Berryboot v1.1 - Boot menu / OS installer

[Max]

Brilliant.

..If it is an older version (before the GUI, that has update capabilities)..

'Tis actually the version just prior to sorting out the SDTV dialogue box size.

Then you can just use the "add os" screen to download updates in the future.
(didn't release an update through that channel for the last version because the only big difference was that window being made a few pixels shorter, but will do that for the next version).

[RichShumaker]

How do you extend the start up wait time?
Currently I have 2 seconds and I have missed it several times as my screen was locking in on the HDMI signal.

Thanks for making this as it was the fastest OS set up for me ever and I set 4 OS's up.

I would love to have as many OS choices as you are willing to add, love experimenting.

[Max]

How do you extend the start up wait time?
Currently I have 2 seconds and I have missed it several times as my screen was locking in on the HDMI signal.

Time-out value is hard coded in source at the moment, and not changeable without recompiling.
Might add a setting for it in the next version,

[RichShumaker]

If you could add a setting To change the time or just boot to a choice and not direct that would be very cool.

I would rather have to choose each time than get stuck in a loop as I have a few time. Crap missed boot reboot, d'oh it happen again, rinse and repeat.

Also I noticed if I reboot Rasbian and don't halt it on my hard reset I go directly to Rasbian without a choice(OpenElec is my default) which actually made sense to me.

[markysoft]

Berryboot seems to have become corrupted - after the selection menu the screen went black, and now I get nothiing on power up, no Raspberry splash screen or anything.

The Pi and Card are OK, have tested with another card and OS, and can view the card in windows OK.

What is the suggested recovery approach - replace the files on the fat32 partition, or will I need to mount the linux partition to make changes there?

[Max]

Berryboot seems to have become corrupted - after the selection menu the screen went black, and now I get nothiing on power up, no Raspberry splash screen or anything.

The Pi and Card are OK, have tested with another card and OS, and can view the card in windows OK.

What is the suggested recovery approach - replace the files on the fat32 partition, or will I need to mount the linux partition to make changes there?

Then something went wrong while renaming the start.elf files to change the memory split. Other then for that, it never touches the FAT partition.


Simply extract the files from the .zip to the FAT partition again.
In cmdline.txt add: "datadev=mmcblk0p2", to indicate you already have data, and do not wish to start a new installation.

In the boot menu you might want to press "cancel" to get a recovery shell, and do "umount /mnt ; fsck.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p2" to check the ext4 for corruption as well.

[markysoft]

Thanks, it's booting now.

[Max]

Changelog Berryboot v1.2

• Experimental support for "exporting" images to USB stick. With or without your modifications. Be aware that if you choose to include your modifications, the exported image will not be compressed and will be a lot larger than the original, so make sure your USB stick has sufficient space.
• Support for 240 MB memsplit
• Newer firmware and kernel. Also includes the Bluetooth kernel modules
• The following options can now be added to cmdline.txt on the FAT partition:
  - "nobootmenutimeout" - always present boot menu, do not start the default.
  - "vncinstall" - for headless installations. Find out the IP of your Pi (e.g. through the webinterface of your router) and connect to it with a VNC client to perform installation without monitor attached.
• Icon image format changed to JPG
• Experimental support for storing your data on an iSCSI SAN device. (May not work with some operating systems that reset the network connection during boot.)

Existing users can download the update through the "Add OS" button.

[marco36]

Changelog Berryboot v1.2

• Experimental support for "exporting" images to USB stick. With or without your modifications. Be aware that if you choose to include your modifications, the exported image will not be compressed and will be a lot larger than the original, so make sure your USB stick has sufficient space.
• Support for 240 MB memsplit
• Newer firmware and kernel. Also includes the Bluetooth kernel modules
• The following options can now be added to cmdline.txt on the FAT partition:
  - "nobootmenutimeout" - always present boot menu, do not start the default.
  - "vncinstall" - for headless installations. Find out the IP of your Pi (e.g. through the webinterface of your router) and connect to it with a VNC client to perform installation without monitor attached.
• Icon image format changed to JPG
• Experimental support for storing your data on an iSCSI SAN device. (May not work with some operating systems that reset the network connection during boot.)

Existing users can download the update through the "Add OS" button.

Thank u very much ,installing....

[kmihalj]

Well, BerryBoot use dhcp, but I have fixed IP and proxy.....
ifconfig eth0 bla...bla does not work afther starting BerrygootUI, but this work:
In the boot menu press "cancel" to get a recovery shell, and than:

umount /dev/mmcblk0p2
vi /etc/network/interfaces
change to (example)

Code: Select all

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.5
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254

ifup eth0
BerribootUI

[mattura]

I'm glad I found this - I had been having a difficult time choosing between operating systems (a cut-back, quick OpenElec for a media centre, or a fuller-featured wheezy for experimentation or ...?!) and this gives the possibility of having my cake and eating it!

Well done for making such an excellent tool, much appreciated here.

[amp2k12]

Hi there,

I am having some issues with getting my Media Centre remote to work with OpenELEC when I use BerryBoot.

If I use OpenELEC on its own on a separate SD card it works perfectly fine. This leads me to believe that the kernel modules for supporting the remote are missing from the BerryBoot kernel. If this is not the case, could you give me some help in getting the remote working under BerryBoot?

