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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Booting from ISO Files, in Grub2 in Ubuntu Linux

Here's some info, on Booting from ISO Files, in Grub2 in Ubuntu Linux...

Boot to ISO files - Creating the GRUB 2 Menu entry - using the grml-rescueboot package to automatically create the menu entry - Put bootable ISOs files in the /boot/grml folder - run sudo update-grub or select grml-rescueboot at Boot Screen...

Don

Creating the GRUB 2 Menuentry

There are several methods to create a GRUB 2 menuentry which will boot an Ubuntu ISO. Two options are provided below - using the grml-rescueboot package to automatically create the menuentry, or manually editing the GRUB 2 configuration scripts/files.

There is also a method to create USB [multi]boot pendrives (almost) automatically, grub-n-iso_multiboot.

grml-rescueboot

A very simple way of creating a GRUB menuentry for a bootable ISO file is to use grml-rescueboot.

The package does the following:

Creates a /boot/grml folder.
Automatically adds menuentries to the GRUB menu for any ISO files located in the /boot/grml folder. This is accomplished whenever the update-grub command is executed.
The created menuentry, when selected, provides submenu options on how to boot the ISO, including the "Try Ubuntu" and "Install" options.

To use the grml-rescueboot option:

Install grml-rescueboot
- ```
sudo apt-get install grml-rescueboot
```
Place bootable ISO files in the /boot/grml folder.
- Since this is a system folder, the operation must be conducted as "root". For example, if the ISO is located in the user's Downloads folder, the command would be:
  - ```
  sudo mv ~/Downloads/<filename.iso> /boot/grml/
```
Update GRUB
- ```
sudo update-grub
```

grub-n-iso_multiboot

A simple way to create a USB [multi]boot drive including the grub bootloader and the GRUB menuentries for Ubuntu ISO files is to use grub-n-iso_multiboot with the shell-script file mk-grub-n-iso. It does the main part of the work automatically with the help of a couple of files for the configuration of the booting system.

The shell-script is made to be easy to use, but it helps if you have some experience with terminal windows and command lines.

Make a USB pendrive that can boot (almost) all PCs

It is possible to create the pendrive in either UEFI mode or BIOS mode, and the two grub installations are simply done with two different command lines.

$ grep grub-install mk-grub-n-iso   grub-install --force --removable --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/target/boot --efi-directory=/mnt/target/EFI/BOOT "$2"  grub-install --force --removable --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/target/boot "$2"

This tool works in an Ubuntu family operating system of version 14.04 LTS or newer. (It is possible to use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS too, but it has an older version of grub, and this method works only for BIOS mode.)

64-bit versions work only in 64-bit computers. 32-bit versions work in 32-bit and 64-bit computer with BIOS, and now also with UEFI. It is possible to create 'grub-n-iso' pendrives that boot most PCs with Intel and AMD processors according to the following links,