Re: Multiple live iso's on a single bootable flash drive?
On 01.05.2016 17:55, Brian wrote:
On Sat 30 Apr 2016 at 21:02:56 +0300, Piyavkin wrote:
On 29.04.2016 22:59, Brian wrote:
On Fri 29 Apr 2016 at 21:57:53 +0300, Piyavkin wrote:
[...Snip...]
It is a source of contention (and a number of bug reports) but it is by
design.
Why such design?
Suppose you want to install Debian; that's the objective after all. An
isohybrid allows mounting the USB stick directly. You dd/cat/cp the
image to a USB stick and boot and there you are - Debian is installed.
What does loop-mounting of an ISO file with GRUB give you?
With Ubuntu distrib you can do the same.
And still you can run it straight from .iso without additional quest and use
of shaman drum.
What's wrong with it?
Nothing, but a Ubuntu live ISO serves a different purpose from the
Debian installer. Which is not to say enhancing a netinst ISO is not
worthwhile and would benefit a few people. Patches to have iso-scan in
these ISOs' initrds were provided a couple of years ago and booting an
ISO with GRUB is on the installer team's list of feature requests.
Meanwhile, there is hd-media and a extra stanza in grub.cfg.
Well, and that's a good part of the story.
As I can see, the all needed functionality is already here. It just
waiting for some reason to be incorporated in distros.
In my view, it is much more convenient to download new .iso files (or
replace old ones) straight to USB-drive and copy+paste one more menuentry in
grub.cfg (working in any OS which supports FAT), than to do the same (.iso
download in some dedicated folder, changing in grub.cfg) plus
partitioning/repartitioning (with calculation of proper partitions' sizes
every time when you want to use more then 2 distros on 1 USB-drive) and
copying (which requires *nix-like OS already running). If I understand the
process correctly.
The "convenience" argument is a decent one, although it does apply to
quite a narrow use-case.
And much more safer, I believe. Because in the first case there are lesser
chances that in a stressful & hasty time doing one more
cp debian-hot-new.iso /dev/sda
sync
you may end up like:«Oh, wait… was it sdb?.. wait… and what was sda then?..
Oh… that was my 40+ years long project in astrophysics… THANK YOU, Debian,
for your design!»
Not a decent argument. Operations such as partitioning and formatting a
USB stick and installing GRUB to its MBR all require root privilege.
Of course, but the point is: with which «case there are lesser chances»
to shoot in own leg:
Case 1: do sudo work and pay proper attention 1 time and fit for all.
Case 2: do it every time when you update your boot collection on the
USB-drive.
I think KISS principle should be applied not only to tools, but to the user
experience too. Which may be more important. Cause, in the end, everything
we do, we do for others. And who ignores it (for some their reason) will
suffer. For soft production one of the rules may sound like: «If you create
unnecessary obstacles in installation process, you hinder distribution and
hence adoption. Good luck!»
Advice to a newcomer for installing Debian
------------------------------------------
cat ISO to stick. Boot.
Alternative advice to a newcomer for installing Debian
------------------------------------------------------
Clean stick with dd. Partition stick. Format partition. Copy ISO to
partition. Install GRUB. Construct a grub.cfg and copy to partition.
Boot.
No-no, Brian, look at the situation from slightly different angle:
1-st, it is not a XOR choice. Proper design should provide both options.
Or either part of potential users will be lost, as I said.
2-nd, you are a bit exaggerating the differences between the possible
installing ways for newcomer. In your 2-nd alternative their already has
partitioned and formatted stick (which shipped with FAT by default).
Installation of grub (by one line of command) and copypasting menuentry
in text file from official wiki (where the information should live) is
not harder task then performing cat, trying not to kill fs on the PC's
main hdd in the process. But the real fun starts when our newcomer wanna
have more than one distro (cause he's a newcomer and wanna try some
variants first to choose most promising one) but has only one USB-drive.
And the 2-nd alternative now actually doesn't exist for newcomer at all,
because it is too complicated for him.
3-rd, I guess, typical Debian user is not a total Linux newbie, who's
problem are an ordinary partitioning process or grub install. I guess,
them more interested in such capabilities as to boot multiple
OS/versions from one partition or to run installers from virtually any
commont USB-drive (properly prepared in advance and easily
reconfigurable in use). And unexplained complication here — that is a
problem.
As living illustration to the last point we may look at our real
situation: desirable multiboot from single flash drive (see subj of the
thread). One solution suggests doing partitioning and all the hard stuff
just once. Other — every time when new image added or old one changed
and the complexity of the solution is growing with the changes. OK, I
see that mapping .iso to stick is useful in some common situations (when
you, for example, wish to present ready to use flash drive installer to
someone else). But why the redundant work should be forced upon a user
in a slightly more sophisticated situations? Can it lead to the
situation when a skilled user (the target audience of the Debian) just
be reluctant or simply tired repartitioning their USB-drive with every
release and settle down with Linux distribs that do not demand to much
without a reason?
Resume: I advocate that both alternatives should be presented in Debian
distros. That'll make me happier.
Best regards,
Dmitry Piyavkin
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