x80  0x0001

EFI implementations are supposed to ignore the partition of type 0x00.
Buggy BIOS should be happy with its boot/active flag (Status 0x80).
Normal BIOS should not care for that flag, which is rather a hint for
a class of x86 MBR code on which PBMR to hop. GRUB's MBR is not of that
class.

xorrisofs option --mbr-force-bootable may be added to the grub-mkrescue
arguments. If we indeed face this bug, then a grub-mrescue ISO with EFI
equipment should not boot on the affected machine, unless this extra
option was given at production time.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Monday, 18 April 2022 at 10:13, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > - same machine USB media (written to whole device using dd)
> > Boot fails with "Operation system not found" error.
> 
> (Looks like my optimism was somewhat premature.)
> 
> I wonder from where this message comes. Was it really "Operation system"
> and not "Operating system" ?

Yes, that's the exact message. It might be coming from BIOS.

> In the cleartext strings of boot-grub2-f36.iso i find no matches for
> the two word string. Searching "peration" yields mostly lines with the
> word "Microsoft" which i assume stem from the EFI secure boot equipment.
> Searching for "perating" i find a few matches.
> None looks like a possible component of the quoted message.
> 
> So either i looked for the wrong text snippets, or the message comes
> from the compressed files in the ISO, or it comes from the firmware.
> 
> If it comes from the compressed files, then i assume that GRUB was
> found and started. Do you see any message that stems from GRUB ?

None that I can catch. Something might be getting printed to the screen
and then cleared before I can see it.

> > Same USB stick boots fine on another machine (UEFI+SecureBoot), so
> > the medium is fine.
> 
> Just to be clear (and just because i cannot get a grip on the problem):
> 
> Is this the same USB stick with same ISO image on it ?

Yes, the exact same USB stick works on another machine in UEFI mode.
I'll try to dig up my other BIOS-only machine and try it there.

> More far fetched:
> 
> Can you build a grub-mkrescue ISO from a GRUB development installation
> for legacy BIOS and EFI ?
> I don't mean a boot installation of GRUB but rather installed packages
> equivalent to what Debian offers as:
>   grub-common grub-pc-bin grub-efi-amd64-bin
> (Sorry, i failed to find the Fedora equivalent of
>   https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/grub2
> where i could learn about the equivalent package names.)

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grub2

> With the necesseray GRUB packages installed, do
> 
>   mkdir minimal
>   touch minimal/empty-file.txt
>   grub-mkrescue -o output.iso minimal
> 
> If such an "output.iso" can be built, then it would be interesting to
> know whether it boots to a "grub> " prompt (more it cannot do without
> any payload).

Thanks. I'll try that and report back.

Regards,
Dominik
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> - same machine USB media (written to whole device using dd)
> Boot fails with "Operation system not found" error.

(Looks like my optimism was somewhat premature.)

I wonder from where this message comes. Was it really "Operation system"
and not "Operating system" ?
In the cleartext strings of boot-grub2-f36.iso i find no matches for
the two word string. Searching "peration" yields mostly lines with the
word "Microsoft" which i assume stem from the EFI secure boot equipment.
Searching for "perating" i find a few matches.
None looks like a possible component of the quoted message.

So either i looked for the wrong text snippets, or the message comes
from the compressed files in the ISO, or it comes from the firmware.

If it comes from the compressed files, then i assume that GRUB was
found and started. Do you see any message that stems from GRUB ?


> Same USB stick boots fine on another machine (UEFI+SecureBoot), so
> the medium is fine.

Just to be clear (and just because i cannot get a grip on the problem):

Is this the same USB stick with same ISO image on it ?


More far fetched:

Can you build a grub-mkrescue ISO from a GRUB development installation
for legacy BIOS and EFI ?
I don't mean a boot installation of GRUB but rather installed packages
equivalent to what Debian offers as:
  grub-common grub-pc-bin grub-efi-amd64-bin
(Sorry, i failed to find the Fedora equivalent of
  https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/grub2
where i could learn about the equivalent package names.)

