USB flash drive -- what do I put on it and how?

[Gadren]

Today I got myself a 1gb USB flash drive, and I want to turn it into a bootable Linux installation. I'm hoping to put something Debian-based, because I like apt-get for my packaging needs.

I first tried to put Damn Small Linux on it, but for some reason, even though I did all the steps listed here (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/dsl.html), when it came time to boot from it, I got "Boot failed."

So I turned to Knoppix, and while it's nice, it's bulky and there are too many redundant programs. I also am having trouble getting it to be persistent (for example, I have to keep running the pppoeconf command at each bootup).

What would you suggest for me? Is there a good distro that can be easily expanded through apt-get? Or do you know how I can get DSL to boot, or Knoppix to be streamlined?

[reacocard]

there are some threads on these forums about getting ubuntu onto a flash drive. idk if it works, but it's worth looking into.

EDIT: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=71567&highlight=ubuntu+flash+drive
take a look at post #158 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1229101&postcount=158)
it puts the livecd of ubuntu onto the drive, using it's persistence feature to let it save changes. you could also use the ubuntu customization kit (http://lichota.net/~krzysiek/projects/ubuntu-livecd-customization/) to pre-customize the livecd to your needs.

[TrailerTrash]

Just curious. I just bought a 1gig. I downloaded PCLinuxOS and put on it and am booting from it..Kinda neat. What do you all use yours for?

[kevinf311]

I use mine for random file transfer. I have a really old 256MB stick, so I can't put too much on it. It works well for transferring programs, songs, and other files from computer to computer.

I may look into getting a much larger one for movies or things that are too big for this one.

That's cool that you use yours as a boot device.

[dbbolton]

i put dsl on a 256k compact flash card :D

[Shay Stephens]

I use mine for temporary storage, moving files between computers/os's, and backups. But they all tend to be temporary in nature. I have played with putting os's on them and running applications from them, but it never seems to be satisfactory enough to dedicate one to that. So I always come back to using it for temporary storage.

[augied]

I use my ftp server to access my files from the outside world (usually school). I have a 512 stick with portable filezilla in case the computer I'm using doesn't have a decent ftp client. I also use it to run openoffice, firefox, putty, etc.

[teet]

I use it to backup my important files (mainly microsoft word documents).

I tried to install DSL on it but I could never get it to work. It's not like I would have ever used DSL from my flash drive...it was more of a "hey, I got a few hours to kill so why not try to put an OS on my flash drive" sort of thing.

-teet

[macogw]

I tried DSL'ing one and it won't boot.

My other one has install files (for Windows) for OOo, FF, AdAware, Spybot S&D, and AVG Free Antivirus so I can fix other people's computers without waiting for downloads. That's a 1gb one, so it also holds random stuff for transferring between computers.

[Klaidas]

Hmm... Transfer files - just what the flash stick is intended to do :)

[Chemist]

getting porn off my mates

[3rdalbum]

My computer's BIOS doesn't seem to be able to boot from USB, sadly. But I mostly use memory cards to transfer my digital photos to the photo printing machines.

[stalker145]

Just curious... What do you all use yours for?

Firefox, OO.org, and Sudoku from portableapps.com (http://www.portableapps.com) since by blasted work computer is a Win2K install and we don't even have rights to change the time or look at the calendar.

Oh, yeah... and temporary storage :neutral:

[hoagie]

Transferring files, saving my homework and bring it to school and vice versa.

[d3v1ant_0n3]

I have 2 * 1Gb sticks- One of them has 2 folders inside- a Windows folder with handy apps and drivers that need putting on after a fresh install. The other folder is backed up Ubuntu config files (xorg, sources) and some random .deb files, plus tons of themes and wallpapers.

The other stick I use to transfer files between out windows box and my Ubuntu box- it's much faster than sending it over the (wireless) network.

[rocknrolf77]

It's nice to have them when trying out live-cd's. Too lazy sometimes to mount my drives. Got a sandisk extreme 2 gig for my SLR, just for use with the camera. And a small 256 mb stick. Maybe it's time to get a 1 gig stick now, they aren't exactly expencive anymore. Anyone who knows why flash memory is so much cheaper than ram?

[eriqk]

I have a 1 gig one for filetransfers.
Thinking about getting some more for DSL and Dyne:bolic and/or Pure:dyne.

Groet, Erik

[BWF89]

I had a 1GB one and it was replaced this Christmas with a 2GB one. I use it for holding my school papers, funny or cool images I find on the internet, and favorite pieces of art. I put a portable version of OpenOffice on it. I also use it for transferring large files between my two computers.

