Talk:LiveUSB

A comment [[User:Larry|Larry]] 13:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
: A reply [[User:Sally|Sally]] 11:23, 4 September 2026 (UTC)
:: Your reply ~~~~

Gentoo Minimal Install Image Now Supports UEFI Boot

As of at least install-amd64-minimal-20180828T214505Z.iso, the Gentoo minimal install image now appears to support both UEFI and legacy boot (this is a relatively recent change, since e.g. install-amd64-minimal-20180703T214502Z.iso supported legacy boot only).

In light of this, I suggest the recommendation in this article, that "... Gentoo's Minimal Installation CD is not recommendable for Live USB, because it can't be booted from UEFI.", be dropped. --Sakaki (talk) 11:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan. I haven't personally tested the new LiveCD, but I've heard about UEFI support on new minimal LiveCDs... I should be able to test soon (perhaps even tonight). You should make the change. Thanks, Sakaki ! --Maffblaster (talk) 16:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

OK thanks, edit made! --Sakaki (talk) 18:15, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

SystemRescueCD no longer based on Gentoo

As of version 6.0.0 systemrescuecd is based on Arch Linux instead of Gentoo. Because of this I suggest removing the recommendation or at least adding a note informing the user of the switch. Thymo (talk) 16:16, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Right. Added a note since version 5.3.2 might still be useful for a while until it becomes obsolete. — GuillermoDH (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Outdated LiveDVD

Last LiveDVD iso file is 5 years old and was removed from g.o/downloads page. Is it safe to use it today or the recommendation should be removed? Szymon Scholz (talk) 06:12, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

The article no longer mentions the LiveDVD, closing. Can't comment on if old images should still be used, but I don't think they are available for download anymore. There may be a new "LiveDVD" some day. -- Ris (talk) 10:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Gentoo Minimal Install ISO doesn't use ISOLINUX anymore

The article (chapter "Creating bootable LiveUSB drives from Linux systems") assumes that the ISO uses ISOLINUX bootloader and provides instructions/scripts on how to convert it to SYSLINUX for use on USB drives. However, it seems both the Minimal ISO and Admin ISO use GRUB 2, so the instructions/script may not work as intended:

boot/grub/grub.cfg
boot/grub/i386-efi/syslinuxcfg.mod
boot/grub/i386-pc/syslinuxcfg.mod
boot/grub/x86_64-efi/syslinuxcfg.mod

--Ahippo (talk) 03:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems likes ISOLINUX was replaced with GRUB 2 back in 2020: [0a27a7a3 targets: Use GRUB for BIOS boot], so this has been likely broken for quite a while. --Ahippo (talk) 03:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

My use case was to modify default boot parameters, which I think I managed to do by extracting the ISO (make sure to copy .disk/ directory too -- it's needed to boot in UEFI mode), editing boot/grub/grub.cfg as needed, and using the following to regenerate the ISO with my changes (this is what Catalyst does these days) (which can then be copied to a USB stick with dd ):

--Ahippo (talk) 03:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeed the minimal ISO uses grub2 boot. I was able to create to create a bootable LiveUSB without having to reorder any files and without adjusting the syslinux configuration file

--Josh (talk) 19:51, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I have moved the ISOLINUX parts under LiveUSB/ISOLINUX and marked it with a warning, since it is no longer relevant to contemporary Gentoo live images. --Maffblaster (talk) 05:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

The moved sections are still present on this page, but without any warning, so anyone trying them will find that they don't work for current gentoo iso images. They should be removed. I have reopened this talk discussion until then. Jjakob (talk) 09:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Creating bootable LiveUSB drives under Windows

I think this session might need upgrading. There are two recommended software: Rufus and Universal USB Installer. The latter does not list Gentoo under the Linux distros to choose from in the GUI, whilst the former doesn't seem to work properly with UEFI? I'll open an issue in Rufus GitHub with more details and link here. Either way, what worked for me was a software called "balena etcher" (free and open source under Apache license, GitHub page Wikipedia article VirusTotal scan of latest Windows release). Maybe it should be added as an option? Saturnalia0 (talk) 13:47, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, an issue seems to have been filled already, but closed. I'm not sure I understand the resolution there, but the fact is Rufus still presents the reported error with Gentoo minimal install and LiveGUI images... https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/2127 Saturnalia0 (talk) 14:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, as mentioned there, Rufus works if one selects dd mode (instead of the default). I'll confirm and add a warning to the wiki page... Saturnalia0 (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

"Automatic drive-wide installation script" assumes it has been given a block device name in the form of "/dev/sdX"

The "Automatic drive-wide installation script" assumes it has been given a block device name "/dev/sdX", as it then accesses partition 1 on that device by appending "1" e.g. "/dev/sdc1". It doesn't check that the block device it has been given is actually in that form or say in what form it should be, so for example giving it "/dev/disk/by-id/example" will make it fail at "Creating file system on /dev/disk/by-id/example1" but not before partitioning it. It should either check that the block device matches the form it expects or work with different forms also under "/dev/disk/" (by-id, by-diskseq, by-path use "-partX", others don't have these at all).

Jjakob (talk) 09:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I later saw that this entire section was already the topic of an earlier discussion and that it was deprecated, but not marked as such or removed. Current iso images don't use syslinux so they can't be used with that script, the script and that entire section should be removed from the page (they've already been moved to their own page LiveUSB/ISOLINUX) Jjakob (talk) 09:39, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I've added a manual method for GRUB, tested with current LiveGUI image on BIOS and UEFI64. Marked the Syslinux sections "DEFUNCT". Could be moved to the subpage LiveUSB/ISOLINUX me thinks. --Adr (talk) 13:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

FAT file size limit

Andreas K. Hüttel (Dilfridge) , may I ask you a question... Is RelEng aware of the fact, that the squashfs in the LiveGUI image recently exceeds the FAT file size limit? cp: error writing '/mnt/usb/image.squashfs': File too large

Just asking and think of a way forward for this section: LiveUSB#Manually_preparing_a_LiveUSB_drive. Thank you. --Adr (talk) 08:28, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the way forward will probably involve updating the instructions to be based on ISO9660 FS. For pointers, you could take a look at how Catalyst does it. Thanks for raising this.

B11n (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Assuming KDE won't shrink anymore, I've added a workaround. Hopefully many systems will eat this, and one USB stick will be able to boot all ""normal"" hardware in the house. With some luck. Other methods would be interesting though. --Adr (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

unetbootin

sys-boot/unetbootin is no longer in gentoo repository. P4r4D0xum (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

removed the reference B11n (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

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