Thanks in advance.

[Max]

If I use OpenELEC on its own on a separate SD card it works perfectly fine. This leads me to believe that the kernel modules for supporting the remote are missing from the BerryBoot kernel. If this is not the case, could you give me some help in getting the remote working under BerryBoot?

Do you know which module your specific remote uses?

I'm not really familiar with the different dedicated media centre remotes.
(Simply use my normal TV remote through HDMI-CEC instead)

[amp2k12]

From the research I've done , my remote (Windows Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Transceiver) seems to use the following modules;

rc_rc6_mce (Remote Controller keymap modules)
ir_rc6_decoder (IR raw decoder for the RC6 protocol)
mceusb (IR receiver driver)

In OpenELEC the remote also seems to rely on LIRC , so I guess any modules provided by LIRC are also needed.

[Max]

From the research I've done , my remote (Windows Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Transceiver) seems to use the following modules;

rc_rc6_mce (Remote Controller keymap modules)
ir_rc6_decoder (IR raw decoder for the RC6 protocol)
mceusb (IR receiver driver)

Didn't had the last one.

Can you try if the following fixes it?

Code: Select all

During boot press <Enter> within 3 seconds to get to boot menu.
Choose "Cancel" in the menu to get to the recovery shell.

ifup -a
wget http://dl.berryboot.com/shared-mceusb.tgz
gzip -dc *.tgz | tar x -C /mnt/shared
umount -ar
sync

press ctrl+alt+del and try OpenELEC again

[amp2k12]

Yay! Your solution fixed it!

Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it!
Keep up the good work on this awesome tool!

[RichShumaker]

Thanks for Berryboot both versions, and thanks for all your help and updates.
One question, once an SD chip is set up is there an easy way to duplicate the chip?

[Max]

Thanks for Berryboot both versions, and thanks for all your help and updates.
One question, once an SD chip is set up is there an easy way to duplicate the chip?

Can use the "export" button to export individual operating system images, one at a time.
No button to export all though.

[RichShumaker]

Can use the "export" button to export individual operating system images, one at a time.
No button to export all though.

Is there a way to copy using another computer? Or clone from Pi to Pi?
How do you import once you have exported?
None on my versions are 'fancy' right now so if everything dumps I will probably be able to rebuild in a few hours, I have a feeling that won't be true soon with all the experiments I have going on.

[Max]

Is there a way to copy using another computer?

If the SD cards are the same size, it is possible to use disk imaging tools like Win32DiskImager, but I would not really recommend it.

It will result in a copy the size of the SD card,
E.g. if it is a 16 GB card, 16 GB will be copied, and it will take ages, even while only 0.5 GB might be in use.

How do you import once you have exported?

Hold mouse button down over "Add OS" -> select "from USB stick"


Alternatively if your other SD card already has Berryboot installed on it, and you have an external USB SD card reader, you might be able to connect that to the Pi and export directly to the other SD card, instead of putting it on a USB stick first.
If the export file is saved to the existing "/images" folder on the other card, it will appear in the boot menu automatically.

[JollyRoger]

Berryboot looks brilliant, and I'm certainly going to use it. One quick question before I do: will it handle non-Linux systems such as RISCOS?

Thanks for all your hard work. You deserve a gold medal!

[Max]

One quick question before I do: will it handle non-Linux systems such as RISCOS?

Nope.
The boot menu has to run under Linux.

Needs framebuffer and USB support to show the boot menu, and needs to be able to write to the file system to change the memory split.
Things not readily available in standalone bootloaders.

[jedcy]

thanks a lot! will try...

[mattura]

Does Berryboot only work with squashFS or can I use root file systems on different partitions also?

Only support SquashFS/aufs for now.


I did some experimenting with using BTRFS without SquashFS the other day, as that also allows you to easily put multiple distributions inside the same partition, and work with snapshots.
But there are still some issues with that.
(Half the time the Pi gets stuck during file system creation, while "top" shows the kernel spends 99% of the time with IO.
Think it might be caused by the discard/ata trim commands it sends to the storage, as I'm also seeing that with ext4 from time to time, unless you do "mkfs.ext4 -E nodiscard"
Problem is mkfs.btrfs does not seem to have any option to disable sending discards)

The Debian distro shows the kernel version as "3.1.9-cutdown-aufs" and due to this, a very handy script
(http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =26&t=6256) by MrEngman for enabling Realtek wireless USB devices fails as it doesn't find an appropriate driver file.

What can I do about this?
Thanks

[Max]

The Debian distro shows the kernel version as "3.1.9-cutdown-aufs" and due to this, a very handy script
(http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =26&t=6256) by MrEngman for enabling Realtek wireless USB devices fails as it doesn't find an appropriate driver file.

What can I do about this?
Thanks

The script needs a non-standard kernel module that needs to match the exact Linux kernel version that is currently running. While you could build the module yourself, you would need to repeat the process on each and every Berryboot update.
Do not consider that a good long term solution.

Suggest someone figures out what is wrong with the official Linux rtl8192cu module that is part of the main kernel tree, and fixes that instead of going for out-of-tree modules.