Hi, Richard Owlett wrote: > I wish to "install" to an arbitrary ext2/ext4 partition in such a manner > that: > 1. Grub2 will recognize it as a legit OS.
Why not install - without quotes - Debian to as few partitions as possible ? (Can it be forced to touch only one ?) The system in the ISO can surely be booted somehow up to some point. But even if it boots completely, it is not prepared to act as general purpose GNU/Linux. It's job is to install Debian. A Live-CD ISO would be somewhat more suitable, with some additional preparations for your demand number 3. > xorriso -osirrox on ... -extract / /media/richard/netinst1 (This is just one way to copy the directory tree out of the ISO into a disk tree. xorriso packs them up and packs them out.) > Grub2's "update-grub" would not recognize it nor would my hardware boot it. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Generate_the_main_configuration_file says the partition must host the current root filesystem. The page proposes chroot. > 2. if the partition is on a USB flash drive it will boot normally > on suitable hardware. Somehow the first bootloader of the drive must know about your partition and how to boot its system. So it won't be fully automatic by just dd-ing the partition image into a partition device. Probably you will have to edit the GRUB configuration, possibly by editing the configuration sources of the system which manages the GRUB installation. ("# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" ...) > 3. all directories and files shall be modifiable. This makes a plain Live-CD ISO unsuitable. One would have to install a writable filesystem in another partition. I have read about making an overlay on the read-only ISO filesystem by the writable one to make the ISO virtually writable. But actually you want a runnable normal GNU/Linux. So install one and practice how to transplant it onto USB sticks. It will be interesting to see how long the copy script becomes in the end. (Do filesystems have own UUIDs in the partition ? The partition UUID is in the partition table, normally outside of the partition.) Have a nice day :) Thomas
