AntiX 16 core installation problem

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-26 17:48

Edit: This is unsolvable because I was trying to do something that isn't possible.

Hello,

I have successfully created live USB's for AntiX 16 base and full and have installed base on my hard drive.

They both have more apps than I need so thought I would try core because my system has only 1 GB of RAM and no hard drive.

After I boot with the live USB that has the core ISO on it and get to the stage where the files are being copied, they all have error messages, either"failed to preserve ownership" or"cannot create symbolic link" on the left side and"operation not permitted" on the right side.

I have tried several times, first using unetboot on Windows 10 then using antix2usb on AntiX 16 to create the live USB. I formatted the USB stick as fat32. I tried ext4, but the USB stick didn't show up as bootable.

Please help me solve this problem.

Many thanks,
Joe

hobbyist7890 · posted: 2016-10-26 20:24

Do not try to install antiX to the fat32 file system.
Try the ext4 again. Make the partition bootable with fdisk.

1) Type fdisk /dev/sda or fdisk /dev/sdb or whatever.
2) Then m for menu and then a for bootable to whatever partition you select.
3) The p for show setup and then w for write new setup.

Type fdisk -l /dev/sda or fdisk -l /dev/sdb to show the partition info.
There should be an asterisk in the correct partition.

Edit: You seem to have had the antiX live disk working.
The above problem tries to fix the format for the storage you are trying to install onto.
Ignore this info if that is not the case.

For non-uefi live disks I just use 'cp antiX.iso /dev/sdX' or you can use dd.

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-26 21:31

The antiX base live USB was formatted in fat32. It boots up fine.

My computer is UEFI.

The antiX core USB formatted in fat32 also booted fine. I did the root, root sign-in, did the cli-installation command, answered a few questions about what type of installation I was doing, whether I wanted to change partitions, whether i wanted a home, then the files started to fly by on the screen. Thats when I saw all the error messages.

I followed your instructions about making the partition bootable. I got the asterisk. I got a message about editing etc/fstab. I also got a warning about the partition not going to the cylinder boundary. I didn't do anything in response to these messages. The live USB formatted in ext4 still doesn't show up when I press F10 when rebooting. I only have one partition on the USB stick. I did the antix2usb while in the antiX installed on my internal drive.

hobbyist7890 · posted: 2016-10-27 00:06

The UEFI mode is very different. The target disk needs to be a GPT disk for UEFI. I always use gdisk not fdisk to work with GPT disks. I think antiX has cfdisk or something instead of gdisk for the UEFI. There is a lot more information about installing debian with UEFI so antiX doesn't reiterate everything.

I have always used parted from a sysrescuecd live disk to prepare the disk by setting up the partitions and formatting the partitions before doing any installation except I think the partitions get formatted again by the antiX installer anyway. So I can't answer your question with any experience. Are you sure you completed the cli-installer steps for choosing the target partition and filesystem for the / partition correctly?

I have had my own problems trying to install into a UEFI mode computer. I finally had to switch to legacy mode and install the antiX into a GPT disk and then convert the installation to make UEFI happy before the computer would boot in UEFI mode. So if you are trying to do a real UEFI installation then I can't answer with any experience here.

I am still confused about why you look for the antiX live installer after rebooting. That might be a clue your USB isn't a GPT disk for UEFI booting if you are rebooting in UEFI. Or vice-versa. Are you really booting the antiX USB installer in UEFI mode to install to a GPT disk to finally run antiX in UEFI mode? That is very important to understand.

The antix2usb is [EDIT: see correction below] supposed to be capable of making an installer for UEFI mode and at least you are booting the installer so that is good news. I should let somebody else with UEFI experience explain more specifically. I won't be trying a UEFI install again until next week so maybe I will learn how then. Good luck to all.

EDIT: The antiX"/usr/local/bin/live-usb-maker" is capable of making an installer for UEFI mode. I don't think the antix2usb.sh will make a UEFI mode installer.

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-27 00:49

In answer to"Are you really booting the antiX USB installer in UEFI mode to install to a GPT disk to finally run antiX in UEFI mode?" Yes.

I believe the problem has to do with permissions. The fat32 file system that is necessary to make the USB stick UEFI-bootable causes permissions issues when the files are being copied after booting the live USB. So I'm in a catch-22. I need fat32 to boot but I need ext4 to copy the files.

Or it could be something else entirely.

hobbyist7890 · posted: 2016-10-27 11:37

Are you planning to dual boot next to Windows? I plan to shrink my Windows UEFI disk to make room for an antiX installation and then dual boot until I confirm everything is working properly. Some newer Lenovo laptops are locked into RAID mode so Linux cannot be installed. Be sure your settings for the hard disk controller are for SATA mode or ACPI mode not RAID mode and the secure boot is turned off. The RAID mode uses Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) and doesn't work with Linux so must be changed to SATA if not locked out. That should be evident if you already created the partitions for use with Linux unless you used Windows to make those partitions.

I have also used antix2usb to make a USB stick with the Feb2016 core iso except won't be able to try that until next week.

EDIT: Previous info removed. Sorry for my error.

The file system errors should be due to your target disk and not the USB stick. I am running out of ideas.

As reported previously, there is also the Windows freeware called Rufus to make UEFI bootable USBs from the ISOs.

EDIT: I did find where Rufus does create a GPT USB
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/846"
linktext was:"https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/846"
====================================

EDIT2: Oops. I removed the erroneous info. I need a filing system for my USBs.