[DigitalDuality]

http://element14.wordpress.com/security-on-a-stick/

that's what i did with mine.

[daz4126]

I have the portable apps menu on mine so that I can run decent software on other machines that don't have it installed (I use firefox, gimp, filezilla and inkscape the most). I am currently trying to set up an eclipse environment so that I can run radrails on it.

I also backup my data on it and keep backups of my important ubuntu settings.

I keep my favourite music and photos on there too so that I always have access to my favourite songs and pictures on any computer and also use it to transfer any files from one computer to the other.

DAZ

[kevinf311]

Alrighty people. I made good on my earlier post and went down to the Best Buy and bought their crazy deal on the PNY 4GB usb drive.

I'm planning on installing an OS on it.

I'd like your input on which to go with. I know of a few lightweight distros but I can't make a decision from the site descriptions (hands on kinda guy :rolleyes: ).

I've heard of DSL[-N], Puppy, Feather, pocket. I know there are more, but I'm interested in what y'all have tried and liked.

Hmm, what was the footprint of Ubuntu? :twisted:

[RAV TUX]

merged threads
USB flash drive -- what do I put on it and how?/What do you do with Flash Memory sticks?
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=326659

[Stew2]

Firefox, OO.org, and Sudoku from portableapps.com (http://www.portableapps.com) since by blasted work computer is a Win2K install and we don't even have rights to change the time or look at the calendar.

Oh, yeah... and temporary storage :neutral:

Sweet! Cool idea :D Thanks for the link.

Regards,
Stew2

[Monsuco]

I own two flash drives.

I have one flash drive that I use to carry around all sorts of software, currently it has:

7Zip, Abiword, Audacity, a Bin to ISO converter, Blender, Burrrn, ClamWin, DD Windows Port, Dillo Browser Windows Port, An MS-DOS Text Editor, DOS-Box X86 DOS Emulator, A Disk Imager, E-Mule, FileZilla, Firefox, A Windows Firewall type app, Some random little tools that could easily fit on a floppy disk, Gaim, Gimp, A 2-D/3-D graphing calculator, Some stuff from a Java class I didn't pass, Notepad ++, NVU, OOo, PearPC and a GUI tool for it, WinAmp, QEMU for Windows, A floppy Imager, Sunbird, Thunderbird, Torpark (a portible tor with firefox), Sysclean, VLC Media Player, A Mac system 7 emulator, A commodore emulator, A CD to ISO converter, A CD Image editor, CWSHredder, A tool to let me read Ext2/3 Filesystems on Windows, Hijack This, Media Player Classic, Notepad2, Opera Portable, A Process Explorer for Windows, Rootkit Revealer, Skype, A Startup Editor for Windows, Stinger Antivirus scanner, uTorrent, A copy of MSConfig (Win2K doesn't have it by default but you can copy MSConfig from XP to 2000, also 95 doesn't always have it, but it can use 98's version.), all my school work done on the PC for the past 6 years or so (a lot of work I might add)

This takes up about 60% of the space on my 1 GB USB drive, as most of the software is tiny and the bigger stuff is compressed. It is almost entirely for Windows, but that is because on Linux, I have most of the software installed already, and most of what I don't seems fairly happy on Wine.

I purchased a second cheap 1GB flash drive and use it to run the latest Knoppix Linux. My only problem with this is that there don't seem to be any bootable floppies for PCs that lack USB Booting support in their BIOS though my PC does. With older Knoppix versions you could boot from USB by copying some steps in command line but now all you have to do is type in something like mkbootdev and it brings up a menu offering to format a USB device as FAT32 and copy Knoppix onto it, though I wouldn't do this unless you have USB 2.0. It takes a Flash drive with at least 700 MB of space, so pretty much any 1 GB flash drive will do. This must be done on the CD edition of Knoppix, though the DVD Maxi version could support extreamly large USB disk. I am going to try remastering a feather linux or DSL USB boot floppy, which I sorta got working once (the picture was wrong, but most boot cheatcodes seemed to work). If your BIOS can't boot from USB right now, check on your PC vendor's web site and see if they let you download BIOS updates for it. You can sometimes enable newer things by flashing a newer BIOS. With some vendors you download a little windows executable and run it and it has Windows somehow flash your BIOS and with others you format a floppy as an MS-DOS boot disk and run a Windows executable that extracts files to it to enable this boot disk to flash your BIOS. Sometimes this helps.

[anaconda]

Today I got myself a 1gb USB flash drive, and I want to turn it into a bootable Linux installation. I'm hoping to put something Debian-based, because I like apt-get for my packaging needs.

