CDlinux 0.6.2 Installation

This is the first diary of CDlinux 0.6.2 Usage Summary diaries series, the next will be: CDlinux 0.6.2 Configuration and Software Installation.

In this diary, according to my experience, I will introduce:
How to install CDlinux into hard disk, how to boot CDlinux with Grub under Linux and with Grub4dos under Windows when using stardand directories structure or customized directories structure; How to make a bootable USB disk with Syslinux, install CDlinux into USB disk and edit syslinux.cfg config file to boot system; How to re-build CDROM ISO image file after you customize CDlinux, etc..

1, Install into hard disk
Download the CDROM image file CDlinux-0.6.2.iso from its Download page, extract it into the root directory of a hard disk partition (arbitrary directory is also allowed, but need pass additional kernel boot parameters). The directories structure will be “/boot/CDLinux” if you don’t change the directory extracted into, there are some files in it, such as: initrd, bzImage, etc.. You can borrow the option in file “/boot/grub/menu.lst” if you use Grub to boot system, but need some modification, for example (Suppose you put CDlinux into the first partition of the first hard disk):

title CDlinux in Simplified Chinese (LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/CDlinux/bzImage quiet CDL_LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 CDL_AMOUNT=yes
initrd /boot/CDlinux/initrd

But, you need add some kernel parameters if you change the top level directory “/boot”, for example, change it into “/CDlinux”, like below:

title CDlinux in Simplified Chinese (LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/CDlinux/CDlinux/bzImage acpi=force vga=normal quiet CDL_DEV=/dev/sda1 CDL_DIR=CDlinux/CDlinux CDL_LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 CDL_AMOUNT=yes
initrd (hd0,0)/CDlinux/CDlinux/initrd

(Note, it is one line from word “kernel” to “yes” above.)

Here are some comments for grub boot config file above, “acpi=force” is used to make power management available, “vga=normal” is used to use standard vga mode, these are used for my hardware, you need make your own decision to use them or don’t. “CDL_DEV” to indicate which partition you install CDlinux into, “CDL_DIR” to indicate which directory you put the CDlinux files. The detail about these parameters see their offical documentation: What’s CDlinux’ kernel command line parameters?.

You can boot CDlinux with GRUB or LILO under Linux; You can try boot it with Grub4dos under Windows (I haven’t tried it), or try “loadlin.exe” boot system from DOS; You can also try to use Syslinux to boot system (you can use Syslinux under both Linux and Windows, I have tested it on a USB disk but haven’t tested it on hard disk).

2, Install CDlinux into USB disk
I have used Syslinux to make a bootable USB disk, then extracted CDlinux ISO file into it like I do on hard disk above, a CDlinux USB disk live system was done. Every thing is similar as it in hard disk except boot system with Syslinux. Here is an example of how to make a bootable CDlinux USB disk with Syslinux. More detail information see its official documentation at http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX .This example worked on Windows and puted the syslinux config file “syslinux.cfg” into directory “/boot/syslinux/”. Download the lastest SYSLINUX3.72 and extract it to a place. Execute “syslinux.exe” under directory “win32”, suppose USB disk is “I:” disk partition in windows, execute command in the command line:

syslinux.exe -m -a -d /boot/syslinux I:

In the example above, parameter “-m” means install Syslinux into MBR of USB disk, “-a” means active this USB disk partition as a bootable partition, “-d” means the location of Syslinux boot config file “syslinux.cfg”.

The content of Syslinux config file “syslinux.cfg” likes below:

DEFAULT CDlinux
LABEL CDlinux
SAY Now booting the cdlinux from SYSLINUX...
KERNEL /boot/CDlinux/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/boot/CDlinux/initrd quiet CDL_LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 CDL_AMOUNT=yes

Then a bootable USB disk is done.

If you extract CDlinux into a different directory structure, please refer to the Grub boot config file in the section “Install into hard disk” above and edit your “syslinux.cfg”.

Note, if your BIOS of machine recognize the USB disk as such a floppy alike disk, then the USB disk made by Syslinux maybe can’t be booted, at least I have met this problem on an Intel Celeron CPU machine and haven’t found a solution.

3, Re-build CDROM ISO image file
If you have customized CDlinux and need make a new bootable CDlinux CDROM ISO image file, please see a shell file “mkisofs.sh” in the top level of ISO image file. Copy all your CDlinux files and this script file into a temp directory. Then execute “mkisofs.sh” under a Linux system with “genisoimage” or “mkisofs” command installed, a re-builded ISO image file “CDlinux.iso” will be generated in directory “/tmp”. You can re-build this file just login into CDlinux system too.

The next diary will be: CDlinux 0.6.2 Configuration and Software Installation.

6 Comments

[…] CDlinux-0.6.2 Installation Include: Install CDlinux into hard disk, into USB disk, and re-build CDROM ISO image file, […]

[…] version at CDlinux official website. Install it into hard disk with the method introduced in CDlinux 0.6.2 Installation. You will find some default services start at boot time have been subtracted, such as: sshd, vftpd, […]

sundar_imaJuly 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 am

followed your instruction to boot from usb but while bootin i got an error like this…
“can not run /etc/rc.d/rc.x : No such file or directory” any idea???

littlebatJuly 4th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

Hi, sundar_ima, which edition are you using? Please try its Community or Standard edition with X of lastest CDlinux-0.9.2 from here: http://www.cdlinux.info/wiki/doku.php/download/latest

sundar_imaJuly 5th, 2009 at 7:08 am

Thanks for your reply. Now i can boot it perfectly. Took the help from here http://www.cdlinux.info/wiki/doku.php/doc/faq/cdl_options and modified my syslinux.cfg file like this (according to my directory structure)
menu label CD Linux CE

kernel /boot/cdlinux/bzImage

append initrd=/boot/cdlinux/initrd quiet CDL_LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 CDL_AMOUNT=yes CDL_GUI=yes CDL_LOOP=yes CDL_DEV=/dev/sr0

sundar_imaJuly 5th, 2009 at 7:13 am

Using version 0.9.2. Working well on my system 🙂

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