kwilliam
August 28th, 2009, 08:45 AM
I'm trying to make a bootable flash drive so I can test other Linux distributions without partitioning my already crowded laptop hard drive. I've been trying to install Chakra (based on Arch Linux) to the flash drive, but haven't figured out how to make it boot successfully. Since I'm test driving the distro, I'd prefer a normal install than the funky "Live CD with persistent memory" trick that's all the buzz lately. Only I'm a little confused... some instructions say to install GRUB, others say to use Syslinux, I think I need a kernel that supports booting from USB, etc.
So what I've currently got is a 8 GB flash drive partitioned thus:
/dev/sdb1 ext2 1.0GB /boot
/dev/sdb2 linux-swap 275MB
/dev/sdb3 ext3 6.25GB /
I installed GRUB to /dev/sdb. When I try to boot from the flash drive GRUB runs fine I think, but sometime after the "Loading vmlinuz......" it craps out saying it can't find /dev/sda or init was killed prematurely or something. (I forget the exact message.)
Anyway, my question is, what is the CORRECT way of doing this? Should I have made /boot FAT-32 and used syslinux, or do I just need to compile a different kernel to get it to boot from USB or what is the requirements to install Linux on an external USB drive?
So what I've currently got is a 8 GB flash drive partitioned thus:
/dev/sdb1 ext2 1.0GB /boot
/dev/sdb2 linux-swap 275MB
/dev/sdb3 ext3 6.25GB /
I installed GRUB to /dev/sdb. When I try to boot from the flash drive GRUB runs fine I think, but sometime after the "Loading vmlinuz......" it craps out saying it can't find /dev/sda or init was killed prematurely or something. (I forget the exact message.)
Anyway, my question is, what is the CORRECT way of doing this? Should I have made /boot FAT-32 and used syslinux, or do I just need to compile a different kernel to get it to boot from USB or what is the requirements to install Linux on an external USB drive?