ReactOS ISO support has been added in Rufus

[Pete Batard]

Hi,

I'm the author of Rufus [1], and I was pleasantly surprised to see it 
referenced on the ReactOS Live USB creation wiki [2]. So first of all, 
thanks for that.

Now, considering that the documented method of creating a Live USB using 
Rufus can't exactly be qualified as very user-friendly, I have just 
added native support for the ReactOS bootcd/livecd ISOs in Rufus, so 
that you should just be able to point the app to one of those ISOs, and 
it will automatically create a complete bootable USB, with no need to 
download an invoke GRUB4DOS, 7-zip, etc.


If you want to test, you can pick the latest ALPHA from: 
http://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/


Currently, the way this works is through installing Syslinux (v4.07) and 
mboot.c32 so that setupldr.sys can then be invoked (see the 
/syslinux.cfg created by Rufus on the drive).

Also, for the time being, only setupldr.sys will be referenced (no 
freeldr.sys) on account that:

1. The Syslinux's menu.c32 file is rather large, and I want to keep 
Rufus small, so I don't want to embed it in the application (which is 
also the mais reason why Rufus doesn't include native GRUB support). But 
this means that user selection from a menu is not available.

2. When testing, I couldn't get freeldr.sys to do much when booted from 
USB... though that was most likely because I hadn't actually installed 
ReactOS anywhere.

Also note that, using 61492, even though the process seems to boot OK, 
I wasn't able to get a live ReactOS actually running from USB. On 2 of 
the machines I tried, the boot process eventually failed with "Fatal 
System Error 0x0000007b" in the USB stack. But I also got the exact same 
error with GRUB4DOS when following the steps from the wiki, so I don't 
think this has much to do with Rufus. I haven't really had a chance to 
investigate this issue yet, for lack of time.

Still, I'm hoping that making the creation of a bootable UFD easier for 
ReactOS will help encourage more people to test it and help the project.

Of course, I'm also open to suggestions to try to improve support for 
ReactOS in Rufus, if you want something specific. For instance, I should 
point out that the syslinux.cfg created by Rufus is written before any 
of the ISO files are copied over. Thus, if the ReactOS ISOs were to 
include their own syslinux.cfg & menu.c32/vesamenu.c32, it would be very 
easy to provide menu selection for the user when booting from USB, even 
as the ISOs are not Syslinux/Isolinux based.

Regards,

/Pete

[1] http://rufus.akeo.ie/
[2] 
http://www.reactos.org/wiki/LiveUSB#Installing_the_MBR_.28from_64-bit_Windo…

[Bernd Blaauw]

Pete Batard schreef op 3-1-2014 3:59:

>   If you want to test, you can pick the latest ALPHA
> from:
>  http://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/ 
Awesome, will test using USB2 ports.

>   Currently, the way this works is through installing
> Syslinux (v4.07) and
>  mboot.c32 so that setupldr.sys can then be invoked (see the
>  /syslinux.cfg created by Rufus on the drive).
>
>  Also, for the time being, only setupldr.sys will be referenced (no
>  freeldr.sys) on account that: 
FreeLDR as multiboot-kernel only looks at freeldr.ini at C:\ , no idea 
if your created USB stick counts as C: or A:.
Also ReactOS might write freeldr.ini in some special way on FAT drives, 
I've never been able to open/modify it using a DOS text editor.

>   1. The Syslinux's menu.c32 file is rather large,
> and I want to keep
>  Rufus small, so I don't want to embed it in the application (which is
>  also the mais reason why Rufus doesn't include native GRUB support). But
>  this means that user selection from a menu is not available.
>
>  2. When testing, I couldn't get freeldr.sys to do much when booted from
>  USB... though that was most likely because I hadn't actually installed
>  ReactOS anywhere. 
Smallest I've gotten FreeLDR is through using
SYSLINUX -> MEMDISK -> FLOPPY.GZ where floppy.gz is a compressed ReactOS 
startup diskette image. SYSLINUX -> MBOOT.C32 -> FREELDR.GZ might also 
work instead.