With the necesseray GRUB packages installed, do

  mkdir minimal
  touch minimal/empty-file.txt
  grub-mkrescue -o output.iso minimal

If such an "output.iso" can be built, then it would be interesting to
know whether it boots to a "grub> " prompt (more it cannot do without
any payload).


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[John Reiser]

- Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media


It would be very nice to run /sbin/dmidecode, which is on the .iso,
and report the "BIOS Information" section, such as:
=
# dmidecode 3.3
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.5 present.
70 structures occupying 2511 bytes.
Table at 0x000F0730.

Handle 0x, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 1613
Release Date: 12/03/2008
Address: 0xF
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 1 MB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
ESCD support is available
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 16.13
=
of which the Vendor, Version, and Release Date are the most important.
In the installer, type Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get a TTY, re-direct the output
of dmidecode into a file, and copy the file to a machine with a more-
hospitable environment (using wired ethernet, USB flash memory, etc.)

If there are any errors or unusual behavior, then it also is interesting
to know if the interface for the Floppy disk drive is enabled; but often
this requires searching through BIOS configuration screens.  Sometimes a
CD or DVD can be Read under Floppy emulation, and it is easy for the BIOS
to try this regardless of settings.  Try disabling the Floppy
in the BIOS settings, then re-booting.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

Hello, Brian.

On Thursday, 14 April 2022 at 01:52, Brian C. Lane wrote:
> A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)
> 
> Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
> of the iso as described in his post:
> 
> https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226
> 
> And a Fedora 36 iso:
> 
> https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso

Big thanks to you for working on this!

> I've tested this with:
> 
> - qemu bios -cdrom
> - qemu uefi -cdrom
> - qemu bios -hda
> - qemu uefi -hda
> - USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
> - USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
> - USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
>   2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
> - Media test works on all of the above
> 
> I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
> blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
> SATA ports for SSDs :)

I've tested your ISO with:

- Dell XPS 15 L502X 8GB RAM (BIOS only) CD-R physical media

Booted and started the installer reasonably fast

- same machine USB media (written to whole device using dd)

Boot fails with "Operation system not found" error.
Same USB stick boots fine on another machine (UEFI+SecureBoot), so
the medium is fine.

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
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There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and
oppression to develop psychic muscles.
-- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

> Initial test with a CD-R and an HP Compaq 8510w are mixed.
> It boots to GRUB, but it spins a long time blinking the HDD light displaying
> nothing but "Welcome to GRUB". It eventually spits out "failure reading
> sector 0x4f838 from 'hd31'."

'hd31' looks strange for HDD as well as for CD-ROM. Do have that many ?

If it's about the CD drive:
0x4f838 = 325688 would be in 2048-byte-block range of boot-grub2-f36.iso
which has 333555 such blocks. The ISO 9660 filesystem data range ends at
328317. The rest is the appended EFI partition.
If GRUB reports in units of 512-byte blocks instead, then the failure would
be at CD-ROM LBA 81422.

You could checkread the CD-R (i assume at /dev/sr0) by

  xorriso -indev /dev/sr0 -check_media --

It is supposed to report something like this run with a DVD+RW:

  ...
  Volume id: 'Fedora-36-x86_64'
  xorriso : UPDATE :  32 blocks read in 3 seconds , 0.0xD
  xorriso : UPDATE :2912 blocks read in 4 seconds , 4.3xD
  xorriso : UPDATE :5824 blocks read in 5 seconds , 4.3xD
  ...
  xorriso : UPDATE :  329440 blocks read in 103 seconds , 5.5xD
  xorriso : UPDATE :  333216 blocks read in 104 seconds , 5.6xD
  xorriso : UPDATE :  333555 blocks read in 104 seconds = 4.7xD
  Media checks :lba ,   size , quality
  Media region :  0 , 333555 , + good
  Media region : 333555 ,1961549 , 0 untested

Read errors would be reported with their SCSI error codes and block address.
If suspicious periods of low reading speed are noticed, then "Media region"
lines might appear with "quality" value "slow" or even "unreadable".

