Portable installed system that boots in UEFI as well as in BIOS mode

[udestudent]

Another new, simpler and so far successful attempt to create a stable portable system, that works in UEFI and BIOS mode
....

Hi sudodus,

thank you very much for your advanced tutorial.
I need a full encrypted pendrive, therefore i would like to use encrypt the whole drive during installation.

i have some questions:

1) You have two different versions of an image, either 4-pendrive or nothing. What is exactly the difference between these two image files?

2) What do you mean with "Boot into Ubuntu live from an amd64 iso file in UEFI mode. "
do you mean with a live boot the normal Ubuntu image or the modified one from you?

3) How can i boot in BIOS mode on a UEFI Mac? (Step C: Reboot the live system into BIOS mode, install grub-pc and install the bootloader for BIOS mode/media/multimed-2/boot-usb/OneButtonInstaller/dd_Ubuntu_16.04-gamma-UEFI-n-BIOS-4-pendrive-12GB.png )

Thank you very much

[sudodus]

Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums, udestudent

Hi sudodus,

thank you very much for your advanced tutorial.
I need a full encrypted pendrive, therefore i would like to use encrypt the whole drive during installation.

i have some questions:

1) You have two different versions of an image, either 4-pendrive or nothing. What is exactly the difference between these two image files?

The difference is the tweaks for pendrives as illustrated at these links:

UEFI-and-BIOS/stable-alternative#Ubuntu
UEFI-and-BIOS/stable-alternative#Decrease_wear_for_a_pendrive

2) What do you mean with "Boot into Ubuntu live from an amd64 iso file in UEFI mode. "
do you mean with a live boot the normal Ubuntu image or the modified one from you?

An iso file is a normal Ubuntu image and amd64 means the 64-bit version.

3) How can i boot in BIOS mode on a UEFI Mac? (Step C: Reboot the live system into BIOS mode, install grub-pc and install the bootloader for BIOS mode/media/multimed-2/boot-usb/OneButtonInstaller/dd_Ubuntu_16.04-gamma-UEFI-n-BIOS-4-pendrive-12GB.png )

Thank you very much

I have no Mac computer, and I know very little about booting them with linux. I suggest that you create an own thread in the sub-forum Installation & Upgrades. Make a good descriptive title and describe the computer and what you want in the first post. That way you have better chances to get good help. If you want me to find it, please post a link here

[gainiac]

Started the latest Intel Installer on my Surface Pro 3. Can choose which Version of Ubuntu i want to install, but then it gives me errors. Is there a chance to get a good detailed tutorial how to install it correctly?

[sudodus]

Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums, gainiac

First of all, this is your first post here. Please tell me if linux is new for you, and if not, what linux distros you have been using and for how long. It will make it easier for me to help you.

-o-

'Surface Pro 3' rings a bell for me. I remember that there were problems, but it works with Ubuntu 16.04.1. So it should work for you according to the tips and links from these threads at our Ubuntu Forums:

Installing full Ubuntu on an SD card (Surface Pro 2 issues with Grub)

Installing Ubuntu onto a microSD card (or USB drive) on a Surface Pro 3

This method is the conventional one, starting from an Ubuntu desktop iso file.

-o-

But you are asking in this thread, so I guess that you have tried to install from a compressed image file. Let us hope that it will work all the way in your Surface Pro 3. Please tell me how far it works, the steps that worked before it gives you errors.

- Which compressed image file did you download?
- Did you check it with md5sum?
- Which tool did you use to flash it?
- Did you flash into a USB pendrive or a flash card? What size is it?

- Did it seem that the flashing operation was successful?
- Did it boot into a text screen from the USB pendrive or flash card?

Please describe the errors with as many details as possible

[gainiac]

Hey sudodus,
thanks for your reply. At first, I'm very sorry for my late response. I'm quite familiar with Linux, used 16.04 on my Tower.
Regarding my question, I have good news: It works perfectly fine!
I decided to use your way to get Ubuntu on my SP3, since I didn't want to mess my SP3 up. So I extracted the image as you explained on an external 1TB HDD (!) and runned the installer. My Problem was that I had no connection to the Internet, which I solved by using an USB to Ethernet adapter. After that, I could install Gnome after a distro upgrade without any problems or additional steps. Only "Problem" left was the non-working touchpad. This coul be solved by this tutorial for the Surface Book over at Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinu..._step_by_step/
Only use the step before the last one and everything works as it should.
As you can see, your tutorial and files Show that it's not Magic to run a fully working Ubuntu Distro on a Surface Pro 3 without messing up the boot Manager or you EFI partition and I'm sure this will work on every Surface, maybe also on every other Windows tablet.