>   Still, I'm hoping that making the creation of a
> bootable UFD easier for
>  ReactOS will help encourage more people to test it and help the project. 
I've always hoped for Syslinux -> Memdisk/GRUB -> ReactOS.ISO/IMG simply 
to overcome lack of mass storage controllers drivers by running from RAM.

>   Of course, I'm also open to suggestions to try to
> improve support for
>  ReactOS in Rufus, if you want something specific. For instance, I should
>  point out that the syslinux.cfg created by Rufus is written before any
>  of the ISO files are copied over. Thus, if the ReactOS ISOs were to
>  include their own syslinux.cfg & menu.c32/vesamenu.c32, it would be very
>  easy to provide menu selection for the user when booting from USB, even
>  as the ISOs are not Syslinux/Isolinux based. 
So right now the installer ISO works but not the LiveCD/USB?
[ https://www.reactos.org/getbuilds ] with rev 61493

Thanks for having implemented the support Pete! :)
Have fun with HaikuOS :)

best wishes for 2014,

Bernd

[Pete Batard]

Hi Bernd.

First of all, a very Happy 2014 to you too, and everyone on this list!

On 2014.01.03 11:07, Bernd Blaauw wrote:
>   FreeLDR as multiboot-kernel only looks at freeldr.ini
> at C:\ , no idea
>  if your created USB stick counts as C: or A:. 
Should count as C:. Rufus has no provisions to fake an A: drive for USB 
at the moment.

>   Also ReactOS might write freeldr.ini in some special
> way on FAT drives,
>  I've never been able to open/modify it using a DOS text editor. 
My testing showed that freeldr.ini was read when referencing the 
freeldr.sys on the bootcd, as I got the "Setup" selection menu.
But then pressing Enter on Setup didn't do much, though the F8 options 
did seem to work. As I said, I haven't really pressed it further with 
freeldr.sys yet, especially as the current implementation only allows 
one boot entry.

>   Smallest I've gotten FreeLDR is through using
>  SYSLINUX -> MEMDISK -> FLOPPY.GZ where floppy.gz is a compressed ReactOS
>  startup diskette image. SYSLINUX -> MBOOT.C32 -> FREELDR.GZ might also
>  work instead. 
memdisk is very small, so I'll probably add support for it in Rufus 
eventually. The part about using compressed images past memdisk or 
mboot.c32 doesn't really concern me, as these files don't need to be 
provided by Rufus, so they can be as large as they want. It's really 
only the parts needed for SYSLINUX -> MEMDISK or SYSLINUX -> MBOOT.C32 
that I'm trying to keep small in terms of space.

>   I've always hoped for Syslinux -> Memdisk/GRUB
> -> ReactOS.ISO/IMG simply
>  to overcome lack of mass storage controllers drivers by running from RAM. 
But then it means less RAM for the system, and losing the ability to 
edit startup scripts, which can come really handy when testing...

But as I said, I'll probably add memdisk support to Rufus at one stage, 
for all the "reluctant" ISOs that are still out there.

There might also be some way to use the sta

>   So right now the installer ISO works but not the
> LiveCD/USB?
>  [ https://www.reactos.org/getbuilds ] with rev 61493 
No, all the ISOs will boot (through setupldr.sys), including the LiveCD 
ones. They just seem to run into an USB issue later on, at least on the 
system I tested, during the ReactOS system init.
For what is worth, the LiveCD ISOs only have setupldr.sys and no 
freeldr.sys, which was one more reason I didn't bother too much with 
freeldr.sys for now.

>   Have fun with HaikuOS :) 
There's always one more OS to support, isn't there... ;)

Regards,

/Pete

[Thomas Mueller]

>   I'm the author of Rufus [1], and I was pleasantly
> surprised to see it
>  referenced on the ReactOS Live USB creation wiki [2]. So first of all,
>  thanks for that. 
>   Now, considering that the documented method of
> creating a Live USB
>  using Rufus can't exactly be qualified as very user-friendly, I have
>  just added native support for the ReactOS bootcd/livecd ISOs in Rufus,
>  so that you should just be able to point the app to one of those ISOs,
>  and it will automatically create a complete bootable USB, with no need
>  to download an invoke GRUB4DOS, 7-zip, etc. 
What I would like to do, and about the only way I can see and test ReactOS, is to build
from RosBE from FreeBSD or Linux, or Wine, and install onto a USB stick without having to
make an intermediate boot/installation medium.