If you deem the full output interesting enough for an examination, send
it to me in private. I will then post here what i believe to see in it.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brandon Nielsen via devel]

On 4/13/22 6:52 PM, Brian C. Lane wrote:

A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)

Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
of the iso as described in his post:

https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226

And a Fedora 36 iso:

https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso

I've tested this with:

- qemu bios -cdrom
- qemu uefi -cdrom
- qemu bios -hda
- qemu uefi -hda
- USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
- USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
- USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
   2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
- Media test works on all of the above

I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
SATA ports for SSDs :)

Brian



Initial test with a CD-R and an HP Compaq 8510w are mixed.

It boots to GRUB, but it spins a long time blinking the HDD light 
displaying nothing but "Welcome to GRUB". It eventually spits out 
"failure reading sector 0x4f838 from 'hd31'." and "you need to load the 
kernel first." before finally presenting me the GRUB menu.


Any attempt to launch the installer from the GRUB menu results in the 
same error messages and return to GRUB menu.


The system dual boots Windows 10, if that's meaningful in some way.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brian C. Lane]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 08:59:28PM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> Hi Brian,
> 
> On 4/14/22 01:52, Brian C. Lane wrote:
> > A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)
> > 
> > Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
> > of the iso as described in his post:
> > 
> > https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226
> > 
> > And a Fedora 36 iso:
> > 
> > https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso
> > 
> > I've tested this with:
> > 
> > - qemu bios -cdrom
> > - qemu uefi -cdrom
> > - qemu bios -hda
> > - qemu uefi -hda
> > - USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
> > - USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
> > - USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
> >   2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
> > - Media test works on all of the above
> > 
> > I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
> > blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
> > SATA ports for SSDs :)
> 
> Thank you so much for working on this.
> 
> I've dd-ed the boot-grub2-f36.iso to an USB stick and successfully
> tested it on the following machines:
> 
> 1. Siemens PC with an i5-2400 with 8G RAM
> 2. Fujitsu-Siemens PC with a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 Ghz dual core with 4G RAM
> 3. Dell Latitude E6400 (core 2 duo) with 4G RAM
> 4. Acer One AO532 netbook with a N450 + 2G RAM
> 
> The image booted fine on all 4 machines, so from a machine
> compatibility pov this looks good to me.

Thanks for testing!

> There were 2 minor issues with machine 2:
> 
> 1. After the "Welcome to GRUB" text the 3.5" floppy drive
> was searched repeatedly before showing the grub bootmenu.
> It also took like 5-10 seconds to show the menu.
> I guess that grub is using a minimal grub.cfg which is looking
> for the actual grub.cfg based on the partition uuid or some such
> and it is also checking the floppy drive. I wonder if we can
> tweak grub.cfg on the bootmedia to not do this?

Interesting, it's probably because the eltoritio.img doesn't include a
config. I'd need to figure out what to include that would exclude
floppies but keep it working everywhere else. I'll ask around and see if
there is a generic solution, but I'd rather err on the side of
unplugging the floppy drive at this point ;)


> 2. Booting the kernel once making the selection in the menu
> takes forever (I walked away after 1 minute). But it does boot
> eventually and I just tried with a Fedora 36 nightly, thus using
> syslinux and the same happens. I believe that the USB stack of the
> BIOS on this machine simply is terribly slow and reading the
> big kernel + ramdisk files one sector at a time. So there is
> nothing we can do here. Since this also happens with syslinux
> this is not something to worry about.

I remember a bug about slow booting a while back, where someone
complained that CHS settings in parted were making their boot slow.  It
ends up grub2 uses INT13 to get the disk geometry, and uses that info
for the buffer size. So if the BIOS is reporting something small it
might take longer to boot.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2024261

Brian

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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[John Reiser]

https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso


I installed successfully using physical CD-R and physical DVD+R
on American Megatrends Inc version 1613 BIOS of 12/03/2008
running on Intel Core2 Duo (E8400, 3GHz, 8GB).  The USB reade
was LG Slim Portable DVD Writer GP50NB40 (August 2014).
The media check took 5 minutes on CD and 2.5 minutes on DVD.
On the installed system, "dd if=/dev/sr0 bs=32k of=/dev/null"
was 48 seconds faster than the media check for CD,
and 24 seconds faster than the media check for DVD.
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brian C. Lane]

FWIW I've now added a commit that makes the same changes for
livemedia-creator created isos and tested it with QEMU.

