Uefi linux live cd

Prerequisites

Install applications we need to build the environment.

sudo apt install \ debootstrap \ squashfs-tools \ xorriso \ isolinux \ syslinux-efi \ grub-pc-bin \ grub-efi-amd64-bin \ grub-efi-ia32-bin \ mtools \ dosfstools 

Create a directory where we will store all of the files we create throughout this guide.

Bootstrap and Configure Debian

Set up the base Debian environment. I am using bullseye for my distribution and amd64 for the architecture. Consult the list of debian mirrors.

Please change the URL in this command if there is a mirror that is closer to you.

sudo debootstrap \ --arch=amd64 \ --variant=minbase \ bullseye \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/chroot \ http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ 

Chroot to the Debian environment we just bootstrapped.

sudo chroot $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/chroot 

[chroot] Set a custom hostname for your Debian environment.

echo "debian-live" > /etc/hostname 

[chroot] Install a Linux kernel of your choosing. I chose the image linux-image-amd64 . I also believe live-boot is a necessity. systemd-sys (or an equivalent) is also necessary to provide init.

apt update && \ apt install --no-install-recommends \ linux-image-amd64 \ live-boot \ systemd-sysv 

[chroot] Install programs of your choosing, and then run apt clean to save some space. I use —no-install-recommends to avoid superfluous packages. You should decide what you need for your environment.

Although this article results in a relatively tiny live environment, generating an environment that is only a couple dozen MB large takes additional effort not covered in this article.

apt install --no-install-recommends \ network-manager net-tools wireless-tools wpagui \ curl openssh-client \ blackbox xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg xinit xterm \ nano && \ apt clean 

[chroot] Set the root password. root will be the only user in this live environment by default, but you may add additional users as needed.

[chroot] Exit the chroot.

Create directories that will contain files for our live environment files and scratch files.

Compress the chroot environment into a Squash filesystem.

sudo mksquashfs \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/chroot \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/filesystem.squashfs \ -e boot 

Copy the kernel and initramfs from inside the chroot to the live directory.

cp $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/chroot/boot/vmlinuz-* \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/vmlinuz && \ cp $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/chroot/boot/initrd.img-* \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/initrd 

Prepare Boot Loader Menus

Create an ISOLINUX (Syslinux) boot menu. This boot menu is used when booting in BIOS/legacy mode.

cat $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/isolinux/isolinux.cfg UI vesamenu.c32 MENU TITLE Boot Menu DEFAULT linux TIMEOUT 600 MENU RESOLUTION 640 480 MENU COLOR border 30;44 #40ffffff #a0000000 std MENU COLOR title 1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std MENU COLOR sel 7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all MENU COLOR unsel 37;44 #50ffffff #a0000000 std MENU COLOR help 37;40 #c0ffffff #a0000000 std MENU COLOR timeout_msg 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std MENU COLOR timeout 1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std MENU COLOR msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #a0000000 std MENU COLOR tabmsg 31;40 #30ffffff #00000000 std LABEL linux MENU LABEL Debian Live [BIOS/ISOLINUX] MENU DEFAULT KERNEL /live/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=/live/initrd boot=live LABEL linux MENU LABEL Debian Live [BIOS/ISOLINUX] (nomodeset) MENU DEFAULT KERNEL /live/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=/live/initrd boot=live nomodeset EOF 

Create a second, similar, boot menu for GRUB. This boot menu is used when booting in EFI/UEFI mode.

cat $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/grub.cfg insmod part_gpt insmod part_msdos insmod fat insmod iso9660 insmod all_video insmod font set default="0" set timeout=30 # If X has issues finding screens, experiment with/without nomodeset. menuentry "Debian Live [EFI/GRUB]" < search --no-floppy --set=root --label DEBLIVE linux ($root)/live/vmlinuz boot=live initrd ($root)/live/initrd >menuentry "Debian Live [EFI/GRUB] (nomodeset)" < search --no-floppy --set=root --label DEBLIVE linux ($root)/live/vmlinuz boot=live nomodeset initrd ($root)/live/initrd >EOF 

Copy the grub.cfg file to the EFI BOOT directory.

cp $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/grub.cfg $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT/ 

Create a third boot config. This config will be an early configuration file that is embedded inside GRUB in the EFI partition. This finds the root and loads the GRUB config from there.

cat $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/tmp/grub-embed.cfg if ! [ -d "$cmdpath" ]; then # On some firmware, GRUB has a wrong cmdpath when booted from an optical disc. # https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/issues/183 if regexp --set=1:isodevice '^(\([^)]+\))\/?[Ee][Ff][Ii]\/[Bb][Oo][Oo][Tt]\/?$' "$cmdpath"; then cmdpath="$/EFI/BOOT" fi fi configfile "$/grub.cfg" EOF 

Your LIVE_BOOT directory should now roughly look like this.

LIVE_BOOT/chroot/*tons of chroot files* LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/initrd LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/vmlinuz LIVE_BOOT/staging/live/filesystem.squashfs LIVE_BOOT/staging/isolinux/isolinux.cfg LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/grub.cfg LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/x86_64-efi 

Prepare Boot Loader Files

Copy BIOS/legacy boot required files into our workspace.

cp /usr/lib/ISOLINUX/isolinux.bin "$/LIVE_BOOT/staging/isolinux/" && \ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios/* "$/LIVE_BOOT/staging/isolinux/" 

Copy EFI/modern boot required files into our workspace.

cp -r /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/* "$/LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/" 

Generate an EFI bootable GRUB image.

grub-mkstandalone -O i386-efi \ --modules="part_gpt part_msdos fat iso9660" \ --locales="" \ --themes="" \ --fonts="" \ --output="$HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI" \ "boot/grub/grub.cfg=$HOME/LIVE_BOOT/tmp/grub-embed.cfg" 

grub-mkstandalone -O x86_64-efi \ --modules="part_gpt part_msdos fat iso9660" \ --locales="" \ --themes="" \ --fonts="" \ --output="$HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI" \ "boot/grub/grub.cfg=$HOME/LIVE_BOOT/tmp/grub-embed.cfg" 

Create a FAT16 UEFI boot disk image containing the EFI bootloaders.

