Due Diligence Complete - Still No Answer Re: Dual-Boot

1st Official Post

    Hi - I've searched high and low for assistance or some sort of a tutorial on a dual-boot scenario. The FAQ suggests that I read a nonexistent (link dead or improperly formatted) page on the LibreELEC wiki....

    The flash drive installer method wants me to choose a physical drive, which of course I can't do without wiping out my existing OS.

    I have a 30 gig ext4 partition + a swap (overkill, but it's a 1TB drive with about 850 gigs free, and a 4TB external drive for videos) on my new Intel NUC6CAYH. I'm given no option with the LibreELEC installer to choose a partition.

    The other OS is Ubuntu Desktop 16.04.2. I don't quite understand why it's so difficult to simply install LibreELEC on an empty secondary partition that's ready and waiting...

    Any ideas folks?

    Quote from lrusak


    You would have to manually do it. It's because we require using two partitions.

    Just install LibreELEC on a flash drive and save the headache.

    I'm okay with creating two partitions. That's not difficult for me. I've got 30 gigs to work with as I mentioned.

    The only thing is, generally speaking I'm new to Linux...other than when I played with SuSE in the late 90s around 11 years old. As I said I'm fine with creating/adjusting partitions, following GUI prompts, or entering specific CLI commands - beyond that I just need a little help.

    I think I saw something on the board that was similar but it was too much "do this, do this" without any elaboration.

    :(

    I've already got a lot set up on my computer so it's be really difficult to start from scratch, and I'd really prefer not to use up a USB port if you were referring to running from a flash drive.

    Any help is appreciated.

    • Official Post

    No, there is currently no foolproof tool/installer that comfortably installs LibreELEC onto a machine and keeping existing operating systems alive. Perhaps if we had enough man power / skills / time / testing facilities, a capable enough installer could be created. Right now, it still comes down to only a few minutes of manual labor (if you know what you are doing...).

    (Mind you, this tutorial is all with no guarantee whatsoever if you yourself fcuk up.)
    Since you are using Ubuntu and talk about extended partitions, you should also be comfortable using bootable tools like Gparted Live. If so, create 2 EXT4 partitions : one 512MB system partition, the another one using up the rest of the availabe free space for LibreELEC's storage partition. Whether those are primary or extended is up to you. All primary is possible when you have no seperate partitions for Linux's home, boot, or its other options. So if you have currently only a single EXT4 partition for Ubuntu along with a SWAP partition, it's possible. Otherwise, create the 2 EXT4 partitions in the extended partition area. Also, give the new partitions labels, to identify them more easily.

    Reboot the machine, Ubuntu should start.
    Go into a terminal. Type sudo blkid
    You will get a list of drives/partitions, pick out your two new partitions, and remember their device numbers. You will need them later on.
    Now you need to add the LibreELEC menu item to the GRUB2 boot system.
    In the terminal, type sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom .
    Paste in the following text:
    menuentry "LibreELEC 8.0 Krypton" {
    set root=(hd0,6)
    linux /KERNEL boot=/dev/sda6 disk=/dev/sda7 quiet
    }

    Replace all three drive numbers (in my case, twice 6 & 7) with the ones you got for your respective system and storage partitions from the blkid command.
    CTRL-O for storing the file changes
    CTRL-X for leaving the nano editor

    Update the GRUB2 menus: sudo update-grub2 .

    Reboot your machine and hold the left SHIFT key.
    Tadaa !!!

    For more convenience, install Grub Customizer or some other grub tool if you want to make the GRUB2 booter visible at boot time.

    I realized that I am still short some info from this tutorial - I've already created the flash drive installer for LibreELEC; do I use that and copy files from it? (I don't know what specific actions the installer takes...) If so, what files do I copy, and to which partition, of the two that I am creating, will they need to go?
    [hr]
    YEAHHHH. I N00bed it out on my own. Thanks for filling in where Google didn't. :) You are a master of the universe (for tonight, at least.)


    [hr]
    Btw - you mention Grub Customizer as a way to customize GRUB2... any thoughts on rEFInd? The creator Rod works for Canonical as I understand, and he saw the need to create this alternative product for some reason. I'm curious about what the Linux community in general thinks of it.

    It's supposed to be cross-platform, and I tried it on my Mac and liked it - but the Mac UEFI system fought me to the death overriding it. Macs don't like to be customized - but then again thats good - it means dumb people have to work REALLY hard to screw one up.

    Hi Klojum, sorry to jump in on this post, but I am trying to do the same with my pc, I have linux already installed and would like to dual boot with LibreELEC.

    I did something similar to what you have described (including adding menu item to GRUB2 boot system) a couple of years ago with OpenELEC, and it worked fine even after upgrades, but my recent update to OE8 didn't go well (left with black screen) so I would like to take this opportunity to change to LibreELEC and a fresh start, which I have heard is recommended with a major upgrade to new version number.

    I remember at the time, I created two partitions and I labeled them OE_SYSTEM and OE_DATA, then I only copied over two files called SYSTEM and KERNEL to the OE_SYSTEM partition and that was enough to get going. Is this still the same with LibreELEC ? or do I need to copy any other files?

    Any advice would be much appreciated.

