ahoy all,
first thanks for Alpine, never have seen packages install so
quickly! testing currently and getting ready to install it permanently.
but first for various reasons i need to boot the Alpine ISO from an
external USB drive using GRUB (installed on USB drive) on a BIOS
non-EFI computer. in particular i have a GPT formatted USB flash
drive with the following partition layout:
partition 1: ESP (FAT32 EFI System Partition)
partition 2: BIOS boot (GRUB boot partition needed to boot GRUB on GPT
disks using BIOS)
partition 3: storage (FAT32 where boot/grub directory and ISOs are stored)
again, though the USB drive is GPT formatted and has an ESP partition,
we are trying to boot the ISO with a BIOS only computer, so no
EFI/UEFI stuff. using this drive and GRUB config i am able to boot
other ISOs e.g. System Rescue CD, Memtest86+, etc, just not Alpine ..
yet :)
after much researching and culling information from various sources,
the best /NON-WORKING/ menu entry in grub.cfg that i have thus far is:
set timeout=10
set default=0
submenu "Alpine Linux" {
menuentry "extended 3.8.0 x86-64" {
set isofile="/home/share/Alpine/alpine-extended-3.8.0-x86_64.iso"
loopback loop ${isofile}
linux (loop)/boot/vmlinuz-vanilla iso-scan/filename=${isofile}
alpine_dev=usbdisk:vfat BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-vanilla
modules=loop,squashfs,sd-mod,usb-storage quiet nomodeset
initrd=/boot/initramfs-vanilla
initrd (loop)/boot/initramfs-vanilla
}
this begins to boot but then ends in
Mounting boot media failed.
initramfs emergency recovery shell launched. Type 'exit' to continue boot
i am stumped and i have seen others have been asking this[1] or a
similar[2] question. i would be happy to update the wiki and answer
the serverfault question once i get this working. thanks in advance
for any solutions, tips, pointers, etc, and again for Alpine. peace,
w PS: i think that the "iso-scan/filename=${isofile}" is Debian
specific but removing it makes no difference and i have yet to find an
Alpine equivalent, though i do not find anything like it on the
current kernel command line used to boot the ISO when dd'd to a USB
stick
Links:
------
[1] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Talk:Installation
[2]
https://serverfault.com/questions/882130/alpine-linux-boot-from-iso-stored-inside-an-hard-drive
https://waynedpj.ingiro.xyz