GPT-partitioned 3 TB hard drive seems to preclude installing ReactOS on hard drive.

There ought to be something like "make install DESTDIR=...".

This looks like it really ought to be on ros-dev?

Tom

[Pete Batard]

On 2014.01.03 18:58, Thomas Mueller wrote:
>   What I would like to do, and about the only way I can
> see and test
>  ReactOS, is to build from RosBE from FreeBSD or Linux, or Wine, and
>  install onto a USB stick without having to make an intermediate
>  boot/installation medium. 
Then today may be your lucky day... ;)

But first things first (you may skip this part if you're only interested 
in UNIX, as Rufus is Windows only): Besides ISO support through 
Syslinux, the new BETA of Rufus [1] also adds the ability to install the 
ReactOS boot records, so that one can then boot freeldr.sys directly 
from USB. Unlike what's the case for the ISO, this is a bare install, so 
you will still need to copy your own freeldr.sys, freeldr.ini and 
relevant files to the USB. However, the hard part of the install 
(modifying the boot records) should now be taken care of for you.
Now, since this is an advanced feature, it's not made available in the 
UI by default. To access the bare ReactOS boot record installation, you 
must first enable Advanced Mode in Rufus, by clicking the white triangle 
next to "Format Options" and only then will you see "ReactOS" listed
in 
the "Create a bootable disk" dropdown. It's the same way Rufus provides 
bare installation of Syslinux v4 & v5 boot records.

I tested freeldr.sys boot from USB using this method, after copying the 
same set of files as the one ReactOS creates for second stage 
installation, and it seems to work as good as one might expect (boots 
brilliantly, but then runs into ReactOS 0x7b, due to issues with USB 
support - at least on the systems I'm testing with).
I may eventually use this method to support ISOs, but for now, I'll 
stick with the syslinux -> mboot.c32 -> setupldr.sys for ISO support, 
while the direct freeldr.sys for more adventurous people.


Now, what may be of more interest for UNIX-derivative users, is that 
what Rufus really uses behind the scenes to install boot blocks is its 
own integrated version of ms-sys [2]. Thus, since I added ReactOS 
support in my own embedded version of ms-sys, I also went ahead and 
produced a generic UNIX version that can install the ReactOS bootblocks 
from the commandline, for freeldr support.

To use it, you'll first need to clone the relevant github repository [3] 
and then switch to the "rufus" branch of that repo, which is where I 
added the changes.

I'm also providing a fully detailed example of a run (git clone, branch 
switch, installation, etc), in the attached log, but basically, what you 
want to run is:

1. Fetching & compiling the source
# git clone https://github.com/pbatard/ms-sys.git
# cd ms-sys/
# git checkout rufus
# make

2. Installing the ReactOS boot blocks on an USB drive, here /dev/sda, 
after blanking its first sectors:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=8M count=8
# fdisk /dev/sda => create a FAT32 bootable partition
# mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1
# ./bin/ms-sys -0 /dev/sda => install the ReactOS MBR
# ./bin/ms-sys -O /dev/sda1 => install the ReactOS FAT32 PBR
# ./bin/ms-sys -p /dev/sda1 => write partition info [REQUIRED!]

Then you can just copy your files, and boot the drive.

Note that the MBR option is -0 (minus zero) and the second -O (minus 
uppercase O), and also that your drive _will NOT boot_ unless you also 
apply the -p option. Oh and if you want to complain about ms-sys (yeah, 
it would probably be nicer if it used getopt so that you could run 
multiple options at once), please remember that:
1. I am not the author of ms-sys
2. I use my own non-commandline, non-UNIX compatible version in Rufus
This means that, due to time constraints, I have little interest in 
improving my UNIX/ReactOS version of ms-sys (to add ext2 support for 
instance). I created it as fast as I could, in the hope that it would be 
useful for UNIX people (only tested FAT32 - I kind of expect FAT16 to be 
broken), and I may see with the author (Henrik Carlqvist) if he wants to 
integrate the ReactOS patches, but that'll be about it.

