unetbootin

[Matt Graham]

On 2016-10-19 14:51, Michael Butash wrote:
>> I dd'ed a Gentoo net install image to a USB disk, then booted the
>> machine from that disk.  The installer loaded its initrd, then
>> said that it couldn't find the root filesystem.

This appears to be a problem with the 
install-amd64-minimal-20160908.iso image's kernel.  Looks like there's a 
bug in it that prevents it from recognizing or using USB drives.  dmesg 
from the shell shows it can't even see USB drives when they're plugged 
in.  Yes, I tried multiple drives, and said drives work fine with a 
vanilla kernel.  No label problems, just "we didn't bother to test 
whether the USB storage system worked".

(I have run into enough weird bugs with Gentoo's supplied kernels that 
now I grab a vanilla tarball and build it as soon as I can.  YMMV.)

> I ran into an issue years ago fiddling with Arch where their iso
> would only boot with a particular disk label, using that (in theory)
> to find what /dev/sdX it was found by udev as.  A flawed
> ass-u-me'ption, as unetbootin didn't bother to write the correct label
> the iso was looking for

This seems odd, because when you dd something to a raw device, you 
shouldn't even have to write a label--the label is already in the ISO 
(or whatever).

> I've personally never had good luck making/booting linux iso's from
> usb oddly, especially debian-installer-based systems just never work
> right even once booted.  I keep an old usb cdrom around as sadly we
> can't seem to move beyond them.

We will always have the old stuff with us, because the new fancy stuff 
so often overpromises and underdelivers in spectacular ways.

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