Package request: MultiSystem thread ->EZ2B

[Richard]

Here's another link with info on using on other Linux besides Ubuntu. :)
https://www.lifewire.com/create-multibo ... ve-4135593

[skidoo]

It's too large to audit in one sitting ~~ contains several 10,000+ line bash scripts (!) but I took a peek.
Short of comparing hashsums for the various pre-compiled (grub, syslinux) binaries within the package, it cannot be fully audited anyhow.

Bear in mind, it's an elevated-permissions application, and its functionality includes ability to retrieve + install updates via wget

noticed:
The multisystem files include an in-app icon for MX Linux, but it does not have a listing/link for retrieving MX iso.
antiX is also listed, along with an outdated (defunct) mepis.org download link.
It assigns an antiX bootline param "nosysv=LX" (I'm unsure whether the current version of live init still recognizes this)
I didn't think to check what version of syslinux it injects onto the multibootable pendrive. That detail might be important, in terms of how well (or not) it's able to support the various antiX liveboot features.

[timkb4cq]

I rather doubt it will support most Liveboot features. It copies the iso files to the flash drive and boots from the iso files directly. Unless I'm missing something, that means booting from a read-only filesystem. Good for installing to hard drive or non-persistent Live sessions but I don't see how all the other features are going to work.

I think the idea of multisystem was just to have one flash drive with several (as many as the drive will hold) distros available on it. That it accomplishes.

[Richard]

Haven't gotten that far yet.
Doubt that MS persistence is as sofisticated as antiX.

Well, after trying out the MultiSystem for a few hours, have to say it isn't as easy as it appears. The Deb installs Ok and even though it brings in some 25 to 30 dependencies, it doesn't have all the pieces to actually boot, though it does provide some help in its menus.

I had to install Plop, upgrade Vbox, firadisk.ima and not finished yet.

It works great through Qemu. Better than my attempt. Should work Ok with Vbox once I get it running again.

[towwire]

Well I can not get it to work, no drag & drop or copy and paste. This is the only idem that comes up if started from the menu or the terminal. It picks up the the USB stick and then nothing but error and shut down when either button is used (not the uninstall).

Screenshot.png

I rebooted to my MX-18.1 test side and it does the same thing there. On the test side it needed 32 more packages and only 30 on my regular boot. Only Pale Moon and regular updates done there. Before you ask, the adm box was checked.

I liked the idea of just dragging ISO's to have many available on usb boot stick while I still keep my seperate stick of MX-18. I did use easy2boot but can no longer get it to make a usb stick that will boot.

[crazysquirrel]

I have used Multisystem before and ever during and since Mint 13KDE (which has usb problems).

If Multisystem has issues then check to see it you have exfat utils installed. Apparently they do not play well together.

Basically the program writes ISO's to the flash drive and a few other things to make it bootable.
It then has a GUI that asks for which you want to boot into (similar YUMI in a way).

Think of it like GRUB boot screen asking what you want to boot into but instead of a hard drive you boot into a live version of something.

For some reason it does not like *.img files.....

And some versions of Linux do not work with multisystem (pclinux used to be one of them if I remember correctly).

With Multisystem you can 'distro hop' and see how the other 1/2 lives -OR-

You can try out different versions on others lappy's to see which one works best.

NOT ALL linux are created equal. Most have differences in drivers.
If something doesn't work out of the box I get rid of it and go on to the next one. And down the line I go.

Hint: if you do use multisystem it is helpful to have gparted on it with the other things....

[crazysquirrel]

Well I can not get it to work, no drag & drop or copy and paste. This is the only idem that comes up if started from the menu or the terminal. It picks up the the USB stick and then nothing but error and shut down when either button is used (not the uninstall).
Screenshot.png

I rebooted to my MX-18.1 test side and it does the same thing there. On the test side it needed 32 more packages and only 30 on my regular boot. Only Pale Moon and regular updates done there. Before you ask, the adm box was checked.

I liked the idea of just dragging ISO's to have many available on usb boot stick while I still keep my seperate stick of MX-18. I did use easy2boot but can no longer get it to make a usb stick that will boot.

I got it to install but it refuses to launch without admin privileges.

I tried setting permissions and such and it still comes up with the same problem.

Perhaps the MX team could modify their own usb writer to mirror multisystem?

Oh Multisystem requires a MSDOS partition formatted as Fat32.

[towwire]

Here is another one you can try,'SARDU'. Read pro's & Con's here.
https://www.linuxbabe.com/apps/create-m ... ndows-iso
Get it here.https://www.sarducd.it/downloads

I tried it for awhile, it booted OK but was a pain to use you own ISO's. It has a db for thoose that registor and it will down load the ISO for you, long list if I remember correctly. I did email him trying to make it easier to add you own that were not in his db but I think he is a one man show. I don't remember for sure since I tried so many but I don't think it it was installed, just run from where extracted. Don't hold me to that.

[timkb4cq]

I got it to install but it refuses to launch without admin privileges.
I tried setting permissions and such and it still comes up with the same problem.

As I explained in the other thread, you have to add your user to the adm group (use the User Manager in MX-tools).
That doesn't add any real admin privileges to your user, but Multisystem looks for it and won't start without it.

[Richard]

Well, it has some good points and some flaws.
I thought it might be simpler than Easy2Boot, but it is not. I could only get it to boot in Qemu & Vbox. For that, I'd rather just use Vbox but it uses too much of my 119 GB SSD.

Installing Easy2Boot:
1) I had used my EZ2B Imation 32GB USB that works so well to give MultiSystem a decent trial. I wonder if there still aren't some hooks for Ubuntu that are not obvious? Because I had to zero out the first 512 bytes in order to reformat to Vfat for EZ2BOOT, and then create new partition table to get it to accept installing grub4dos-0.4.5c-2013-07-24.7z.

2) Then, copy over the 34.5 MB of the Easy2Boot code to the root of the USB. I have removed some unnecessary items.

3) Now to start copying over my desired ISOs into /EZ2B/_ISO/MAINMENU/

4) Booting and selecting the USB brings up a menu for selecting an ISO to execute to trial, test or install.

MultiSystem does have promise but the documents are sketchy. I'll try MultiSystem again when it installs all it's parts and doesn't have to use Vbox to boot. It just doesn't seem ready for prime-time.

Thanks to @timkb4cq, for your efforts. If you get any ideas, I'll try it on a smaller USB until it proves itself.