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Syslinux EFI Stub Installation

Use syslinux EFI to run Bliss OS 7.x/10.x/11.x/12.x/14.x

Thanks to @IcedCube for the original post! This method is NOT recommended as it is fairly bleeding-edge and experimental, but it should help booting on Chinese tablets that do not want to run grub.

Use a Linux installation for the following procedure.

Part 1 - Grab the required tools

Install unsquashfs (part of squashfs-tools).

Part 2 - Get Bliss OS

Grab the latest build of Bliss OS 7.x/10.x/11.x/12.x/14.x

Part 3 - Get the syslinux EFI bootstrap

Grab the .zip file from @IcedCube's original post, and extract it to the root of the USB drive. This will bootstrap syslinux EFI onto it.

Then, make a folder called android.

Now, open up the .iso in an archive program. Extract the following files form the root directory of the .iso image to the USB drive's android folder ( ramdisk.img is not used in Android 10+ ):

  • initrd.img
  • ramdisk.img
  • kernel

Extract system.sfs to a folder somewhere, such as /tmp.

Open a terminal and change directory (using cd) to /tmp. Run ls and confirm that system.sfs is shown in the file list. If there is no output, start over as the file is misplaced.

Run the following:

unsquashfs ./system.sfs

This will make a new directory called squashfs_root.

Part 4 - Version specific

If you are using Bliss 7.x

Change directory to squashfs_root and run ls. There should only be one file - a system.img inside the directory. Copy the file to the USB's android folder.

If you are using Bliss 10.x/11.x/12.x/14.x

Change directory to squashfs_root. The structure is a complete Android root filesystem. To install Bliss OS, the files will need to be in a system image. The following steps will guide you through creating a 2 GB system.img file, formatting it, mounting it, and copying the contents of squashfs_root into the new disk image.

Execute:

mkdir /mnt/tempMount
truncate /tmp/system.img --size=2G
mkfs.ext4 -m0 /tmp/system.img
sudo mount -o loop /tmp/system.img /mnt/tempMount
sudo cp -prv /tmp/squashfs_root/* /mnt/tempMount/
sync
sudo umount /mnt/tempMount

The sync command might take some time.

Now copy the /tmp/system.img file to your USB's Android folder.

Part 5 - Creating the data image

First, find where your USB drive is mounted. It is usually in /mnt or /media (ex. /media/USB).

cd into the android folder.

We will create a 3 GB data image file. You can attempt to create a 4 GB image but FAT32 maxes out at 4 GB per file. If your system supports exFAT or NTFS, you may try and use it.

truncate data.img --size=3G
mkfs.ext4 -m0 data.img
sync

This will be an completely empty ext4 disk image, but will be enough to run Bliss.

Finally, check to ensure everything is in structured like so:

<ROOT>
- syslinux.cfg
- android/
-- kernel
-- system.img
-- data.img
-- ramdisk.img
-- initrd.img
- EFI/
-- BOOT/
--- bootia32.efi
--- bootx64.efi
--- ldlinux.e32
--- ldlinux.e64

Need to add some kernel parameters? Open syslinux.cfg and add them before the initrd=/android/initrd.img statement.

Unmount the USB from your computer. Plug it into your device and use the BIOS to boot from your UEFI USB Drive, partition 1. If all goes well, you will get a black screen with small white text saying "Booting Android..." followed by loading files. You should get the Linux kernel text, then see the Bliss boot animation play after a couple minutes depending on your USB drive read/write speed.