Linux on a ThumbDrive?

[AlaskaLoneWolf]

Anyone know if it is possible to make a bootable Linux thumbdrive. Would you have to set the boot drive to a USB port? Anyone tried this? The reason why I ask is because I plugged my USB card reader into my laptop when I first got it, and when it started to load Vista (which I hate), it stopped mid-init and tried so wierd blinking stuff and the screen stayed blank. I unplugged the card-reader and then it went through its motions and the Vista (back-lit windows logo) OS came up as usual. I was wondering if executables work like that from a thumbdrive since... well, I've rambled enough. Sorry.

[Pikestaff]

I'd recommend Puppy Linux (http://www.puppylinux.org) or DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/)- "Damn Small Linux"- because they will fit onto your thumbdrive.

I haven't tried it myself, but I did find a couple guides:

http://soylink.blogspot.com/2005/09/portable-linux-on-my-thumbdrive.html

http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/18/0357222&mode=thread

[sugarsickness]

http://pendrivelinux.com/


>:D

[ericjosepi]

Sugar said it best... that site told me how to make an ubuntu drive... sexy!

[Brundlefly]

I use Ubuntu as my only OS on my box. When I go to other places to use a computer, I want to use Ubuntu. Luckily, it can be loaded onto a thumbdrive and booted from such. Actually it's pretty easy and I've been doing it for months now.

For the step-by-step, do a search in the Ubuntu forums.

[AlaskaLoneWolf]

Yeah, dude. The thumbdrive. Who knew... I mean, I thought it could be cool, but not that cool. Love ya' Sugar.

[AlaskaLoneWolf]

I am wondering if this will work on an SD card too? Sorry. I think I just answered my own question...

Y'all have probably already seen this, but I digg it so much, figured I would throw it out again. Hope everyone gets something nice for x-mas. [SHIFT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnWKg9B2-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5k-J00t9UM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIqk4agzKPE

[shadyrocker]

[QUOTE=AlaskaLoneWolf;251000]I am wondering if this will work on an SD card too? Sorry. [SHIFT]

aw come one man... you can't imagine an OS to go that small...I mean it contains lines of code in millions... :rolleyes:

[kopp]

SD cards come in the 2GB+ variety, CD's only hold ~700MB. Full distros of fully functional linux desktop, servers, apps, and games are already available in CD ISO format. The linux distro on my thumbdrive works fine, plus I have another 1GB partition set aside for storage. The main issue I see with the SD format will be speed, but the size convenience should more than make up for it. Once it's booted and you've opened the apps you want, it's running in system memory anyways.

[AlaskaLoneWolf]

SD cards come in the 2GB+ variety, CD's only hold ~700MB. Full distros of fully functional linux desktop, servers, apps, and games are already available in CD ISO format. The linux distro on my thumbdrive works fine, plus I have another 1GB partition set aside for storage. The main issue I see with the SD format will be speed, but the size convenience should more than make up for it. Once it's booted and you've opened the apps you want, it's running in system memory anyways.

...and nicely put.

Looking back, I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd get an Exobyte Wristwatch. Exponential expansion. Three dimensional memory. Dark Matter. Dude. Internet Rocks. Makes me wonder why shows like 'House' even put the word "porn" in the same breath with "Internet". He's actually from the UK. It's obvious that most of the script writers out there, jus' "play" doctor. Tisk, tisk. But I got my little rant in. I hope I didn't jus' (un)plug the Fox network, cause they suck worse than CNN and ABC. Probably the reason why I stopped watching all broadcast television and came here... to the DarkLand of Roses.

" ....and then the race was on."

[Ding, ding]

Sorry, inside joke. Nobody gets it, that's okay.
Hope Revision3 comes out with an NYSE:IPO pretty soon
before I waste all my dough on making cookies.
Hahahahaaaa....

Better not laugh though, you watch, they probably already do...
After all, you've all seen "I am Legend", which would make my show: "I am Newb"

(And, it would really be cool, if in the 'Gazette they'd drop in a piece about how to be an affiliated Rev3 station, maybe show us how to put together a mobile broadcasting setup, to go with the thing they did on the new studio. Y'know, I am soooooo glad they got Dave. He is a Ninja...)

[sweemeng]

Actually, one easy way to do this is by using, slax
http://www.slax.org

Get the usb version, in the download page, unzipped it.
It will extract 2 folder, copy both of them into your pendrive.

Inside the boot folder will have a bootinst.bat and bootinst.sh
this two will install the bootloader to your pendive, so that you can boot it. In windows use bootinst.bat, on linux or any unix i suspect run bootinst.sh(p.s do it as root). Execute it on your pendrive.

Then assuming that you have configure the bios, you should be able to get a slax grub menu.

It is a bit barebone, because it is just 195MB, but it uses KDE 3.5.9. And it is still new, many modules are not there yet.

Last thing, execute bootinst file will not delete everything on your pendrive. Slax build the filesystem into the ram based on the slax folder and boot folder. So you can do it on a existing pendrive without losing data.

[slonkak]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but linux can be installed on any storage device. Whether or not you can boot to that device is totally up to your BIOS.

As for thumbdrive linux, I use Fedora. If you plug your thumbdrive in and boot to the DVD, you can pick the thumbdrive as the target and proceed as if you were installing to the hard drive.

Why do I use Fedora?

Most businesses use RedHat for many reasons I won't go into. Fedora, for all intents and purposes, is RedHat without the pay-for-subscription. If you know Fedora, you know RedHat, and thus you are marketable to large businesses. If you would like to use linux as part of your job, start using Fedora/RedHat, cause chances are the business you're applying to uses it.

As for people saying Ubuntu is better; SUSE is better; blah blah blah. Shut up. Once you get to know that linux, existentially, is just the kernel, you will realize that every distro just changes the GUI. No one linux distro is better than any other, they just change certain things in a way that they feel is easier or that caters to what their distro is trying to provide.

Sure, you can boot an Ubuntu disc and install it with one click. Do you know linux? No. Can you install any software that isn't packaged specifically for Ubuntu? Probably not.

So, a message to all of you Ubuntu/SUSE/whatever fanboys... Stop saying how great you think your distro is and actually learn what linux is all about. Then you can use any distro and make it work just as well as any other.

[computoman]

It is so good that so are so adept at everything linux. Show me how the fedora can run on the nslu2. That should be a piece of cake for a great wizard like you. Until then I will be happy to use debian on that system. Redhat is good, but i have not seen that much work with it on with embedded systems so far. I am sure you could whip up a distro real quick now to do that.

[slonkak]

It is so good that so are so adept at everything linux. Show me how the fedora can run on the nslu2. That should be a piece of cake for a great wizard like you. Until then I will be happy to use debian on that system. Redhat is good, but i have not seen that much work with it on with embedded systems so far. I am sure you could whip up a distro real quick now to do that.

Again, not the point. My point was that if people take the time to learn linux, not a specific distro, then they can have the knowledge to correctly pick a distro to help solve their problem based on more than, "the interface is easy to use."

I explained why I use Fedora to give people something to think about, not to force anyone to pick it over some other distro.

When entering these forums, please check your ego at the door. Most people, including me, are only trying to help others.