There aren't too many simple guides that show you how to use commands to setup your USB or other drive as a normal bootable drive where you can easily boot custom kernels or whatever OS you would like.
1. Get the tools we need:
We install "syslinux" for MBR and "syslinux-efi" for EFI and "MBR" as we need a tool that embeds the actual MBR into our USB:
sudo apt install syslinux syslinux-efi mbr........
The key thing is that you must use a "machine"id of "pc-1.3" or it will say your hardware is not supported.
Additionally you MUST use a virtio disk or you will get a ks_pre.sh error as soon as the install starts (a look at logs will show it can't find a disk). This is funny because even though the OS finds the disk and an fdisk -l shows it, it looks like the script looks for a /dev/vda device (virtio) and nothing else, so if you didn't use Virtio as you........
I've got one of these for testing projects from work at home and got more than I bargained for with the time I've spent on it due to the storage handing/Perc 6/i cards.
My particular model came with the following:
2U Rack Mount Server with Rails
2xOpteron 2373 EE (Quad Core, there is a 6-core version that can be found at times)
16GB RAM
2 x 250GB Seagate SATA
2 x Dell Perc 6/i (horrible and a nightmare to work........
One thing to remember is that you need MegaCli to do the flashing.
You also need the correct file,I tried at least 2 different Perc 6 firmwares from Dell that kept getting rejected as corrupt by MegaCli(they were really the wrong version). I have an external PCI-E Dell 6 Perc/I butI chose images from the 'Integrated" on motherboard version as it was allI could find. They are different, and below is my first time finding success.........
I flashed an LSI Logic firmware to it and it broke the BIOS (cannot do Ctrl+R) for booting purposes but allows other functionality to work normally.
I tried downgrading to a Dell firmware for Perc 6i but it won't work, not even with MegaCli
wget http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00416606M/1/SAS-RAID_Firmware_W83M2_LN32_6.3.1-0003_A14.BIN
--2013-08-26 12:53:39-- http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00416606M/1/SAS-RAID_Firmware_W83M2_LN32_6.3.1-0003_A14.BIN
Resolvi........
LSi Megaraid
At first it was configured as a RAID 0, then I deleted the Virtual Disk Group.
I thought both drives would be shown and detected in Linux as sda and sdb but it actually shows nothing.
To make them work you have to hit Ctrl+R before the system boots (when prompted) and create a Virtual Disk Group. In my case I created each one as RAID 0 (with a single drive only) as I just wanted JBOD but there is no such option or default in these Dell Pe........
This was unbelievable how much the Xen kernel slows things down, keep in mind both tests were done on the hostnode, one was with the Openvz-Xen hybrid kernel and the other was just OpenVZ. You can see the performance difference is nearly 300% better when not using the Xen kernel.
OpenVZ-Xen Kernel Test Results (I was wondering what was wrong/so slow with my Core i5!)
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