(cd $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging && \ dd if=/dev/zero of=efiboot.img bs=1M count=20 && \ mkfs.vfat efiboot.img && \ mmd -i efiboot.img ::/EFI ::/EFI/BOOT && \ mcopy -vi efiboot.img \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI \ $HOME/LIVE_BOOT/staging/boot/grub/grub.cfg \ ::/EFI/BOOT/ ) 

Create Bootable ISO/CD

The .iso file we create can be burned to a CD-ROM (optical media) and can also be written to a USB device with dd . The process here a bit complex, but that resultant behavior is common in many modern live environments such as the Ubuntu installation .iso file.

Please note that writing an .iso file to a USB device is not the same as installing the live environment directly to a USB device.

Generate the .iso disc image file.

xorriso \ -as mkisofs \ -iso-level 3 \ -o "$/LIVE_BOOT/debian-custom.iso" \ -full-iso9660-filenames \ -volid "DEBLIVE" \ --mbr-force-bootable -partition_offset 16 \ -joliet -joliet-long -rational-rock \ -isohybrid-mbr /usr/lib/ISOLINUX/isohdpfx.bin \ -eltorito-boot \ isolinux/isolinux.bin \ -no-emul-boot \ -boot-load-size 4 \ -boot-info-table \ --eltorito-catalog isolinux/isolinux.cat \ -eltorito-alt-boot \ -e --interval:appended_partition_2:all:: \ -no-emul-boot \ -isohybrid-gpt-basdat \ -append_partition 2 C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B $/LIVE_BOOT/staging/efiboot.img \ "$/LIVE_BOOT/staging" 

Citations

• [syslinux] Isohybrid wiki page and UEFI
  • This makes me think syslinux EFI with isohybird will not work!
  • See: `This is what i understand from SYSLINUX being unable to boot from ISO 9660 via UEFI.
  • Note that it is not clearly expliained how we generate efiboot.img . Every major distro uses Grub and Syslinux for legacy + EFI booting.
  • Decent SYSLINUX vesa menu colors.
  • Some good context for grub-mkimage.

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  Debian User Forums

  How to boot Debian Live ISO (USB) on UEFI systems

  How to boot Debian Live ISO (USB) on UEFI systems

  #1 Post by jon_stone » 2016-02-21 23:06

  As many are, I’m sure, aware, the Debian 8 live iso images (found here: https://www.debian.org/CD/live/) do not come pre-configured with the ability to boot in UEFI mode. Naturally, this can be a little frustrating for those of us with UEFI systems, like myself, so I have a short guide below that should be able to get any USB stick with Debian Live 8.3 ISO to boot in UEFI mode.

  First note: There is another guide here on the Debian Forums for booting UEFI but which goes about it differently. That guide is here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=124417. If, however, that guide doesn’t work for you (it didn’t work at all for me), feel free to try the steps below.

  1) Download the Debian 8.3 Live ISO from the link above
  2) Download the ISO for DVD 1 of the full «stable» release. That can be found here: https://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/ under the section «Official CD/DVD images of the «stable» release» and under the tab «DVD» in that section. (Or jump straight here for amd64 iso’s: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.3 . 4/iso-dvd/).

  The file you’re looking for here is «debian-8.3.0-*ARCHITECTURE*-DVD-1.iso» where «*ARCHITECTURE*» is replaced by whatever processor architecture you need. For example, for amd64 it would be: «debian-8.3.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso»

  3) Extract the live iso onto a USB stick as you would normally using software like Unetbootin, PenDriveLinux, or, if you are on Windows, Rufus (available here: https://rufus.akeo.ie/ ), which I think blows Unetbootin out of the water. Sorry guys, dd isn’t going to work here.
  4) Mount the larger DVD-1 ISO and open it to explore.
  5) From the newly mounted DVD-1 ISO, copy the folder called «boot» (with its contents) and paste it into your Live USB stick.
  6) From the DVD-1 ISO, also copy the folder called «efi» (with its contents) and paste it into your Live USB stick.
  7) Now, on your live USB stick, go to /boot/grub and open grub.cfg for editing.
  8 ) In grub.cfg, RIGHT AFTER the lines:

  insmod play play 480 440 1 set theme=/boot/grub/theme/1

  menuentry 'Boot without intalling' < set background_color=black linux /live/vmlinuz vga=788 boot=live root=/dev/sda --- quiet initrd /live/initrd.img >

  9) Make sure your USB stick (or, rather, the partition on it) has a boot-flag. Assuming your USB stick is mounted on /dev/sdb, you can do this with «sudo fdisk /dev/sdb» using the command «a».

  For Windows users or new linux users: In Windows, you can do this step by marking the partition as active using DISKPART. First you will need to find and select the right partition and then use the command «active». (There is a short guide on that here: http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldr/marki . active.htm)

  This may seem like a strange step, but for me the stick wouldn’t work without it.

  10) Reboot into the USB stick and select «Boot without installing» on the menu that comes up. It may take a few minutes, and it is going to look a bit messy as it boots (it usually brings me to a tty prompt for a few seconds) but it will get there eventually.

  P.S. Concerning step 2 — I hate for everyone to have to download this big file, but I don’t know how I might upload somewhere just the relevant files from the large ISO here so they could just download those. If anyone else knows how to do that please feel free to do so and post the link to the files below.

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