What linux distro (kinda unique "Which distro question"...I think)

epidemik

epidemik

Active Member
Ok, so,

Tux and I are looking for a distro of Linux that allows you to boot it off a thumb drive. Kinda like a live disk but I want to be able to install programs and have them stay installed, no matter what computer i plug the drive into (so the programs are on the thumbdisk).

I was thinking of d--n small linux but i have no experience with it so im not sure how it works.

Also, how/can you boot off a thumb drive?
 
This what you need to boot from a flash drive:
1. The PC has to support booting from a USB flash drive. There may be anywhere from 1-3 items to change in the BIOS to make this possible assuming your BIOS supports it. Some bios's may refer to your flash drive as a USB floppy or USB zip.
2. The USB flash drive must support booting from it in general.
3. The flash drive must contain the boot/system files.
4. The flash drive must have bootsector area. This is done with special utilities.

Taken from http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm I removed the things that were windows specific.

Anything you install to the flash drive will be installed where ever you use the drive as long as you install it to the flash drive.

Damn small should work, or any liveCD version if you can fit it on the drive.
 
epidemik said:
If i use a live cd and install a program, will it be gon next time i boot the live disk
Click to expand...

Live CD yes. Live USB-Key? Not sure. Provided you have a large enough Key that is. DSL would work on USB, as many people prefer to carry it with them for emergency-whatevers. You may be better off going with a XFCE-based distro, again depending on the size of the Key. 2-4 GB is common these days
 
DSL works great, I think version 4 is out now. If you put it on a USB key it saves it. But not on a live CD.

As long as the PC your trying to boot it from, can boot from USB, and USB is in the boot order before the hard drive (or any other device it usually boots from) your fine. If it doesn't boot from USB i'm fairly sure you can download a floppy disk that allows you to boot from USB once you boot from that.

In case you cant partition you USB key back I recommend super fdisk it helped my fix my old USB key when I wanted to delete DSL. Super Fdisk download
 
Try puppy linux. If you want to do it the easy way just burn it to a cd then boot off the cd. Then install it onto the thumb drive. It has a ui to install it onto the thumb drive btw. Then you can save the sessions onto the thumb drive as well.
 
Okay,

How would I install on the USB Key?
Just copy the live CD files or actually install but instead of installing on hd, install on USB Key
 
epidemik said:
Okay,

How would I install on the USB Key?
Just copy the live CD files or actually install but instead of installing on hd, install on USB Key
Click to expand...

Get the ISO, make the CD using like Nero or MagicISO, then just clear the drive and copy & paste from the CD to the flash drive...
 
there are several distros made for USB and other that haven been hacked down to work on USB flash drive. some are found here http://pendrivelinux.com/.

I have tried to use DSL on flash drive but mouse will not move. I tried different flash drives and usb ports. I only have a ps/2 mouse so i dont know if it will work with usb mice. I asked in the DSL irc channel and no one had any idea how to fix it or why it was happening. I was unable to get any help on the forum either.

As for Puppy you cannont just copy paste file onto a flash drive and have it work. first you need a boot load on the flash drive to load the kernel. to do this on windows the most common solution is to use syslinux(see link above).
second, the distro file are make to boot from a CD not just a flash drive. you have to point the file to boot from the flash drive. im not really sure how that part works or how to make it boot from where you want it.

here are some link that my help
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18846
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=69211
 
epidemik said:
Okay,

How would I install on the USB Key?
Just copy the live CD files or actually install but instead of installing on hd, install on USB Key
Click to expand...

With puppy linux burn the iso to a cd then boot off of it. Once it's booted there is an installer and there is an option to install to a usb drive.
 
Motoxrdude said:
With puppy linux burn the iso to a cd then boot off of it. Once it's booted there is an installer and there is an option to install to a usb drive.
Click to expand...

why must you burn a CD to get it to run on usb when all these other distros can work on usb without burning a CD. i find that highly annoying.
 
diroga said:
why must you burn a CD to get it to run on usb when all these other distros can work on usb without burning a CD. i find that highly annoying.
Click to expand...

Well thats just the easiest way. You can get it to run off the usb drive without the cd. Keep in mind all distros, at there core, are the same and all use the same method for there live cds.
 
knoppix

download the ISO, burn it, boot from the CD, and there should be an option to install on a pen drive. Follow the instructions and it will copy the contents to your pen drive. Here goes a screen shot of my thumb drive mounted in OS X, as you can see it has a bootable linux kernel installed on it

 
diroga said:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/01/usb-knoppix-510. you dont need to burn a cd...
Click to expand...

I never said you needed to, I was suggesting it was the easiest way to accomplish this. No downloading a ton of third party utilities and jumping through hoops to accomplish this. Simple straight forward steps, and what is the cost of 1 CD? Not to mention you could keep the CD around as a back up in case your pen drive needs to be wiped and reloaded.

1) download said ISO
2) Burn it to CD
3) Boot off burned CD
4) Choose the option to install to a pen drive once booted off the live CD
5) Done.
 
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