problem(s) installing to USB destination drive

[fluidvoice]

been trying to get this working, related posts (now opened my own issue/topic):

Something def wrong with installing to a USB destination. Auto install using the whole drive fails. Then custom partitioning would also fail - it would not allow me to select the correct boot partition until I deleted/recreated it with a larger size. Does the install tool check for some minimal partition size for the boot partition?
edit: even after this it would not let me select to NOT install grub and the USB drive. So I did an "apt upgrade" and "apt install mx-installer" then tried again.
This time I was able to install "on whole drive". So the installer in the downloaded ISO seems to have problems fixed if updating it.
edit2: well the installation finished but it created a boot partition on /dev/sdb1 with nothing it it (empty) and /dev/sdb2 has /boot and other stuff in it - looks normal.
Note, I chose not to install Grub. Must I install it to get it to work?

The boot partition should not be empty, right?

You do not need a boot partition you can leaf the /boot under "/"-root.

[fluidvoice]

edit2: well the installation finished but it created a boot partition on /dev/sdb1 with nothing it it (empty) and /dev/sdb2 has /boot and other stuff in it - looks normal.
Note, I chose not to install Grub. Must I install it to get it to work?

First a note for other reading this: Using MX Installer to perform a hdd-like install onto an USB stick, is not what we recommend but rather to install onto USB-stick using MX Live USB Maker.

One point probably to mention when using MX Installer to install onto an USB-stick would be
to make sure to clear the partition table on that USBstick as there are sometimes residual partition table information left on the stick especially when this stick was used before as dd-dumped ISO-boot stick.
To perform a partion clear on the USB stick run:

Code: Select all

sudo live-usb-maker partition-clear

The hdd-like installation performed by MX installer does not require to do a GRUB-install.
Grub install is a separate step, which can be left out. But of course without having a bootloader installed
you might find that booting from the USB stick might not be straight forward.

The boot partition should not be empty, right?
* If the chosen option is to install on the whole drive, arguably the installer should "clear the partition table" and anything else that should be done regardless of the destination drive's type or location. A drive should be treated as any other (regardless of MX having another "Live USB" feature). This is how Manjaro works - no difference if the destination drive is USB or not.
Keep in mind that also people coming from other distro's won't know about some other method of installation... the "MX Live USB Maker"... and if you ask me, this should be integrated into the installer so automate this for the user. Meaning, if the "proper" way to install MX onto a USB drive is this, then that should be an option to choose in the installer tool. Ideally, the installer should detect if it's a USB drive or not, but dunno if that's possible, or needed. But at least putting this front n center to the user during installation makes sense to me.

[fluidvoice]

It seems the installer is broken as far as installing to a USB destination. I hit same thing here:

Not sure where you conclusion comes from.
Have you tried it? I have done it successfully. Even I would rather recommend to install on USB device using MX Live USB maker, the MX Installer for hdd-like install works also on USB-device. And sure you shall better upgrade to the latest version, in case some bug have been fixed already. ;=)
I have don it this way:
clear partition table on USB
manual creating required partition on the USB using Gparted
run the installer
The auto installer shall work also, but I do always manual creating the partitions.

Yes, I have tried it... multiple times. Did you read my post I linked to?
I tried it first with 'msdos' partition table, then again with GPT. The installer always creates an empty EFI (ESP) partition on the destination drive and won't boot.
This issue is not about the Live USB maker. That may work perfectly well and I may end up using that. I'm just reporting my problem(s) with the standard installation tool - which it appears many other people are having same, or similar, issues.

[dolphin_oracle]

If you boot UEFI, and use the autoinstaller, yes, an empty ESP partition is created, as grub *usually* get installed later. the grub install would use the ESP to store the EFI stubs. Our latest installer should let you choose the ESP in cases where there is more than one ESP available. The previous installer version automatically went for the first ESP it found. /boot does not equal ESP. the autoinstaller places the /boot on the root partition. (the custom install lets you choose where to place /boot, but it will not allow /boot to be on the ESP).

So all that is working as intended if I read your posts correctly. If you didn't install grub, the ESP is empty.

So if you chose not to install grub, there is no bootloader on the USB. which means you'll need to configure whatever you are using for a bootloader to boot the USB.

[fehlix]

I do see the following potential issues when MX Installer failed on install hdd-like onto external USB-device

- not latest MX Installer was used
- partition-table on USB was not cleared, e.g by live-usb-maker partition-clear

Further even if the installer would have installed everything correctly onto the USB stick in UEFI mode and would have properly created an ESP/EFI partition with the EFI-GRUB bootloader grubx64.efi
as ESP@/EFI/MX18.2/grubx64.efi there might still an issue with some UEFI firmware not booting from that stick.

In such case it is advisable to create manually an additional BOOT directory
on the ESP within the EFI directory /EFI/BOOT
and
copy /EFI/MX18.2/grubx64.efi to /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

The reason is: Some UEFI-firmare just loocking for /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
on attached USB removable devices and do ignore other folder/bootloader like /EFI/MX18.2/grubx64.efi.

[fluidvoice]

If you boot UEFI, and use the autoinstaller, yes, an empty ESP partition is created, as grub *usually* get installed later. the grub install would use the ESP to store the EFI stubs. Our latest installer should let you choose the ESP in cases where there is more than one ESP available. The previous installer version automatically went for the first ESP it found. /boot does not equal ESP. the autoinstaller places the /boot on the root partition. (the custom install lets you choose where to place /boot, but it will not allow /boot to be on the ESP).

So all that is working as intended if I read your posts correctly. If you didn't install grub, the ESP is empty.

So if you chose not to install grub, there is no bootloader on the USB. which means you'll need to configure whatever you are using for a bootloader to boot the USB.

So my understanding of this is that if Grub is not installed then it won't work, won't boot? I'm just a bit confused why there is an option to choose a configuration that does not work.
Is this because in some cases people are using some other boot-manager besides Grub?, like rEFInd or something? I thought that by not choosing to install Grub that the system would just boot straight into MX without giving the dual-boot MX/Windows Grub menu, which is what I want in this case since the USB drive does not contain Windows.
So what should I do/choose to install MX onto USB without going through a Grub menu?

[fehlix]

Without boot-loader you won't be able to boot into the system. You can choose not to install the boot-loader, if you already have another on within the system.

[Sporcut28]

Without boot-loader you won't be able to boot into the system. You can choose not to install the boot-loader, if you already have another on within the system.

Could you explain why it won't be able to work?
Thank you

[dolphin_oracle]

Without boot-loader you won't be able to boot into the system. You can choose not to install the boot-loader, if you already have another on within the system.

Could you explain why it won't be able to work?
Thank you

The bootloader loads the kernel and initramfs which in turn loads the rest of the system.

As fehlix said, we have the option for those instances when system already has a bootloader. But the default is to install it.