Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

Hi. I am trying to install Mer on my N800. It should go in my 2GB internal SD memory card.

I ran the installation program, an selected the simple install. It partitioned the card, formatted, and seems to have copied the system correctly. At the end the installer called the bootmenu installation program. I answered the 'yes'es and 'no'es, it printed messages as if copying whatever it has to copy to the memory, then asked me to press enter to boot or "ctrl-c to cancel (not avisable)". I pressed enter, then the N800 booted... To the Maemo install.

I already tried turning on and leaving the home key pressed, and leaving the menu key pressed, as suggested to me in the IRC channel, but that didn't work either.

Unsure about whether I had to have this bootmenu working already before installing Mer, I tried executing the menu update script, and wento through the process again. The proper Mer file wat there at the bootmenu.d, by the way, pointing to the correct partition. The messages came, it seems to work, but then again, I can only boot into the Maemo system.

What may be wrong here? How can I test if the bootmenu is properly installed or not? And how can I make sure it will present the menu to me, regardless of having to press a key at start-up?

Re: Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

If you see the 'press and hold MENU key for advanced boot menu' then bootmenu is installed. One needs to press the key after the message appears, not earlier.

https://wiki.maemo.org/Booting_from_...lt_boot_device

It is enough to set it to 'ask' if you don't have any preferred item.

EDIT: full README is here https://garage.maemo.org/svn/bootmen...enu/README.txt

Re: Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

Thanks so much for the help!... It's working now.

I started the Mer installation procedure before installing the bootmenu, because I understood the bootmenu installation would be part of it, and it should be fine. If I understand correctly it did execute the bootmenu installation, but it didn't work. I used the bootmenu package.

Now I followed your instructions, downloading the initfs tgz file and all, and now the bootmenu is working. But I couldn't boot Mer yet, I'll try to install it from scratch again...

Thanks again for the support and for the software!

Re: Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

Mer has its own bootmenu with additional features so use the one in Mer. The tgz on my site cannot cope with dynamic items in bootmenu.d and does not support the MENU_x_LINUXRC item option (not so useful when booting copy of Maemo OS). Otherwise it is same, additional stuff used in mer is present in bootmenu.garage.maemo.org SVN

Re: Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

I just managed to boot Mer by running the "by hand" installation of the initfs flasher using a hand-made bootmenu.conf file, taking the values from the /etc/bootmenu.d/ file that the mer installer placed there. So I guess either the bootmenu package is broken, or the part of the Mer installer that calls it is broken.

EDIT: Well, it did boot in spite of the LINUXRC thing. I'll investigate later what is wrong with the mer bootmenu then...

Re: Mer installation problem: no boot menu
 

I have updated initfs_flasher.tgz with suport for LINUXRC option and also included bootmenu.conf.dynamic example for Mer's way of generating items. The result is that initfs_flasher.tgz when used will no longer actively break bootmenu installed by Mer and things should stay working if one keeps previous bootmenu.conf (now possible and set as default option), uses included bootmenu.conf.dynamic example or makes menu entries by hand.

But still when using Mer the best idea may be to use bootmenu package available in Mer.