I first tried to put Damn Small Linux on it, but for some reason, even though I did all the steps listed here (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/dsl.html), when it came time to boot from it, I got "Boot failed."

So I turned to Knoppix, and while it's nice, it's bulky and there are too many redundant programs. I also am having trouble getting it to be persistent (for example, I have to keep running the pppoeconf command at each bootup).

What would you suggest for me? Is there a good distro that can be easily expanded through apt-get? Or do you know how I can get DSL to boot, or Knoppix to be streamlined?

hmm.. the instructions you followed installed DSL-embedded to the USB-stick. Are you sure you really wanted the embedded version of DSL. It is meant for running DSL on top of windows using emulation.(qemu)

I suggest you try the normal version of DSL. All you need to do is burn the CD then boot from it. right-click on the desktop and choose (from somewhere in the menu) the install to USB option. (I think all data on the selected partition from the USB-stick are destroyed..)

[Monsuco]

You can use a combination of a USB Key and an Ubuntu Live CD or Knoppix CD/DVD to be able to carry stuff with you wherever you go. You can make "persistant" live CDs where you carry both USB key and CD around and put them both in a computer at bootup. When you start it, it boots from CD which will load settings, programs, and files that have been changed from the key, then when you shut down, it syncs any changes made with the key. I think in Knoppix there is a script under the knoppix menu to do that.

Oh and there is a site devoted to USB linux here (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/). Quite useful, if not a tad outdated. Most of the time all you do is reorganize a live CD and you can "fool" the live CD into seeing it's directories as writable.

[marx2k]

hmm.. the instructions you followed installed DSL-embedded to the USB-stick. Are you sure you really wanted the embedded version of DSL. It is meant for running DSL on top of windows using emulation.(qemu)

I suggest you try the normal version of DSL. All you need to do is burn the CD then boot from it. right-click on the desktop and choose (from somewhere in the menu) the install to USB option. (I think all data on the selected partition from the USB-stick are destroyed..)

I've done exactly that and had the same results as others in this forum.. it doesn't want to boot.. something about not able to find 'linux' ?! or maybe not able to find the 'linux image'??

Kind of sucks since I wanted it to work :(

[M_the_C]

I'd like your input on which to go with. I know of a few lightweight distros but I can't make a decision from the site descriptions (hands on kinda guy :rolleyes: ).

I've used Puppy, it is a great OS but nothing like the features you get in Ubuntu.

It depends on what you want to use it for, Puppy covers the basics and adds a few extras.

If you've got the space I'd say try Ubuntu. But it depends on what you need it for.

[garlicsalt2]

For all of you trying to run DSL from your flash drives, I feel your pain. It took me until after Midnight before I gave up the first day (I started around 9 or 10 PM). I finally got it working the next day.

Things to try:
[1] (Obviously) enable usb booting in your BIOS. Also, make sure that USB keyboard support is turned on there as well, since many people noticed that USB booting doesn't work unless USB keyboard support is enabled.

[2] Make sure you're using one of your Motherboard's native USB slots, and not trying to use an add-in card, such as a usb 2.0 PCI Card.

[3] Try using the embedded DSL method, as you can then run DSL from a FAT/FAT32 partition. This way, you won't have to partition or reformat your USB drive.
dsl-embedded.zip (ftp://ftp.oss.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-embedded.zip)

[4] Check that you have BOTH an MBR (Master Boot Record), and a LBR (Local Boot Record). If you are using grub with a split drive (2 partitions), then grub should take care of this for you. If you use the syslinux method, use ms-sys apt-get install ms-sys syslinux mtools
ms-sys -s /dev/sdX
syslinux /dev/sdXY
where X is the scsi drive designation of your USB Drive and Y is the partition number. Usually, they are 'a' and '1' respectivly.

Edit: this should work if you the grub method with any number of partitions, not just two.

[5] Try to boot without anything else plugged into the USB ports on your computer. Part of my frustration was that I didn't know thatthe card slots on my HP OfficeJet 6410 all-in-one printer were visible at boot time. Once I turned it off and plugged my flash drive into my motherboard's built-in USB ports, everything worked great.

[6] Try using the boot floppy image available from one of the DSL mirror sites (assuming that you have a floppy drive). Using this, I can boot DSL from any USB port on my PC, including my USB 2.0 PCI card... 80)
bootfloppy-usb.img (ftp://ftp.oss.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/bootfloppy-usb.img)

[RAV TUX]

the easiest is with Wolvix.......

take a look at these screenshots:

http://cafelinux.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=35.0;attach=168;im age

http://cafelinux.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=35.0;attach=164;im age

yes, it just that easy:)