Long story short: Live USB works fine for booting and running the OS.
When I install to microSD (internal mmc is too small) the installer hangs after a few minutes and the entire system crashes.
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I ran the installer via terminal instead and it’s frozen at “downloading manifests” — with a full system crash.
Ran the test at boot to test the installer - everything checks out. Used two different USB sticks in addition to this one. All boot and install fine another machines.
Any suggestions?
The EMMC is not too small. Should be 32gb at least.
Forget windows. Delete the emmc. Make a binary copy of the volume so that you can always reinstall it.
Alternatively, try BootICE on a windows machine and make a copy of the boot sectors/boot flags of the LIVE-install drive(your CD/DVD/USB/ZIP/FLOPPY/you name it) and apply them to the SD card.
I faked a cd-rom on a USB stick and by doing this I can use it even on older machines.
Alternatively, try plop boot managers too. Those are some powerful tools.
Depending on the choice, it can even boot raw binary images. It even works in virtualbox/qemu/vmware and you can boot from USB in a virtual machine with it.
Or, you can install it in the USB drive itself, either as dedicated partition or in the master-boot-record(MBR).
You can install it along other operating systems without affecting them (on windows, if you use the setup provided).
Also, for endurance’s sake, USE EXT2 file system without journaling or swap partitions on SD/FLASH drives or they’ll literally fail on you in a few months of extensive use.
Also, in the BIOS, you should load the EFI roms to let SECURE-BOOT know that the system can be loaded safely (there should be an option with a file manager that scans for available drives and lets you search for EFI roms in the directories). Just be aware that messing the secureboot configuration may make any other operating system that’s already in the emmc not bootable anymore (and we’re back at square one: make a backup/binary copy).
Hope this helps.
Thanks for all that!
The issue though is it hanging during install - not boot. Boots fine.
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Also the internal eMMC is 8GB
I see. Then why don’t you try tinycore instead?
Should be a better option. It’s among the lightest versions, like DamnSmallLinux, Puppy, FatDog and Slackware.
Anyway, there may be a trick. If you manage to enlarge the liveboot partition without breaking it you should be able to use utilities like update-initramfs to make any change you make to the liveboot permanent, so that the next time you reboot, the live loads all the modifications/programs that you may have added.
You may even ask a professional to reflow the emmc with a bigger one, but it costs some money. It may be easier/cheaper to buy a new one.
I am installing it to a 64GB MicroSD card.
Hmmm the better question may be:
Is there a verbose installer I can use to determine why it is hanging during the “unpacking-manifests” mentioned portion of the installer?
I don’t remember precisely the name of the installer, but you can run its binary with a terminal.
By the way, are you really sure that it’s hanging ? Sometimes, on these ULV cpus, you just have to wait. I’ve experienced such situations on CL OS. Mouse hangs, everything SEEM to hang, but it’s actually working in the background. You just have to be patient and wait for the CPU to do its work. Anyway, this is because schedulers and governors for the CPU/GPU are not configured properly on CL OS. There’s A LOT to fix with this one…
It’s not a pleasant experience unless you really know what you’re doing.
To install virtual box, for example, I had to directly modify the source files of the application to make it work, manually create and register keys for UEFI support and direct hardware access and countless other operations, fiddling with users, groups and system folders, which are totally messed up for the application…
I seriously don’t understand why you’re opting for CL OS on such a small computer, more so if you have to use SD cards at the lowest speed possible.
p.s. : this is not a good suggestion and whenever I see people suggesting it, I get mad…BUT, for the sake of debugging purposes, try running the installer with secure boot disabled.
In the bios, delete all keys and disable secure boot. JUST BEWARE that if you already have operating systems installed, you may not be able to boot from them again.
When secure boot is enabled, some hardware may not be recognized and some roms/firmware cannot be loaded, leaving you with an unstable system. If the installer works with secure boot disabled, then you know that you have some hardware problems and that you have to mess with the bios/system/uefi/efi to let it work if you want secure boot enabled.