Bug 176095

Summary:	codepages missing in livecd kernel (problem when booting liveCD from usb stick)
Product:	Gentoo Release Media	Reporter:	Toon Verstraelen <Toon.Verstraelen>
Component:	LiveCD/DVD/USB	Assignee:	Gentoo Release Team <releng>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID
Severity:	major
Priority:	High
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	x86
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Toon Verstraelen 2007-04-26 10:04:08 UTC

Hi,

I have tried the Gentoo LiveUSB guide http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/liveusb.xml.

When I boot from the usb stick, it apears that there is no device that can be mounted on /newroot. After hitting 'shell' at the command line I tried

/ # mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /newroot.
mount: Mounting /dev/sda1 on /newroot failed: Invalid Argument
/ # dmesg | tail
...
Unable to load NLS charset cp437
FAT: codepage cp437 not found.


The same kind of bug has been posted for the 2005.0 release and was fixed, but it appear that the bug has returned in the 2006.* releases.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2007-04-26 12:22:38 UTC

This is likely because the codepages are enabled as modules, which works just fine for the CD. When genkernel creates the initramfs, it only copies the modules which are dependencies of modules listed in /usr/share/genkernel/<arch>/modules_load and the modules themselves, of course, into the initramfs.

You can get around this by building your own kernel based on the CD kernel config. Just build fat32 and the "usual suspect" codepages (cp437, iso8859-1, utf8) into the kernel instead of as modules.

Comment 2 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2007-04-30 21:31:07 UTC

cp437, iso8859-1, and utf8 shoudl be built-in by default already if using the default config

Comment 3 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2007-04-30 21:35:15 UTC

Did you build your own kernel for the USB stick?

Comment 4 Toon Verstraelen 2007-05-01 07:38:04 UTC

I did not build a custom kernel, but rather downloaded the 2006.1 minimal livecd for x86 and then followed the procedure http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/liveusb.xml, which basically just explains how to transform a bootable CD into a bootable USB stick with minimal efforts.

Comment 5 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2007-05-01 12:18:33 UTC

Apparently, you didn't pay attention to the guide.

"Warning: This guide is designed only to be used with Gentoo 2006.0. Do not attempt to use a 2006.1 CD or newer; you will end up with an unbootable USB disk."

I'm marking this is invalid, since 2006.1 "out of the box" will not work with that guide.