[IDEA] Boot XBian from USB

[namtih]

It's just bad formatted in the forum
It's of course only one line original.

Just used another command and it also shows that the usb drive isn't used

Terminal

root@xbian ~ # ls -al /dev/root
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jan 1 1970 /dev/root -> mmcblk0p2

[CurlyMo]

Can you try these instructions? http://forum.xbian.org/thread-427-post-4687.html#pid4687

[namtih]

Unfortunately it seems not possible to execute your steps. The problem seems to be that the SD card is 16GB and the usb device is only 8GB. When I execute your dd command the usb device is filled until 8GB and then the command hangs. When I cancel it via STRG+C and try to access the usb mount I only get "Permission denied". So I think the filesystem table isn't written yet.

Terminal

xbian@xbian ~ $ df -m
Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 15107 691 14411 5% /
/dev/mmcblk0p2 15107 691 14411 5% /
tmpfs 38 1 38 1% /run
tmpfs 5 0 5 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 10 0 10 0% /dev
/dev/sda 15228 7845 7377 52% /media/usb0
tmpfs 75 0 75 0% /run/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1 34 11 24 31% /boot
xbian@xbian ~ $
xbian@xbian ~ $
xbian@xbian ~ $ cd /media/usb0
-bash: cd: /media/usb0: Permission denied
xbian@xbian ~ $

[CurlyMo]

Can you shrink the root partition with a parted live cd to less than 8GB?

[namtih]

Seems to got it working now.
I used an Ubuntu Live CD and gave the shrink method a try, but no luck. Still the same problem after the dd command.

Finally it was the new initramfs line in the config.txt, which seems to prevent mounting the usb device at startup. After I've removed it, it started from usb. So the first-startup wizard started, did some pre-configuration and the resize. After the automatic start just a black screen - nothing more, not even boot messages (aaaaargh).
So I only took the SD card and installed the img file again, edited the cmdline.txt and config.txt and did a reboot. And it booted - finally!

I hope this whole mess was it worth and that the filesystem corruptions are gone.

[belese]

@CurlyMo,
looks like the problem i have with my other sd card.

[CurlyMo]

@belese, did you change to root= value in /boot/cmdline.txt?

[belese]

No
in fact don't try to boot from usb,
but like Namtih,
if i remove the new initramfs line in the config.txt
it work.

[CurlyMo]

But the bug namith encountered is different than you did I'm fixing his bug now.

However, i did add an additional sanity check, so maybe it works better for you to.

[kraleksandr]

(12th Feb, 2013 06:55 PM)CurlyMo Wrote:  I get 35 seconds here.

You said that your RPi(b) with xbian a4 can can fully boot up in 35 seconds?
How??

[CurlyMo]

Fast SD card class 10
Turbo mode

[kraleksandr]

Transcend "TS8GSDHC10" has 20MB/s read 16MB/s write. Not enough fast, right?
Turbo mode looks interesting.

---

Awesome fast. Boot less more 35 sec.

[rendez2k]

(12th Feb, 2013 03:07 AM)CurlyMo Wrote:  The easiest way is:
- Install XBian img to your SD card
- Boot xbian
- Login to shell with ssh
- dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=/dev/sda2
- Change /boot/cmdline.txt

This only copies the /root partition to your USB drive.

Hi all, I want to try this but it seems the faq entry has gone? I think I'm OK with all of this except the /boot/cmdline.txt part - what needs to change? Have people noticed a big speed increase?

[CurlyMo]

You need to change /dev/mmcblk0p2 to /dev/sda2

[namtih]

(8th Mar, 2013 04:59 AM)rendez2k Wrote:  Have people noticed a big speed increase?

Yes. But the biggest advantage is that you get rid of the annoying filesystem corruption - even with overclocking.