volumio x86 legacy boot not working

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#1

I cannot get volumio x86 to boot in my Acer Aspire X1700. It’s an old BIOS based SFF with an Intel Dual Core and an nForce chipset.

I have tried flashing both the latest version and version 2.699 on two separate flash drives, using etcher and then rufus, but no dice. Only a newer UEFI based system booted, but I can’t use that one for Volumio.

On the failing machine, I see the SYSLINUX text string, then it flashes to black for an instant, this SYSLINUX text comes back, and I notice that the flash drive activity LED stops flashing, so it stops reading. Nothing else happens. No Volumio logo or anything. It appears to hang during boot.

Any way to fix it?

#2

I think I found the problem:

By removing the quiet and splash commands in syslinux.cfg of the volumioboot FAT32 partition in the thumbdrive, I was able to look at the system booting verbosity past the first flash to black, and It ended up in a message like this:

Starting init: /bin/sh exists but couldn't run it (error -80) Kernel panic - not syncing: no working init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

I tried changing around one of the UUIDs in case it was pointing to the wrong partition but still… no dice.
It does boot fine in the UEFI system so I don’t think it’s a bad flash.

#3

looks like your Acer is not supported, unfortunately it has happened not only on newer, but also on older systems. Check Volumio Development/ Development Talks. There is a thread about the X86 buster beta, try that version, perhaps you’re lucky as the current Debian jessie OS Volumio X86 has been based on, will not be updated anymore for single devices.