[Resolved] Frugal boot error on doubly existing UUIDs

[cinclus]

I am using grub2win as a secondary boot-manager under Windows 7 for frugal-booting MX 18.3 (with an AVLinux-kernel) into an NTFS-partition.
It uses /grub2/grub.cfg for boot-menu-entries. So I have added there the following menu-entry from C:\antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1\grub.entry

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menuentry "MX 18 (Continuum) Frugal Install" {
    search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid BEE4403CB98674F7
    linux /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1 buuid=BEE4403CB98674F7 persist_all lang=de_DE quiet
    initrd /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/initrd.gz
}

With this entry I get a boot error (translated from german):

Linux kernel: 4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1
Current boot-parameter:
BOOT_IMAGE=/antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1 buuid=BEE4403CB98674F7 persist_all lang=de_DE quiet
Loading hardware spedific module
Looking for boot device with uuid BEE4403CB98674F7
Looking for file(s) linuxfs on device(s) /dev/sdb1
Device found, but antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/linuxfs File does not exist there

Explanation: grub2win doesn't look for the boot-label "antiX-Frugal" ...
... boot searches all partitions for the specified uuid. What's happening if I have accidentally more than one partition with the same UUIDs?
From the error message, please see above, you will not know.
Remedy: change the menu-entry in /grub2/grub.cfg to

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menuentry "MX 18 (Continuum) Frugal Install" {
    search --no-floppy --set=root --label antiX-Frugal
    linux /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1 label=antiX-Frugal persist_all lang=de_DE quiet
    initrd /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/initrd.gz
}

It is immune to such - I confess - weird situations.

[cinclus]

Correction:
Even if my menu-enty for a frugal-installation, please see above, works for me, the received boot-parameter for the partition label is 'flab' - not: 'label'.

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/frugal-installation/
https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/do ... rugal.html

So the menu-entry must read:

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menuentry "MX 18 (Continuum) Frugal Install" {
    search --no-floppy --set=root --label antiX-Frugal
    linux /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1 flab=antiX-Frugal persist_all lang=de_DE quiet
    initrd /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/initrd.gz
}

[fehlix]

[/code]With this entry I get a boot error (translated from german):

Linux kernel: 4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1
Device found, but antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/linuxfs File does not exist there

Explanation: grub2win doesn't look for the boot-label "antiX-Frugal" ...
... boot searches all partitions for the specified uuid. What's happening if I have accidentally more than one partition with the same UUIDs?
It is immune to such - I confess - weird situations.

Those errors often happen, when you have copied the frugal installation/antiX-dir to another partition.
Normaly you have only one uniqe UUID within one pc for each filesystem on a partition . The frugal installer creates the grub.entry with the UUID of your frugal installation partition/filesystem. But you are free to copy the whole frugal antiX-directory on another partition, but would also need to adjust the UUID. YOu can also rename the frugal-dir to something else but need to adjust bdir parameter.
By this you can have multiple frugal installation an different partitions or on the same partition.
Searching by partition label is identical as long as those are unique.
You can see the mapping of UUID, device-name and label by running this command:

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lsblk -f

In case you have a UUID twice you might have added a cloned disk twice, without fixing the UUIDs
In addition I would always add the filesystem type to the grub-entry, which currently is missing within the created grub.entry,
e.g. in this case for NTFS. By this you make the grub-entry also bootable from another GRUB-menu e.g. from an installed MX Linux or from Boot Rescue Menu.

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menuentry "MX 18 (Continuum) Frugal Install" {
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod ntfs
    search --no-floppy --set=root --label antiX-Frugal
    linux /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/vmlinuz bdir=antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1 flab=antiX-Frugal persist_all lang=de_DE quiet
    initrd /antiX-Frugal-4.16.12-lowlatency-avl1/initrd.gz
}

HTH

[cinclus]

My definition of a bug:

a program makes an assumption on the environment

a) which it doesn't check
or
b) it doesn't give a specific error message of _what_ is goeing wrong.

The unchecked assumption is the uniqueness of the UUID of the partition used for the frugal installation.

[fehlix]

post

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lsblk -f

[anticapitalista]

My definition of a bug:

a program makes an assumption on the environment

a) which it doesn't check
or
b) it doesn't give a specific error message of _what_ is goeing wrong.

The unchecked assumption is the uniqueness of the UUID of the partition used for the frugal installation.

Please post bugs here - https://bugs.mxlinux.org/

thanks

[cinclus]

I am leaving on purpose the UUIDs of the partitions /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdc1 as is :

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# lsblk /dev/sdb1
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb1 8:17 0 59,8G 0 part 

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# lsblk /dev/sdc1
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdc1   8:33   0  60G  0 part /live/boot-dev

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# blkid /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="SDJ1_W7_H97" UUID="BEE4403CB98674F7" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="ca0d529f-01"

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# blkid /dev/sdc1
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="antiX-Frugal" UUID="BEE4403CB98674F7" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="c58662c3-01"

[fehlix]

I am leaving on purpose the UUIDs of the partitions /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdc1 as is :

You might have your reason, but if you want to have a smooth linux experience you should reconsider your position. Identical UUID's in a system do call for future trouble.

[cinclus]

you should reconsider your position.

I had to reproduce - on purpose - the non-uniqueness of UUIDs for making sense of your request.
In my original post you can read that the UUIDs were non-unique by accident, not by a position(?). Nothing to reconsider!