>   There ought to be something like "make install
> DESTDIR=...". 
Hopefully, now that you can use ms-sys on Linux/FreeBSD, you should be 
able to add an install step, that can invoke ms-sys to create a whole 
Live/USB system from scratch, to install the newly generated development 
binaries.
"All" that remains then, is to fix USB support in ReactOS, so that such 
a system can run as expected... ;)

Regards,

/Pete

[1] http://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/
[2] http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/
[3] https://github.com/pbatard/ms-sys/tree/rufus


root@sheeva:/usr/src# git clone https://github.com/pbatard/ms-sys.git
Cloning into ms-sys...
remote: Counting objects: 306, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (86/86), done.
remote: Total 306 (delta 203), reused 302 (delta 199)
Receiving objects: 100% (306/306), 84.59 KiB, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (203/203), done.
root@sheeva:/usr/src# cd ms-sys/
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# git checkout rufus
Branch rufus set up to track remote branch rufus from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'rufus'
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# make
mkdir -p dep
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/partition_info.d src/partition_info.c >
dep/partition_info.d
mkdir -p obj
mkdir -p bin
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/partition_info.o src/partition_info.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/ntfs.d src/ntfs.c > dep/ntfs.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/ntfs.o src/ntfs.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/fat12.d src/fat12.c > dep/fat12.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/fat12.o src/fat12.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/fat16.d src/fat16.c > dep/fat16.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/fat16.o src/fat16.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/file.d src/file.c > dep/file.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/file.o src/file.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/br.d src/br.c > dep/br.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/br.o src/br.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/nls.d src/nls.c > dep/nls.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/nls.o src/nls.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/main.d src/main.c > dep/main.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/main.o src/main.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/fat32.d src/fat32.c > dep/fat32.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/fat32.o src/fat32.c
cc -MM -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -MT dep/identify.d src/identify.c > dep/identify.d
cc -O2 -ansi -pedantic -Wall -c -I inc -D PACKAGE=\"ms-sys\" -D
LOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -idirafter include-fallback
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -o obj/identify.o src/identify.c
cc -o bin/ms-sys obj/partition_info.o obj/ntfs.o obj/fat12.o obj/fat16.o obj/file.o
obj/br.o obj/nls.o obj/main.o obj/fat32.o obj/identify.o
mkdir -p mo
msgfmt -o mo/sv.mo po/sv.po
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=8M count=8
8+0 records in
8+0 records out
67108864 bytes (67 MB) copied, 2.41523 s, 27.8 MB/s
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# fdisk /dev/sda
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x7759d579.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-63487999, default 2048):
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-63487999, default 63487999):
Using default value 63487999

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): c
Changed system type of partition 1 to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA))

Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1
mkdosfs 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ./bin/ms-sys -0 /dev/sda
ReactOS master boot record successfully written to /dev/sda
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ./bin/ms-sys /dev/sda
/dev/sda has an x86 boot sector,
it is a ReactOS master boot record, like the one this
program creates with the switch -r on a hard disk device.
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ./bin/ms-sys -O /dev/sda1
FAT32 ReactOS boot record successfully written to /dev/sda1
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ./bin/ms-sys -p /dev/sda1
Start sector 2048 (nr of hidden sectors) successfully written to /dev/sda1
Physical disk drive id 0x80 (C:) successfully written to /dev/sda1
Number of heads (64) successfully written to /dev/sda1
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ./bin/ms-sys /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1 has a FAT32 file system.
/dev/sda1 has an x86 boot sector,
it is exactly the kind of FAT32 ReactOS boot record this program
would create with the switch -O on a FAT32 partition.
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb/
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ls /ext/reactos_files/
ReactOS/  freeldr.ini  freeldr.sys
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ls /mnt/usb
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# cp -r /ext/reactos_files/* /mnt/usb
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# ls /mnt/usb
ReactOS/  freeldr.ini*  freeldr.sys*
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys# umount /mnt/usb
root@sheeva:/usr/src/ms-sys#