PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] 9.04 RC Live USB problem



charleykay
April 18th, 2009, 03:56 PM
I have been running 9.04 Beta as a Live USB stick with no problem but I did a fresh install of 9.04 RC and ran into the following problem. The boot hangs with an initramfs CLI prompt. I get past this by entering "exit", I need to do this four times before the boot continues. It then starts OK and runs as the Beta did except that any changes do not persist.

I have reinstalled the Beta and it boots and runs with persistance OK. Has anyone else had success/problems with 9.04 RC Live USB?

sobrien
April 18th, 2009, 05:17 PM
I have experienced exactly the same issue. The 9.04 Beta version installed on a USB stick worked perfectly, the RC version stops at an initramfs prompt. That aside, 9.04 is really well done, I like it a lot.

crawfish
April 18th, 2009, 05:28 PM
Same thing happens to me as well.

theozzlives
April 18th, 2009, 05:28 PM
I used the u810.sh script from pendrivelinux.com to create my persistent USB of the beta. Just downloaded RC alternate to see if my Dell Optiplex could handle it (which it finally did). I'm just going to wait til Thursday before I download another live CD and update my USB.

charleykay
April 20th, 2009, 01:00 AM
Looks like this is fixed in the daily build

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

sobrien
April 20th, 2009, 04:43 AM
It has indeed been fixed; it's working great now, and any changes that you make are persistent between boots of the USB stick.

max.goedjen
April 24th, 2009, 04:16 AM
Is this issue back? I can't seem to get persistence working now (using 9.04 (final)).

ljk
April 26th, 2009, 04:25 AM
Is this issue back? I can't seem to get persistence working now (using 9.04 (final)).

Me too. I've tried twice, deleting all files from the USB (15 GB) between tries. 1st was creating USB startup disk from a CD image (9.04 final). MD5 checksum verified. USB stick booted OK -seemed everything was working fine but next time I booted, all my changes (added Japanese language support, for example)had disappeared.
I cleared the USB stick and tried again using a dvd downloaded from a torrent (again 9.04 final). Same problem.
It seems that no persistence file is created.
The USB startup disk I made using 8.10 had no problems with persistence but lots with package managers so I wanted the new one which also boots up faster.
If anyone can help me get the USB stick running as it should I would be much obliged.

Thanks a lot.

max.goedjen
April 26th, 2009, 04:27 AM
Me too. I've tried twice, deleting all files from the USB (15 GB) between tries. 1st was creating USB startup disk from a CD image (9.04 final). MD5 checksum verified. USB stick booted OK -seemed everything was working fine but next time I booted, all my changes (added Japanese language support, for example)had disappeared.
I cleared the USB stick and tried again using a dvd downloaded from a torrent (again 9.04 final). Same problem.
It seems that no persistence file is created.
The USB startup disk I made using 8.10 had no problems with persistence but lots with package managers so I wanted the new one which also boots up faster.
If anyone can help me get the USB stick running as it should I would be much obliged.

Thanks a lot.

I posted a sort-of workaround in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7136773 (near the bottom of the first page). It's working pretty well for me.

ljk
May 1st, 2009, 05:05 PM
Thanks.
I did try the method you suggested but with no luck.

The USB stick is working now but the way I got this to happen is very crude.

The 8.10 (Intrepid) USB creator seemed OK on the persistence file issue so I went back to that and created a USB startup disk on the 16GBstick. I re-booted from that and then updated to 9.04 (Jaunty) over the net. Took quite a while. I apologize for taking up time and resources but I did end up with a 9.04 system on a stick which does retain changes I make.

Some strange things also happened. The startup screen is the same as 8.10 (and seems to take as long) but the shut down screen is 9.04. I also had problems with language support (Japanese) but found that the dvd for 9.04 had some things on it which helped me get this working too.

Many thanks for all your help.

Best regards,

ljk.

jhd121
May 10th, 2009, 05:46 PM
I am having the same problem. I can create a persistent 9.04 USB startup disk using 8.10 but not using 9.04. It is very frustrating.

ljk
May 18th, 2009, 12:16 PM
I am having the same problem. I can create a persistent 9.04 USB startup disk using 8.10 but not using 9.04. It is very frustrating.

I've tried another way since my last message & it seems to be working.
First, use 9.04 to create the USB start up disk. In the bit where you use the slider, set a fairly low value (I arbitrarily used 635 MB). This seems to allow some kind of perstence file to be created. I then quit the Ubuntu live CD, removed the USB stick & rebooted into Windows.

Go to the following PenDriveLinux page
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-ubuntu-904-persistent-install-windows/#more-1558

At the bottom of the page are some casper-rw loop files, I downloaded the 4 GB one. Download whichever suits you best.
Put the USB stick with 9.04 on it into the PC and replace the existing casper-rw file with the one you just downloaded then boot up from the USB drive. This worked for me. Hope it's of some use.

CanadaP
May 30th, 2009, 10:51 AM
this is my first post on any site! as such I will make it good.
I have run into the same problem the startup usb creator will not write a casper file with more than 450-475MB. If you need more persistence too...

format your usb to fat32;
use the GUI startup usb creator to make the smallest persistent usb (128MB?);
open a terminal and type;

computer:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/device label of your usb of=/media/mount point of your usb/casper-rw bs=1M count=1024

# where "count=" is the number of MB you want to be able to save on your live usb.
# the larger the "count" the longer this will take, I made a 4GB (count=4096) it took #about 30 min. anything larger than 4gig and dd will retun error mesg "file to large".
# after dd has finished you will need to give your casper file a file system by typing;

computer:~$ mkfs.ext3 /media/mount point of your usb/casper-rw
mke2fs 1.38 (29-May-2009)
/media/mount point of your usb/casper-rw is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y/n) Y

# enter Y hit enter and you should be good to go. if you must sudo any of these # comands you may need to chown the file to take it away from root.