Brian

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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Hans de Goede]

Hi Brian,

On 4/14/22 01:52, Brian C. Lane wrote:
> A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)
> 
> Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
> of the iso as described in his post:
> 
> https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226
> 
> And a Fedora 36 iso:
> 
> https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso
> 
> I've tested this with:
> 
> - qemu bios -cdrom
> - qemu uefi -cdrom
> - qemu bios -hda
> - qemu uefi -hda
> - USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
> - USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
> - USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
>   2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
> - Media test works on all of the above
> 
> I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
> blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
> SATA ports for SSDs :)

Thank you so much for working on this.

I've dd-ed the boot-grub2-f36.iso to an USB stick and successfully
tested it on the following machines:

1. Siemens PC with an i5-2400 with 8G RAM
2. Fujitsu-Siemens PC with a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 Ghz dual core with 4G RAM
3. Dell Latitude E6400 (core 2 duo) with 4G RAM
4. Acer One AO532 netbook with a N450 + 2G RAM

The image booted fine on all 4 machines, so from a machine
compatibility pov this looks good to me.

There were 2 minor issues with machine 2:

1. After the "Welcome to GRUB" text the 3.5" floppy drive
was searched repeatedly before showing the grub bootmenu.
It also took like 5-10 seconds to show the menu.
I guess that grub is using a minimal grub.cfg which is looking
for the actual grub.cfg based on the partition uuid or some such
and it is also checking the floppy drive. I wonder if we can
tweak grub.cfg on the bootmedia to not do this?

2. Booting the kernel once making the selection in the menu
takes forever (I walked away after 1 minute). But it does boot
eventually and I just tried with a Fedora 36 nightly, thus using
syslinux and the same happens. I believe that the USB stack of the
BIOS on this machine simply is terribly slow and reading the
big kernel + ramdisk files one sector at a time. So there is
nothing we can do here. Since this also happens with syslinux
this is not something to worry about.

Regards,

Hans
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Re: grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Neal Gompa]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 7:52 PM Brian C. Lane  wrote:
>
> A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)
>
> Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
> of the iso as described in his post:
>
> https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226
>
> And a Fedora 36 iso:
>
> https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso
>
> I've tested this with:
>
> - qemu bios -cdrom
> - qemu uefi -cdrom
> - qemu bios -hda
> - qemu uefi -hda
> - USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
> - USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
> - USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
>   2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
> - Media test works on all of the above
>
> I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
> blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
> SATA ports for SSDs :)
>

This looks great! I've given some initial feedback and I'll do some testing. :)

Thanks for doing this!



-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
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grub2 BIOS booting iso and code

[Brian C. Lane]

A huge thanks to Thomas Schmitt for posting xorrisofs arguments :)

Here is a lorax PR switching to grub2 for BIOS and changing the layout
of the iso as described in his post:

https://github.com/weldr/lorax/pull/1226

And a Fedora 36 iso:

https://bcl.fedorapeople.org/boot-grub2-f36.iso

I've tested this with:

- qemu bios -cdrom
- qemu uefi -cdrom
- qemu bios -hda
- qemu uefi -hda
- USB stick on uefi PC hardware with SB off
- USB stick on UEFI PC hardware with SB on
- USB stick on Apple hardware UEFI
  2010 Macbook Air and 2012 Macbook Pro
- Media test works on all of the above

I have not tested it on CD or DVD physical media. I have a stack of
blank discs but apparently have unplugged all my drives to use their
SATA ports for SSDs :)

Brian

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted - pykickstart
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