EDIT3: Sorry for all the edits. So here is my USB created by antix2usb and shows a GPT USB:

EDIT4: No, this is the live USB created by live-usb-maker not antix2usb:

Code: Select all

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 1001472 sectors, 489.0 MiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 76BCFD05-220B-4695-AD1D-6B3CBF59CFC0
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1001438
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4029 sectors (2.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          897023   437.0 MiB   8300  primary
   2          897024          999423   50.0 MiB    EF00  primary

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-10-27 12:13

I'm not sure the antiX-core installer was ever updated to handle UEFI installations.

That said, if it has been updated, what you need to do is set up an extra partition on your usb device that is for the ESP/EFI partition. format the partition fat32, then format the rest as normal (ext4, swap, whatever...). The ESP/EFI partition can be small, like 128MB.

core is very stripped down, command line only. you device sounds very particular. The install will also fail if the device has a 32 bit UEFI instead of a 64 bit UEFI.

You are likely better off running the antiX-core as a liveUSB w/ persistence enabled. The live system can boot on a 32bit UEFI.

the other"limitation" to the antiX-core is that it uses a"libre" kernel, and will not use any proprietary drivers or firmware. so anything in the linux-firmware-nonfree package will not work.

I did a video series on using antiX core, building up a system in virtualbox, then using the snapshot utility to make a bootable usb for my device. This may be a route for you to consider.

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-27 13:19

Dolphin, I am following your youtube video about antiX-core except for the virtual machine part.

My computer is 64 bit

I don't think I'm trying to install antiX-core directly on to my internal drive.

Here's exactly what I am doing:

From antiX-base that is already installed on my PC I am going into command centre
then selecting antix2usb
in anti2usb I am selecting the fat32 option, which then automatically specifies the syslinux option. I then click on"forward" and the live USB is created.

I then reboot my computer and press F10 and select the Live USB that I just created.

I then get the antiX-core installation screen. I select the first option.

I then log in as user"root" password"root"

At the prompt, I type cli-installer

When asked do I want to repartition the disk, I say no.

I select root partition sda1

"do you want separate /home partition" no

"are you running antix-net" no

Then all the copying is attempted unsuccessfully with the error message for most files being:"unable to perserve ownership for..." . Also many error messages:"cannot create symbolic link" . Plus they all say"operation not permitted"

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-10-27 13:37

myway_1 wrote:Dolphin, I am following your youtube video about antiX-core except for the virtual machine part.

My computer is 64 bit

I don't think I'm trying to install antiX-core directly on to my internal drive.

Here's exactly what I am doing:

From antiX-base that is already installed on my PC I am going into command centre
then selecting antix2usb
in anti2usb I am selecting the fat32 option, which then automatically specifies the syslinux option. I then click on"forward" and the live USB is created.

I then reboot my computer and press F10 and select the Live USB that I just created.

I then get the antiX-core installation screen. I select the first option.

I then log in as user"root" password"root"

At the prompt, I type cli-installer

When asked do I want to repartition the disk, I say no.

I select root partition sda1

"do you want separate /home partition" no

"are you running antix-net" no

Then all the copying is attempted unsuccessfully with the error message for most files being:"unable to perserve ownership for..." . Also many error messages:"cannot create symbolic link" . Plus they all say"operation not permitted"

is sda1 your usb stick or some other device?

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-27 13:44

sda1 is the partition in my USB stick.

Here is the info with no changes done by me.

/dev/sda1 on /media/antiXlive type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0133,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)

edit; there is only one partition. There is an EFI file in that partition. The USB stick does boot

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-10-27 13:44

Is that the stick you booted from?

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-27 13:47

yes. also see edit to my previous post

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-10-27 13:50

myway_1 wrote:yes. also see edit to my previous post

OK, you can't install to your boot media. That's the problem.

If you want to run"live" there is no need to run the installer.

myway_1 · posted: 2016-10-27 13:57

dolphin_oracle wrote:
myway_1 wrote:yes. also see edit to my previous post
OK, you can't install to your boot media. That's the problem.

If you want to run"live" there is no need to run the installer.

OK. Boy I feel like a dummy. So I just sign as root, root, don't use cli-installer.

Can I pick up at a later point in your antiX-core video to set up my options for antiX on the USB working from that root user login.

Thanks for your videos. I've watched several and they are great.

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-10-27 14:09

myway_1 wrote:
dolphin_oracle wrote:
myway_1 wrote:yes. also see edit to my previous post
OK, you can't install to your boot media. That's the problem.

If you want to run"live" there is no need to run the installer.

OK. Boy I feel like a dummy. So I just sign as root, root, don't use cli-installer.

Can I pick up at a later point in your antiX-core video to set up my options for antiX on the USB working from that root user login.

Thanks for your videos. I've watched several and they are great.

you can still sign is as demo if you like. the demo account is still there.

If you are running live, about the only thing you can't do is change the kernel. You should be able to do anything else, as long as your persistence files are large enough. I would remaster occasionally to incorporate the persistence changes back into the main linuxfs filesystem on the liveUSB, and reclaim usb space for new persistence files.

You do have persistence file size limit due to the fat32 formated usb stick of around 3.5 GB. that's a limitation of fat32, not the live system.

I also suggest when doing this to run static root persistence, as the default persistence loads the persistance files into ram, and you don't have a lot of ram on that system.