NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Linux & Other OS's › Linux on a USB drive
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Linux on a USB drive

post #1 of 15
8/22/06 at 1:15am
Thread Starter 
Would I be able to set a Linux Distro on something like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136013
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 15
8/22/06 at 9:00am
I think yes, but your computer needs to obviouslt boot from USB....and you're limited to USB speed.

But im not really sure.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 15
8/22/06 at 3:11pm
Yes it can, though it throws a few more things into the mess that have to be dealt with and complicates matters.

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 15
8/23/06 at 12:32am
Thread Starter 
Would it act more like a Live Cd or more like a hard drive? What complicated matters would there be? I believe I would just need to mount the drive?

I'm thinking about installing Vector Linux unless someone can recommend another efficient distro that isn't Damn Small Linux
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 15
8/23/06 at 12:34am
puppy has a usb installer
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 15
8/23/06 at 12:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thricemike
Would it act more like a Live Cd or more like a hard drive? What complicated matters would there be? I believe I would just need to mount the drive?

I'm thinking about installing Vector Linux unless someone can recommend another efficient distro that isn't Damn Small Linux

Well when would you mount the USB drive?

The catch is you gotta get it mounted early on, I am not full up on all the details, yes it is possible, but as I said it is a bit more complicated. I would guess you would want to use an initrd in order to load the modules to access the USB drive, to be able to mount it.

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 15
8/23/06 at 1:38am
Thread Starter 
I had the impression the usb drive is already loaded.. especially since you can use your usb mouse on some distros.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 15
8/23/06 at 2:21am
USB has drivers much like anything else. So those drivers have to be loaded, which was the reasoning behind me thinking the initrd as that would allow you to load modules into the kernel I would think if booting off the USB drive, so you can access the USB drive.

This is why its a bit trickier, though if ABF is right and Puppy has an installer for USB that may work for you.

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 15
8/23/06 at 5:07am
if you have a compatible bios, couldn't u just take a livecd. and hmm... can't think of the word, but i'll say "burn" to jump on me for the word, but u get the point, anyways burn the image to a usb drive, and then set up ur bios to read the usb before the hdd, flash, or i'll say flash the image to the usb hdd, instead, but i think u get the picture, kinda like u used to have to flash floppy disks to do updates or create boot disks... and then it should allow u to save ur settings as there is no write protect like a cd personally i just like the live cd, such as backtrack, or knoppixx,
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 15
8/23/06 at 12:15pm
I think what he wants to do is install any particular distro (from an install CD) to an external HD and be able to boot the installed distro. I would think that as long as the installation program for that distro is able to recognise the external USB HD (which Puppy Linux can?), then the distro will be installable on the external drive. I find myself wondering how one would specify the new installation in the OS loader program (LILO or Grub), but if the Puppy Linux installer program can install to an external USB drive then prolly it could be done using any Linux distro assuming they use the same standard LILO or Grub programs. Maybe it could also be done using a Windows based OS loader like BootMagic or somesuch. Either way I'm guessing it can be done, but personally I've never tried it before.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 15
8/23/06 at 3:28pm
Krinza it entirely depends on how the kernel is set up is my guess, but for the sake of clarity I will look it up later today if I remember.

If the kernel is set up to not load the module until after the HD, Flash Drive, etc is mounted(Which is typical), it wont work as that module is what enabled communication between the two I believe as the BIOS loads the code into memory before starting its execution if I remember right.

As I said though I will look it up later tonight and post up the details.

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 15
8/23/06 at 3:28pm
And by the way, as I have said multiple times YES it can be(And has been repeatedly) done, it just complicates it a bit.

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 15
8/23/06 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by seablade
And by the way, as I have said multiple times YES it can be(And has been repeatedly) done, it just complicates it a bit.

Seablade

Aye - spot on, perfectly possible as long as your BIOS supports booting the USB drive (most stuff in the past two years does, older than that and it's a bit of a lottery).

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the magic word yet initrd.

You'll need to configure your kernel to use both a kernel image and an initial ramdisk image (the 'initrd' I just mentioned)..

You build your kernel and drivers, and insert any modules necessary for mounting the USB device into the initrd and/or into the kernel. The initial ramdisk just contains enough stuff to get to the point that you can mount the 'real root', i.e. the USB disk.

You then configure the bootloader with something like:

kernel <blah kernel here> <options here> root=initrd realroot=/dev/sdb1

Obviously /dev/sdb1 becomes where the USB device actually gets mounted.



Honestly - this is not a procedure for the faint of heart, I suspect.

Apologies for the vagueness, but it's been years since I even used an initial ramdisk (not since the 1.x kernel series - that's the mid '90s!) to support esoteric hardware

There are bound to be tutorials out there, though..
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 15
8/23/06 at 4:10pm
Heh Aaron you missed it, I DID mention it(initrd) as I thought that was what was going to have to happen based off my knowledge of the boot process, and it turns out I wasnt that far off either

And for reading convienience....

LinuxDevices.com summary of an article....
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2850840818.html

And the Full Article linked to from the above link, with lots of good technical details...
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...lnxw09FireBoot

Also for reference, an article on Puppy Linux based off flash, though ABF I believe it was mentioned they had an installer for it now. This article is kinda old(2004) so I wouldnt doubt it to be outdated.
http://www.pcquest.com/content/linux/104010505.asp

Seablade
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 15
8/23/06 at 4:12pm
D'oh - so you did, sorry about that That'll teach me to skip read to the bottom of a thread
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Linux & Other OS's
NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Linux & Other OS's › Linux on a USB drive