[IDEA] Boot XBian from USB

[Thorsten Frank]

I, too, am trying to get xbian to run from USB, and I'm having problems with the first step: Copying the files via the copier. It seems this problem is known, but upon reading through the thread, I didn't find the solution. Here's the post that refers to exactly my problem:

(22nd Nov, 2013 02:02 AM)IriDium Wrote:  @Rubman I seem to be having similar problems with the copier. Mine is with creating a .img file.

It get's so far and either hangs - kills the terminal session or other stange things.

Have you upgraded to the latest packages? As I think this might be the issue.

I'd wait for a bit as I think something has gone wrong. This WAS working at release.

Just happened again:

XBian 1.0Beta2
│ Delete subvolume '/tmp/btrfs-dest/home/@.ro' │
│ Create subvolume '/tmp/btrfs-dest/modules' │
[...deleted some messages...]
│ receiving subvol @.ro uuid=a4ea9fdb-6d88-7a48-8ecc-7c32766c2497, stransid= │

At this point, the pi seems to freeze: I cannot access it via ssh anymore, I cannot ctrl-c the process, and even the LED on my usb stick stops blinking. What have I done leading up to this? From memory: Installed the Beta 2, configured some xbmc settings, did an apt-get upgrade, installed autofs and vim. The usb stick in question has one newly created partition (via shell or kde part man), formatted in ext4 or fat32 (makes no difference, error remains the same), and has been umounted prior to starting the copier.

My next idea was to use the backup function in xbian-config, then do a fresh install of the beta 2 and move that to usb before doing anything else. But it seems that the apt-get upgrade breaks something elemental, as the backup process hangs as well.

So the only route I see now is to start afresh, with a virgin beta 2 install. I can certainly try that, but I'd much prefer not having to do the whole xbmc setup thing (and vim, and autofs, and some other stuff) once again. Any ideas, hints, any logs or anything I could/should post to make my situation more clear?

Thanks all for your help in advance!

[mk01]

http://forum.xbian.org/thread-1770-page-19.html

[koper89]

What filesystem should be on USB partition for USB mount?

[IriDium]

(26th Jan, 2014 06:39 PM)koper89 Wrote:  What filesystem should be on USB partition for USB mount?

The "Fresh" USB is usually FAT32 the root gets converted during the copy.

[xunil]

(24th Dec, 2013 02:44 AM)brice83 Wrote:  

(19th Dec, 2013 06:08 AM)Lilone21804 Wrote:  

(19th Dec, 2013 04:53 AM)postdeath Wrote:  

(19th Dec, 2013 04:46 AM)Lilone21804 Wrote:  I actually figured it out, but thanks for your help. I was under the impression that once I did this procedure, I wouldn't have to keep the SD card in anymore?

how did you do it, please share, my eyes are bleeding

1. I formatted my USB flash drive to the default fat32 file structure on my PC and then plugged in back into my Pi.
2. Under system/system info/storage, it tells you want the USB is mounted under. In my case it was sda1.
3. I ssh into Xbian.config and went to option 6. I only changed were it said "dev/sdxx" to "dev/sda1". I hit enter and it did its thing. It took a while, but the okay button finally appeared at the bottom of the screen.
4. Next I used "sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt" and changed "root=/dev/mmcblk0p2" to "root=/dev/sda1". Control and x to save and that's it.

Hope it works for you.

hi to all,
i did all the steps,but xbian won't boot, it stuck on "network started" and drop to shell.i cant ssh the device nor ping it.
i'm trying since two day and i can't get it to work.

SAme thing, did you find a solution ?

[Smultie]

It still doesn't work guys. I'm not sure if @mk01 has already found out the underlying problem, but I'm sure he's working on it.
Let's all just have a bit of patience.

[mk01]

@Smultie

the new fixed btrfs changed the way how snapshots are copied. before "RO" flag wasn't applied at destination, now is. so cloned install was read only even if partition mounted "RW".

just fixed that and corrected the progress details as well.

it is this commit, posted to devel https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-package-config-shell/commit/135fa41a01101a1ad7e30185b1022db1caa1b37c

[Smultie]

I'd love to test if your fix helped the issue, but you'd have to help me a bit with the commands I have to perform to test the commit.
Thanks for your work!

[MacUsers]

After using Xbian for few days now and tried to host "/" off the USB drive ever since, I'm wondering if it's really possible to do the reliably at the present time. If look under the hood, you will find something, which you don;t actually expect to see. Look at my result here.

[koper89]

(3rd Feb, 2014 06:14 PM)mk01 Wrote:  @Smultie

the new fixed btrfs changed the way how snapshots are copied. before "RO" flag wasn't applied at destination, now is. so cloned install was read only even if partition mounted "RW".

just fixed that and corrected the progress details as well.

it is this commit, posted to devel https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-package-config-shell/commit/135fa41a01101a1ad7e30185b1022db1caa1b37c

Good job Finally xbian on my USB.

[IriDium]

(3rd Feb, 2014 06:20 PM)Smultie Wrote:  I'd love to test if your fix helped the issue, but you'd have to help me a bit with the commands I have to perform to test the commit.
Thanks for your work!

If I'm correct, all you need to do is add or uncomment devel from /etc/apt/sources.list, run apt-get clean, apt-get update and then run xbian-config. Select the upgrade and then from the menu select the xbian-config package. (Can't remember what it is called - maybe package-xbian-config-shell).

Or if on a throw away system, just upgrade the lot

Might be worth testing the backup function as well as that no longer works either!

[mk01]

OH YES

forgot to update that one !!!

---

OH NO

backuphome & restorehome is converting the RO snapshot to RW already, so should work

[Smultie]

(5th Feb, 2014 07:25 PM)mk01 Wrote:  OH YES

forgot to update that one !!!

---

OH NO

backuphome & restorehome is converting the RO snapshot to RW already, so should work

Not exactly sure what you mean, but with the updated xbian-package-config-shell the created .img.gz file still is 20 bytes.

---

Unless you've created a completely new zip-algoritm
In that case: hats off to you, sir

[mk01]

@Smultie

ok, I missed that one with extraordinary size
will check

[mk01]

hmm, looks like btrfs bug in its internal function accessing snapshots. if accessed from mountdir not named as the subvolume, it throws error.

posted to github as https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-package-config-shell/commit/d9f369841436375b5c4020e469b71c856598790f posted deb to devel as 2.1.6-61a