This is completely inappropriate for a Raspberry Pi, which does not

ot

boot like a PC using grub.

oeps.. my bad ..

So the maybe is: do not try this ..

Thanks for correcting me.

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you only need
to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your /etc/fstab to change the location of your root partition to the device of the USB drive.
(Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

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Hello Dave!

26 Feb 25 17:45, you wrote to me:

of the USB drive. (Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite
some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

I've 1 Pi running will never be rebooted unless there is a power outtage. That device is getting through USB my weatherstation data which is than processed by Weewx and has an FTP session to my website to show me the data ;)


Dennis


... Works fine on my machine.

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[email protected] (Dave Vandermeer) wrote:

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible.

Actually I'm somewhere using this with.

--
I do not bite, I just want to play.

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On 28/02/2025 01:35, Dennis Slagers wrote:

* Replying to a msg in PERSONAL.MAIL (PERSONAL.MAIL)

Hello Dave!

26 Feb 25 17:45, you wrote to me:

DV> of the USB drive. (Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite
DV> some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

I've 1 Pi running will never be rebooted unless there is a power outtage. That
device is getting through USB my weatherstation data which is than processed by
Weewx and has an FTP session to my website to show me the data ;)

My CH controller never reboots either.
And only writes to its SD card when the configuration changes.

It comes up perfectly after a power cut...

I am not even interested in keeping it up to date. It does 1 job
supremely well as it is

Dennis

... Works fine on my machine.

--
Renewable energy: Expensive solutions that don't work to a problem that
doesn't exist instituted by self legalising protection rackets that
don't protect, masquerading as public servants who don't serve the public.

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On 26/02/2025 04:45, Dave Vandermeer wrote:

This is completely inappropriate for a Raspberry Pi, which does not

ot
> dr> boot like a PC using grub.

> oeps.. my bad ..

> So the maybe is: do not try this ..

> Thanks for correcting me.

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you only need to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your /etc/fstab to change the location of your root partition to the device of the USB drive. (Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

I ended up inadvertently doing this when my Pi wouldn't boot from SSD.
It works, but it's awfully messy.

The SSD had a perfectly fine root partition, but the vfat one was borked somehow.
Cant remember how I deborked it, but it runs fine now...



--
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Jonathan Swift.

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On 26/02/2025 04:45, Dave Vandermeer wrote:

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you only need to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your /etc/fstab to change the location of your root partition to the device of the USB drive. (Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

The root filing system is determined by what is in cmdline.txt of the
sdcard (or the FAT like filing system on the first device it finds).
What is in /etc/fstab wont change the root filing system in use.

---druck

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On 28/02/2025 01:35, Dennis Slagers wrote:

I've 1 Pi running will never be rebooted unless there is a power outtage. That
device is getting through USB my weatherstation data which is than processed by
Weewx and has an FTP session to my website to show me the data ;)

With my first Pi (3b), I was paranoid about wearing out the MicroSD card.

I created an NFS share on a NAS server, and mapped most of the Pi's /var partition out to it via fstab. I did other weird stuff moving other
writeable partitions over to the NAS, thus I had a pretty busy network.

Worked well for years, however when I desired to update the OS, decided
life was too short to go though all that again, and instead focused on
an improved backup ritual for the card.

--
Adrian C

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On 04/03/2025 21:14, druck wrote:

On 26/02/2025 04:45, Dave Vandermeer wrote:

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you
only need
to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your /etc/fstab to
change the
location of your root partition to the device of the USB drive.
(Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite some time.. rapidly
losing
interest in running a BBS) ..

The root filing system is determined by what is in cmdline.txt of the
sdcard (or the FAT like filing system on the first device it finds).
What is in /etc/fstab wont change the root filing system in use.

I am not so sure about that
At some stage during boot, fstab is used to (re) mount all partitions

I *think* that what happened in my case was that the root system was on
SSD., but the linux image itself was from the SD card

---druck

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra

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On Wed, 26 Feb 2025 17:45:00 +1300, Dave Vandermeer wrote:

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you
only need to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your
/etc/fstab to change the location of your root partition to the
device of the USB drive.

The root volume (mounted on “/”) is the one volume that cannot be mounted/dismounted directly in the normal way on a Linux system.
Instead, the kernel offers a special system call, pivot_root(2) <https://manpages.debian.org/pivot_root(2)>, for handling setup of the
root volume.

At boot time, the initial root volume is the contents of the initrd
(“initial RAM disk”) image loaded by the bootloader along with the
kernel. This contains, among other things, some minimal startup script
that interprets the “root=” option that was passed to the kernel as
its command line from the bootloader. At the end of initrd processing,
it finds this volume, mounts it on a temporary directory somewhere,
and uses pivot_root to swap that with the initrd root. The initrd
filesystem (which is not root any more) is now mounted on that
temporary directory and can be dismounted from it in the normal way,
and all further processing can continue with the new root filesystem
as “/”.

In a sense, the entry in /etc/fstab for the filesystem to mount on “/”
is redundant in that it can never be used: accessing it means being
able to open /etc/fstab in the first place, and you can only do that
if the proper “/” is already mounted.

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Re: How to boot from SD but run from US
By: Dave Vandermeer to Dennis Slagers on Wed Feb 26 2025 17:45:00

Actually I did read somewhere that it is possible. Technically you only need to use the SD card to boot to init, so modify your /etc/fstab to change the location of your root partition to the device of the USB drive. (Theoretically, I haven't booted my Pi's in quite some time.. rapidly losing interest in running a BBS) ..

if you need to and want to know how to setup a raspi to run off a usb drive, while only booting to sd card, let me know. I can respond with instructions. I have ran my raspi using usb drive since raspi b+.

newer raspi devices are easier to setup that way, specifically if you have a newer raspi. the imager that is with the rasp os has an option for what drive to write a new image to.

I've taken my existing os on sd card, put in the usb drive I want to run off of and wrote out everything to the usb drive, modified the boot config files and /etc/fstab, reboot to run off usb drive.

raspi b can be run this way pretty nice.

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