[HOW-TO] Installing XBIAN directly on RASPBIAN IMG

[mzs]

(6th Dec, 2013 11:17 AM)mk01 Wrote:  Next days we plan to put updates containing boot manager with maybe some easy to use clever helper tools to make consultation to one card for more systems they like as easy as for instance the cloner function. Looks like the popular NOOBS or BerryBoot in use and working but are limiting the user experience like for instance no updates etc, or making the system installation a nightmare for non experienced users (for unsupported systems). Definitely during first release but I expect this to work as easy and without limitations as FULL BOOT LOADERS used on PC or better nothing. Because then a hardly enjoyable experience is becoming bad experience and frustration.

In any case if you check this one anytime soon, report instantly back. I going to make the first post more stricture to better focus on the technical steps. After we get a clear picture, we can prepare an installer.

Hello,

I really appreciate the work you have done giving xbian the possibility to be installed on raspbian. I will be glad to hear about any progress with the boot system because I have a problem when I was doing some tests.

I want to have another OS in the same SD card, so I installed 2 raspbian images using NOOBS and everything was fine with both installations. I could easiliy switch between them at startup time.

However, I tried to install xbian using the steps provided but I failed. The pi does not start after the first reboot (the next step after installing xbian-package-kernel).

I suppose it is because the changes made by xbian-package-kernel are not applied considering that NOOBS use a little bit different partition schema. While a clean raspbian installation it is supposed to have the boot and the root partition where all files are placed and located, my SD card has now this partition schema:

1. RECOVERY (FAT) -> the "boot" which provide the possibility to switch OSes
2. An Extended partition with:
BOOT Raspbian 1 (FAT)
ROOT Raspbian 1 (EXT)
BOOT Raspbian 2 (FAT)
ROOT Raspbian 2 (EXT)

I am trying to install Xbian in Raspbian 2. After Xbian installation, I expect to mantain the same a little difference in the ROOT Raspbian 2 file system (which is supposed to change to BTRFS)

As it was stated on previous threads, xbian-package-kernel changes cmdline.txt and config.txt in the boot partition and copy initramfs (as well as other files), but in this case this two files are not really in the real boot partition (RECOVERY) but in the "BOOT Raspbian 2" partition.

What I could see is that the installer removed some files from the BOOT Raspbian 2 partition.
(bootcode.bin fixup.dat fixup_cd.dat fixup_x.dat kernel.img kernel_emergency.img start.elf start_cd.elf start_x.elf). Then, instead of changing files in the same partition, it mounts the RECOVERY partition as the BOOT partition and create some new files into it as config.txt fixup.dat initramfs.gz kernel.img start.elf System.map System.map-3.10.23+ (just to mention, bootcode.bin seems to be different also).

At the end, the pi does not boot anymore, and it has mixed files in the wrong partitions. To mention what happened with the most important ones:
- initgramfs.gz ends in the RECOVERY partition
- config.txt is a new file in the recovery partition instead of changing the file in the BOOT Raspbian 2 partition.
- cmdline.txt is not touched and remains in the BOOT Raspbian 2 partition.

What do you suggest to do in my case? Is there any chance someone could fix this or it will be not supported definitely? It will be greeat if this can work with NOOBS but the real final goal is to have the possibility to install more than one OS using the same SD card installing xbian in one of them.