Btw. I used the latest Image for X64 on your Server!

[sudodus]

Congratulations gainiac

I'm glad you made it work, and thanks for sharing your solution

[sudodus]

There is a torrent file that you can use to build your own custom operating system

The dd_text_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS compressed image file was made up to date, and a torrent file was uploaded in January 2017. It can be used, if you want to start with a light-weight system and install your own selection of program packages - desktop packages, server packages and application packages.

dd_text_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS_2017-01-15_intel-4-pendrive-7.8GB.img.xz.torrent

Use mkusb to install from the downloaded compressed image file to a USB pendrive, a memory card, or maybe an external SSD or HDD.

See details at this link: Installation/UEFI-and-BIOS/torrent

---

Edit: The corresponding file (the whole file, not torrent) and two other new files are also available from

http://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios

dd_dus-lxde_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS_2016-12-12_intel-4-pendrive-7.8GB.img.xz
dd_text_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS_2017-01-15_intel-4-pendrive-7.8GB.img.xz
dd_Ubuntu_16.04.1_2017-01-17_UEFI-n-BIOS-12GB.img.xz

[sudodus]

Updated installed operating systems that can boot in both UEFI and BIOS mode.

Look for newer versions of compressed image files of installed operating systems that can boot in both UEFI and BIOS mode at

phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios

May 07 2017 two files were uploaded,

dd_text_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS_2017-05-07_intel-4-pendrive-7.8GB.img.xz
dd_dus-lxde_16.04-UEFI-n-BIOS_2017-05-07_intel-4-pendrive-7.8GB.img.xz

[C.S.Cameron]

Mkusb makes a great base for many bootable pendrive projects, from grub2 bootable Puppy Linux to multiboot Persistent systems to multiboot Full systems and mixed/hybred Persistent/Full systems.

I used the following method to make a BIOS/UEFI Full install:

Use mkusb to make a Live system on a USB (2GB or larger).
Use mkusb to make a Persistent system on a USB 16GB or larger, using default settings with ~12GB persistence.
Remove HDD before proceeding, (optional but recommended).
Insert both USB drives.
Boot Installer drive, select Install.
Select Something else.
Select sdb5, (the target drive), and click Change.
Select Use as: ext4, Format, Mount point /.
Don't touch any other partitions.
Select sdb5 for boot loader installation.
Complete installation.
Cut grub.cfg from sdb5/boot/grub and paste to sdb3/boot/grub, overwriting the existing grub.cfg file.
Delete sdb4, the ISO9660 partition and expand sdb5 into the recovered space.
Boot the target drive and run sudo update grub, (optional).

Managed to find a computer with working UEFI the next village over and this method seems to work fine.
I figure it should work on any computer a mkusb drive works on.
Forgive me Sudodus, if you have previously posted same method, I could not find it if you did.

[sudodus]

No worries C.S.Cameron,

I have created several alternative methods for this purpose, but not this one, I think you invented it right now

---

My first test was to repeat what you did (with standard Ubuntu 17.10 in BIOS mode in my Toshiba laptop with 3rd generation Intel i5 hardware and an Insyde BIOS/UEFI system.

1. Main result: The created installed system boots both in BIOS mode and UEFI mode as it should

2. I would suggest some modifications of your recipe:

- Insert the live-only USB drive and boot. When the system is running (and you are at the desktop environment), insert the persistent live USB drive. (Otherwise it might boot from the persistent live drive and prevent some of the tasks later in your recipe.)

- Things will be smoother, if you delete sdb4, the ISO9660 partition and expand sdb5 into the recovered space before installing. (You need not move all the installed files.) In order to do this you must first unmount the involved partitions. I did this with gparted, but it is possible also with other tools.

- Mount the sdb3 and sdb5 partitions.

sudo mkdir /mnt/sd3
sudo mkdir /mnt/sd5
sudo mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sd3
sudo mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt/sd5

- Copy grub.cfg (an explicit description will avoid confusion)

sudo cp -p   /mnt/sd5/boot/grub/grub.cfg /mnt/sd3/boot/grub/

I am not sure that it works the other way - or let us put it this way: We might need some modifications to avoid problems, when installing in UEFI mode and wanting to make it work in BIOS mode. In this case, the bootloader (the EFI system partition) will be installed into a target drive automatically, which is probably not what we want.

But I have not tested it yet. I will go outdoors and shovel show for an hour or two now