Hello all,

Please CC to me directly as I am offlist...

I am building a LiveCD/LiveDVD based on OpenBSD 4.1 snapshot.  I know this  
is an unofficial page, but I followed the instructions here:
http://openbsd-wiki.org/index.php?title=LiveCD

I'm using 4.1 because of the libraries required on the LiveDVD.  This  
LiveDVD is used for in-house hardware diagnostics with customized programs  
written for BSD.  I thought it would be easier to boot from CD rather than  
installing OpenBSD on every machine we need to use as a hardware testbed.


The only changes I made to the above instructions were to copy the  
"backup/{}" directories instead of tar'ing them and unzipping them.

Everything works fine until the hang on boot with the message: "Loading  
CBDR.."  The disc then fails to boot.

Relevant info:
---------------
I'm burning a re-writable DVD using the above instructions

The mkisofs command to burn the image is as follows:

/usr/local/bin/mkisofs -no-iso-translate -R -T -allow-leading-dots -l -d  
-D -N -v -b cdbr -no-emul-boot -c boot.catalog -o /tmp/livecd.iso /livecd

--------
Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'm pushing against a deadline, so  
any tips / pointers / suggestions are also appreciated.

Ted Goodridge

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Have you tested the .iso in QEMU? Have you tried it on different
hardware? Maybe it's because it's a DVD (DVDs might need more drivers
than the boot loader has? Maybe try cdboot instead of cdbr?

-Nick

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qemu doesn't work for some reason.  Anytime I try and use qemu I get the  
error "Cannot initialize SDL library..."

Yes, I have tried it in different hardware.  What exactly do cdbr and  
cdboot do?  I get the screen that says "OpenBSD boot loader" (with the  
hardware fd1 etc listed), with the "Loading /CDBOOT" above it and it just  
hangs.

cdbr is listed in the installation instructions as the cdboot loader.   
cdboot is the second stage boot loader IIRC.  Don't hesitate to correct me  
if I'm wrong here.

The help is apprecitated.  I'm not trying to make install media (that  
would actually be easy), just boot this liveCD.  Has anyone else gotten a  
LiveDVD to work?

Ted





-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

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Is SDL installed right?


If you make a LiveCD (not DVD) does it work?

-Nick

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The How-to says you can use this to build a LiveDVD.  I thought that the  
bios booted the same if it was a dvd or a cd...?  I really need the space  
a DVD offers.

Does the CD boot loader have trouble with DVDs?

Ted

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It might. Who knows? CDs are a much more standard technology. Try it
first with CDs and make sure that works. Always work from a known
good, right?

You could always netboot (PXE) these computers, you know.

-Nick

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<SNIP>

Some additional info: I did install the qemu from package.  Running qemu  
under X gives me this:
qemu -cdrom livecd.iso -boot d

----------------------------------------------------
qemu: fatal: Trying to execute code outside RAM or ROM at 0x90b8c35d

EAX=fc468900 EBX=ff468aff ECX=00000000 EDX=87499875
ESI=c35dec89 EDI=0004ae00 EBP=ec89c031 ESP=ffff7d60
EIP=90b8c35d EFL=00000002 [-------] CPL=0 II=0 A20=1 SMM=0 HLT=0
ES =0010 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9300
CS =0008 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9f00
SS =0010 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9300
DS =0010 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9300
FS =0010 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9300
GS =0010 00000000 ffffffff 00cf9300
LDT=0000 00000000 0000ffff 00008000
TR =0000 00000000 0000ffff 00008000
GDT=     00044120 00000027
IDT=     00043e88 0000027f
CR0=60000011 CR2=00000000 CR3=00000000 CR4=00000000
CCS=ffffffff CCD=87499876 CCO=SUBL
FCW=037f FSW=0000 [ST=0] FTW=00 MXCSR=00001f80
FPR0=0000000000000000 FPR1=0000000000000000
FPR2=0000000000000000 FPR3=0000000000000000
FPR4=0000000000000000 FPR5=0000000000000000
FPR6=0000000000000000 FPR7=0000000000000000
XMM00=00000000000000000000000000000000  
XMM01=00000000000000000000000000000000
XMM02=00000000000000000000000000000000  
XMM03=00000000000000000000000000000000
XMM04=00000000000000000000000000000000  
XMM05=00000000000000000000000000000000
XMM06=00000000000000000000000000000000  
XMM07=00000000000000000000000000000000
Abort trap (core dumped)
------------------------------------------
In addition, I can get the cd to boot if i use the standard floppy42.fs as  
the boot, but then it takes me into the install
script.  I did copy everyting in step 11 from  
http://openbsd-wiki.org/index.php?title=LiveCD to the disk (the root of  
the disk does have both /cdboot and /cdbr).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  "misc" seems to be the  
catch all mailing list according to www.openbsd.org/mail.htm, which is why  
I'm posting it here.

Ted Goodridge

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Hi,
sorry for the very late reply, but my obsd.misc mail folder has grown to
3000 mails during the last couple weeks while I was busy moving.

Anyway, I'm as the original author of said page can confirm (sadly) that
you might run into a (known!?) cdboot bug. For some reason cdboot can't
boot a DVD exceeding a certain size and or containing more than a
certain amount of files.

There is a rather ugly, but at least working way around.
Josh Grosse found it while building his live CDs, which can be found
here, btw.:
http://jggimi.homeip.net/livecd/faq.html

The problem arouse with the KDE ones, the "solution" is to pack
/usr/local into its own .iso (or perhaps a vnc mounted image would work
as well) and mount it during startup.

I did not build a LiveCD for a long time myself, but I hope too have
"free time" coming up and will then update the instructions where
necessary.

Regards,
ahb



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Hi,

I hope you succeed. I'd be very itnerested in a live cd/dvd for obsd.
As you say, it's ideal to test hardware, but I don't have to time to
do it myself. Btw, why obsd 4.1?
Do you plan to upload the iso to some site? There were some projects,
like quetzal and olivebsd, but they died, I think.

good luck,

Pau


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