Feature Request Explained: Boot from ISO

[pulltionize]

Knoppix has this feature and have had it for a whlie now, and it can be EASILY implemented. (For DEVS, look at knoppix source)
My request is for the sabayon team to implement a feature in the Live cd which lets you boot from a iso file located in a NTFS partition. I give you a scenario to clarify: You put LIVE cd disc and and reboot, then you type "sabayon bootfrom c:\sabayon-minix86.iso" for instance, then it mounts the iso and boots from it, this fills many purposes. 1. It's faster 2.lets you mount a disc later on in system, which is good.

Sabayon LIVE cd have a similiar feature like that, but it copies the iso to ram and thus lets you boot from it and you can mount a disc later on. This has weak points; 1. you might not have sufficient RAM 2. you have to wait for it to copy the whole thing, takes time.

Good Luck!

(For DEVS, look at knoppix source)

[johnnyhay]

That's a great idea.
However, I thought the livecd's don't touch the hda(s), unless you're trying to install.

[Darksurf]

It will/can mount your windows partition and you can open music files and write files.(if you want it to)

[barcode_linux]

hmmm....interesting. but isnt that booting 2 kernels at the same time? one for the live disc and one for the bootimage? id like to now how knoppix does this myself.

pulltionize, i wil email the other devs and see if this is something that we can do. thanks for the idea.

[pulltionize]

I'm not very experienced in developing live cds whatsoever, I'm just familiar with the feature. Although, logical explanations is that the disc boots kernel etc from the disc, then after that it mounts the partition which the iso is located and then mounts the iso and boots from it. Please check knoppix source for this. Also check "bootfrom" option located at http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes

Good Luck!

[whilo]

As far as I can read on the Knoppix FAQ you need to boot the same Kernel from CD which is in the ISO. This means you still have to burn the ISO. The problem is that the Kernel may load modules during init. These have to be compatible.

Do we really need this? Is ISO booting really faster than DVD booting? At least you need a compatible ISO-CD. I don't know if the mini kernel is the same as the one on dvd.
I don't see big advantages here. O.k. you may use your optical drive. Is it possible to mount the iso filesystem read-write?
We would need a 4.4 gig image then, which makes simple ISO setups possible.

Cheers,
whilo

[pulltionize]

Read my request thorougly and I also suggest you download the knoppix iso and try the feature. Of course running stuff from harddrive is alot faster than dvd, how can you say its not? I think you misunderstood the request, please read it thorougly again and also check the wiki page.

[random guy]

i think it is a good idea, never actually tried this out but i dont see any reason why it would not work out. the good thing about knoppix is they have had a larger amount of time over the years to try and figure out ways of doing things that probably only a few people would really want but are cool if you give em a shot.

if knoppix already does this though cant we just load a sabayon iso with a knoppix disk?

[whilo]

Of course running stuff from harddrive is alot faster than dvd, how can you say its not?

Because I don't know the ratio of auto-detection time and the actual bottle-neck of DVD booting. I haven't tested the feature and I didn't want to download Knoppix just to know it. Thanks for your answer. I suggest adding my approach of an read-write functionality when booting from an ISO-file. I would really like that.

if knoppix already does this though cant we just load a sabayon iso with a knoppix disk?

No regrettably not. As long as the Kernel is different in Knoppix and Sabayon, what it surely is, you cannot load a Knoppix Kernel and load Sabayon modules later on. Sabayon is configured to work with the Sabayon Kernel setup.

But what about a maximum ISO-file, which can be mounted read-write? Squashfs is read only, as far as I know, but we could add a loop file at least for the home directory, which is mounted when booting from a ISO-file. Can we write in a fix-sized file inside an UDF-filesystem? We could than use a Sabayon setup even without install...
Do you like that idea? What problems may we have to deal with?

Cheers,
whilo

[lxnay]

I've not deeply read what you wrote but I just can say that's not a maintainable feature. It's not even so useful in the end me thinks... But we're always open to these kind of discussions