Is there a live distro that will boot to a command prompt only?

D

Deadjasper

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 28, 2001
Messages
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Trying to load Pi-Hole on a Wyse 3040 and this stupid box is super fucked up when it comes to booting anything. It will boot from a Diet-Pi install USB and a Linux Mint CD but neither one will work. Diet-Pi is a joke, It's a loooooong process to get to the end and then it crashes at the final step. After an hour Linux Mint finally made it to the desktop then after waiting 20 more minutes and still not getting functional I lost my cool and nuked it. I DL'ed Tiny Linux and burned it to a CD and it would not boot. Neither MS-DOS or FreeDOS will boot. Any help much appreciated.
 
Clonezilla is live and can boot to the command line. I'm not sure if you're booting to do something or for keeps, though. Clonezilla doesn't have any updating mechanisms, but it will boot on a bar of soap.
 
OMG, Puppy Linux is garbage. I wanted to take a screenshot of a section and no matter what I chose it did not happen. seems it insists on grabbing the whole screen. So I took a pic with my phone and emailed it to my main account.
Anyways, this is what I get when I run
Code: 
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
 

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Deadjasper said:
OMG, Puppy Linux is garbage. I wanted to take a screenshot of a section and no matter what I chose it did not happen. seems it insists on grabbing the whole screen. So I took a pic with my phone and emailed it to my main account.
Anyways, this is what I get when I run
Code: 
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
Click to expand...
Based on what I'm seeing, maybe pi-hole is "garbage"?
 
Deadjasper No it's not, that script just fails to run because it's using an rpm option (-qa) which doesn't exist (at least according to rpm's man page). -q (query) exists, but the sub-option -a does not. Dunno if that's a non-standard option or just a typo.

https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/rpm.8.html

That said, you should probably use ubuntu, debian, or fedora server to do what you want, since the script seems to expect one of those (or something based on them).
 
Anyway, generally, running installers and scripts from live media isn't expected to work unless the script was made specifically for that live media (and usually a very specific version of that media). Due to their nature, they are often very different from installed versions of the same OS.

You could try one of the alt installation methods listed here: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole

Docker is probably the most likely to work on a live-cd, assuming docker is included or available from the live-cd somehow.
 
I think I'm going to see if Debian will fit in this little box. It's only 2GB and 8G storage, I dunno. The thing that's really frustrating is that I have it running perfectly on another 3040 and can't remember how I loaded it. It's been a little over a year. Plenty of time for me to forget. :(
 
Deadjasper said:
Just read that the minimum for Debian is 10GB. :(
Click to expand...

Will it boot off a thumb drive? They make tiny ones that basically just plug the USB slot.

Fourteen bucks.

Get two and clone your boot partition after you get it all configured, then tape the spare to the side of the PC so you have a spare in case it ever dies.
 
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I finally got it all sorted out. I wanted to use Debian but couldn't due to the fact that it won't work ob a UEFI only box. It will install but it will not boot. There is a workaround using a flash drive but I didn't want to go there.
So I ended up going back to Diet Pi. Did an absolute minimal install then loaded Pi-Hole separately. I had to fight with the networking part because it uses Chinese logic but once I got over that hump I was home free. I loaded it on a 3040 with 16GB of storage (didn't even know there was such an animal). The 16GB version uses a 12v PSU whereas the 8GB version uses a 5v. The 12v PSU uses the same tiny plug that the 5v version uses. I discovered the the 12v version is hard to find and that it's over priced when you do. I ended up transplanting the plug off a 5v PSU onto a 12v to get over this hump and will be doing it again if I ever need another.
 
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Nice. I was looking around and I was shocked at what some people list these things for. It's gotta be people taking advantage of corporate procurement.
 
Axman said:
Nice. I was looking around and I was shocked at what some people list these things for. It's gotta be people taking advantage of corporate procurement.
Click to expand...

I'll understand how eBay works. There is far more grossly overpriced garbage on eBay than reasonably priced stuff. Either the fool is buying the overpriced garbage or money is being laundered.
 
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