    • Official Post

    As far as the black screen goes, Kodi 8.0 has a bug with upgrading the MyAddons27.db file. In the userdata/Database folder, delete that file, and restart Kodi.

    Copying the system files into the System partition, always include the md5 files as well. (not exactly sure myself why, but better to copy them as well).

    Quote from Klojum


    As far as the black screen goes, Kodi 8.0 has a bug with upgrading the MyAddons27.db file. In the userdata/Database folder, delete that file, and restart Kodi.

    Copying the system files into the System partition, always include the md5 files as well. (not exactly sure myself why, but better to copy them as well).

    thanks Klojum for your quick reply.

    after the OE8 upgrade, I was presented with following message at boot...

    Code
    fbset: can't open '/dev/fb0' : No such file or directory
    OpenELEC (Official) - Version 8.0.0
    waiting for Network to come online ...


    ... and black screen.

    I had heard there was a bug with kodi 8 upgrade, so I ran the following command...

    Code
    rm -rf /storage/.kodi/userdata/Database/Addons*.db


    and then it booted ok but still with the same boot message...

    Code
    fbset: can't open '/dev/fb0' : No such file or directory
    OpenELEC (Official) - Version 8.0.0
    waiting for Network to come online ...

    but although Kodi now boots, and I could see my all my addons, they didn't actually work. So that's why I am thinking of a fresh start with LibreELEC.

    EDIT: what I meant to say was I can see several addon shortcuts on my Confluence desktop, but they are not listed under VIDEOS > Add-ons. And I just realised that when I look in SYSTEM > Add-ons > My add-ons > Video add-ons, I can see that all the addons are indeed still there, but are disabled so that's why they didn't work.

    Any idea why I'm getting the message at boot?
    EDIT: still intend to do a fresh install of LibreELEC using the steps identified earlier, but I am curious as to why I am getting the message when I select OpenELEC in grub menu.

    Edited once, last by hughparker1 (April 15, 2017 at 4:34 PM).

    • Official Post
    Quote


    Any idea why I'm getting the message at boot?

    I'm not even gonna start commenting on OpenELEC 8.0's shenanigans and bugs. That release has been another disappointing example of a quick & dirty OE build without any proper testing before it was made public. Users that use this 'stable' version were basically turned into Alpha-testers. This is certainly not LibreELEC's policy.

    So either keep playing with OE in your own time, or use LibreELEC.

    Quote from Klojum

    I'm not even gonna start commenting on OpenELEC 8.0's shenanigans and bugs. That release has been another disappointing example of a quick & dirty OE build without any proper testing before it was made public. Users that use this 'stable' version were basically turned into Alpha-testers. This is certainly not LibreELEC's policy.

    So either keep playing with OE in your own time, or use LibreELEC.

    You are absolutely right Klojum. I am currently in process of removing OE and will download the LibreELEC .tar file to copy over the files. do you have a good download link I can use? I had a look and could only find link to download the img.gz file but I think I need the .tar file

    Thanks for your continued support

    I have completed the setup and my new LibreELEC system is running perfect. here are the steps...

    Deleted contents of both my SYSTEM & DATA partitions

    Downloaded 'LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.0.1.tar' from Index of /

    Copied 4 files from 'target' directory to SYSTEM partition KERNEL KERNEL.md5 SYSTEM SYSTEM.md5

    Add the LibreELEC menu item to the GRUB2 boot system

    Code
    $ sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom


    Code
    menuentry "LibreELEC.tv" {
   set root=(hd0,10)
   linux /KERNEL boot=/dev/sda10 disk=/dev/sda9 quiet
}

    Ran command

    Code
    $ sudo update-grub

    reboot and LibreELEC now appears in grub menus alongside my Linux and Windows optioins and is now booting up perfectly

    I was configuring system for my Region, Timezone etc and have a couple of questions while using the new Estuary skin ...

    Q1. Settings > Interface Settings > Skin > Look and feel
    when I select Get more... button I can't see anything in the list of values and wondered if I am missing something in the setup. I expected to see other skins for download.
    EDIT: I found another setting that is disabled by default....
    System > System Settings > Add-ons > Unknown sources: needs to be Enabled (default is Disabled)
    After I enabled that setting, I can now see the other skins available for download.

    Q2. I can't seem to find where to set the following two settings using the Estuary skin ...
    Allow file renaming and deletion
    Show hidden files and directories
    I know how to set this in the old Confluence skin.
    EDIT: I found these settings under Settings > Media Settings > General Files

    If this is the wrong place to ask these questions, then please advise and I can create a new post elsewhere in the forum

    I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the help and support I have received today, it is much appreciated.

    Edited once, last by hughparker1 (April 16, 2017 at 1:45 PM).

    Quote from Klojum


    Make sure you enable the 'Wait for network' option on Intel devices, so you have a network connection from the start.
    No network => no downloading

    Thanks Klojum, I didn't see that setting, thanks for that.

    I still couldn't see any additional skins, but later I found another setting that is disabled by default....

    System > System Settings > Add-ons > Unknown sources: needs to be Enabled (default is Disabled)

    After I enabled that setting, I can now navigate to System > Interface Settings > Skin > Look and feel, when I select Get more... I can now see the other skins available for download.

    'The Unknown sources = Disabled' must be a security feature so I understand why it's set that way.

    Many thanks for all the help, it has been great.