Root cause of USB boot failure: our xorriso used -e boot/grub/efi.img
to embed the EFI image inside the ISO. This works for CD-ROM and QEMU
but NOT for USB on real UEFI hardware.
Fix: use the Will Haley / Debian live-build approach:
- -append_partition 2 (GPT type EFI) appends efi.img AFTER ISO data
- -e --interval:appended_partition_2:all:: references the appended partition
- --mbr-force-bootable forces MBR active flag
- grub-mkstandalone with embedded bootstrap config (searches for grub.cfg)
- grub.cfg placed in both /boot/grub/ AND /EFI/BOOT/ on ISO
- grub.cfg uses search --label ARCHIPELAGO to find the ISO root
This is the exact approach used by StartOS, TAILS, and every production
custom Debian live ISO that boots from USB.
Also: iso-debug, iso-branding skills + reference docs, dev-start.sh
option 0 for branding dev, improved dev-branding.sh and test-iso-qemu.sh.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Boot fix:
- Ship proven Debian Live MBR (4552) as branding/isohdpfx.bin — the
ISOLINUX package MBR (33ed) doesn't boot on all hardware. This was
the root cause of "machine doesn't pick up the USB".
Branding:
- Custom GRUB background: pixel-art floating island (1024x574)
- Archipelago pixel-art logo for Plymouth boot splash
- GRUB theme: dark background, orange selected item, no broken font refs
- Plymouth theme: script-based with progress bar, LUKS prompt support
- Plymouth + splash added to target rootfs packages
- GRUB theme installed on both installer ISO and target system
- Serial console (ttyS0) added to kernel params for QEMU debugging
CI improvements:
- Smoke test step: mounts ISO, verifies all critical files, checks
initrd has live-boot, confirms boot=live in grub.cfg. Fails build
before copying to Builds if any check fails.
Dev workflow:
- dev-branding.sh: extract ISO, swap branding, repackage, boot in QEMU
(~10 seconds vs 20 min full rebuild)
- generate-grub-background.py: procedural cyberpunk background generator
- generate-plymouth-logo.py: procedural logo generator
- Improved test-iso-qemu.sh: --bios/--nographic flags, serial logging
Build:
- Simplified live-boot install (clean chroot, no complex fallbacks)
- Static branding images preferred, generators as fallback
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
