Re: Making a Debian Bootable USB Pen Drive

On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 07:33:23AM -0700, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
Nuno Miguel dos Santos Baeta wrote:

Hi!

I want to install Debian in a USB pen drive.

Don't! Nothing should be installed on a flash drive. A traditional
install was meant for hard drives, not flash drives. Browser cache,
/tmp, syslog and so on will damage the device.

I have only loosely been following this thread, but am curious about
this sort of thing in general. so what if you mount /tmp on tmpfs
(thus putting it in memory or swap dependingon memory loads) and I
wonder, can you change where syslog puts its logs (like into tmp) and
then build some script to save it off when you shutdown? I assume you
are trying to avoid the damage caused by longterm heavy writing which
"wears out" flash memory, right? Likewise, what about putting together
a file on whatever harddrive exists (a la knoppix and dsl use of a
swapfile) as a place to mount /var and /tmp while running the system
and again, copy it off to the usb drive during shutdown so that the
info is archived, but the writes to flash are minimized.





If you want to run a distro from a usb device, like I do, use a so
called 'frugall install': partition your drive in two (you can use
loop files if you prefer), put a live iso in the first partition and
save you data onto the second partition when you are done.
Knoppix, live.debian.net or damn Small Linux will do the job.


I agree that this is a much better solution.

just my .02

A

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Installing Fedora without a CDROM: my HOWTO
    ... Here is my HOWTO on installing Linux from a USB drive, ... disk or USB key rather than a CDROM boot disk. ... Put auxillary files (special drivers, post setup install config, ... This way I can mount any number of hard drives in the ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Booting Vista from external drive violate MS EULA?
    ... of OS install to diff drives. ... Meaning this boots off usb vista, if there is another hard drive ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: NEED HELP! New USB devices will no longer install
    ... methods fix more USB problems than physically hacking the registry. ... but all needed an OEM disk re-install of the drivers. ... drives, USB 80 Gig Disk drive, USB hubs. ... An Windows repair install helps then. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Cant install Vista (Resolved)
    ... "If all is right you could also in the BIOS disable the option to boot other devices and only the internal would have been available to boot from. ... Some Bioses even have the option to set the USB drives to be selectable at boot to use if needed to boot from. ... The external drive was attached/installed long after the original install of Vista since January this year. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: cross post-install W98 onto a USB hard drive
    ... No I can not install Windows98 onto a USB drive and nor can I install ... Windows XP Home Edition onto a USB drive. ... I think all Windows operating systems must be installed onto hard drives ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)