Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

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nooby

Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by nooby »

Yes I know a weird question. But as a noob I fail to get such.

I used UNetbootin win prog to create a "live" USB stick that can boot on almost any computer. Very handy. Love it

But I want to know. Which files does it use to boot up. And which files are for other purposes like other languages and doing Mem check and running Shelf?

preseed catalog/folder have
cli.seed
ltsp.seed
mint.seed

syslinux catalog/folder have
isolinux.bin
lang
langlist
memtest
splash
syslinux.cfg
vesamenu.c32

casper catalog/folder have
filesystem.manifest
silesystem.squashfs
inird.gz
wmlinuz
these two I know is a must.

.Disk catalog/folder have
base_installable
casper-uuid-gerneric
cd-type
info
release notes url

then we have outside of these catalogs
autorun
casper-rw
md5sum
mint4win

I trust that not all of them is needed. I want it to use english so no need for Swedish lang.
Maybe other files is not needed to boot either.

could someone help please. what is the minimum files to boot?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
DrHu

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by DrHu »

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#faq
  • For the Hard Disk / "frugal install" mode, UNetbootin uses a Windows or Linux-based installer to install a small modification to the bootloader (bootmgr and bcdedit on Vista, grldr and boot.ini for NT-based systems, grub.exe and config.sys for Win9x, or GRUB on Linux, uses the bootloader to boot the desired distribution's installer or to load the system utility, no CD required. After the distribution has been installed, or once done using the system utility, the modification to the bootloader is then undone.
Last edited by DrHu on Sat Jan 30, 2010 7:37 am, edited 10 times in total.
gn2

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by gn2 »

Interesting question.
I would suggest leaving well alone, if it works don't fix it ;)
You could try removing things one at a time, so when it breaks you'll know what it was that broke it.
nooby

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by nooby »

Yes we did that on Radios when I tried to learn to be a Repair person. I was not good at that either. :)

Well I tried now and something is missing. so not sure what has happen. I have to start all over again.

I mean there are 6 billion soon people and I trust somebody else with much more knowledge than me has already tried it.
I did write an email to the dev of UNetbootin but he seems very busy no answer.

His UNetbootin does make a frugal install on the NTFS HDD but unfortunately it then lock the UNetbootin so I fail to use it for creating USB stick with it. so either I ahve to find out how to unlock it or fine another solution.

Could the following work.

I format an USB in same format as the HDD. I use UNetbootin to install Mint on the USB stick.
I then copy over those files to the hdd and link to them in Menu.lst as I do with Puppy OS.

Or would that lock the UNetbootin too from being used on that computer it was created on? Oh I can use it on another computer. Hm that could maybe work but I only have one Vista. one Win7 and one winXP so that does not work then?

Here is what originally did work until I changed something in the set up and that trashed the internal structure.

title Start Linux Mint

find --set-root /casper/vmlinuz

kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper quiet splash --

initrd /casper/initrd.gz

boot

This part

file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed
I change to this
file=/preseed/mint.seed because it should not look at the cdrom at all.
DrHu

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by DrHu »

Here is what Linux needs to use to boot
http://www.instantfundas.com/2007/08/in ... -from.html
nooby

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by nooby »

almost success. I am writing now from within Mint 8.0 the swedish remaster of it by Exton.
I would prefer the English version because now I have to translate within me very term to english before asking you guys what is that term supposed to mean. And how can I know which word he chose a swedish word for. Impossible.

The change I did maybe was not good. I gave an error during splash that if could not find seed.

but did a work around after waiting for a long time and that one worked.

But this is not a stable things. I works for a few times or days and then it breaks apart due to something it does after a while.
don't know what it does but suddenly it get corrupt and want to repair the integrity or its files.

some inner security ro maintenance? Ok I test if it play youtuve flash now. Is that built in out of the box on the english version?

But it is cool to have it going so far. I am the only one doing it and I am a complete idiot on computers. Very odd feeling.
I mean there must be thousands out there who knows how to do this stuff but they ahve no motivation for it.
nooby

Re: Which Mint files are a minimum to boot?

Post by nooby »

DrHu very good link there. I use NeoGrub instead of Grub4Dos but Neogrub are based on that one only using another gui.

I take a look at it later. Have to test what happens if I include the cdrom thing and test youtube first.
It failed to find the seed and it thinks the seed is on the cdrom. so not sure how to address that in the menu.lst

Maybe I need a cheat code in the boot that says. Don't look in CDROM.

Edit from Mint in frugal install.

I had to keep the /cdrom/ thing in.

something odd happen when it comes to this text.

Adding installer to Kubuntu netbook favourites

that one take a minute to complete or more.

so what cheat code can I use to tell it to not add that installer?

Apart from that this is the best linux of all 40 distros that I have tested. Sure I could use a USB mem stick instead but it is very practical to use the HDD to do things.

I guess books marks can be saved on some web application? I can every open up gmail and put them in some file there?

But I would not be able to install changes or addons to the Firefox browser.

So if I could do a proper frugal install with some kind of casper-rw file working that would be grand.

Edit.

Easy to save bookmarks in a file on Draft on gmail. Works good. A bit more work but better than nothing.

Now how do I protect it from goung haywire again? Maybe it is the automatic updating or something that break it?
This never happen to Puppy installs in frugal despite them saving in UnionFS files.

Could one not tell Mint to do something similar?
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