RE: Making a Debian Bootable USB Pen Drive

Nuno:
"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."

Andrew:
" I assume you
are trying to avoid the damage caused by longterm heavy writing which
"wears out" flash memory, right? "

Me:
Is the heavy writing that Andrew mentioned the only thing that would ruin
it, or are there other concerns?
And also, has anyone ever had a usb flash drive actually wear out? I'm
somewhat skeptical that having your OS entirely on a flash-drive would
really ruin it. Of course, I've never tried it. But I don't think I've
ever heard anyone mention that their flash drive died on them.

Thanks,
- GM




-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Sackville-West [mailto:andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 1:35 PM
To: debian-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 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


--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.0.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.12/461 - Release Date: 10/2/2006

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.0.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.12/461 - Release Date: 10/2/2006


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Which FS for USB Flash Drive
    ... Does anybody have any experience with installing Debian on USB ... I just grabbed a 4G USB and did my standard home install on it. ... With my upgraded laptop, boot order changed from the time I booted ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: updating USB flash drive MBR to allow boot
    ... I cannot make a bootable USB drive. ... -Some USB flash drives are notorious for having problems with corrupted ... we will install the mbr package and use it to create the new mbr on the ... Type *sudo apt-get install mbr* ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Certain icons fail to load in taskbar when booting.
    ... rebooted and all icons appeared normally. ... new hardware that I install will properly plug & play, ... thread know what effect the different options in SSDP Discovery Service ... I use a several flash drives & 2 different external hard drives just about daily,& I ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: NEW HARD DRIVE HELP
    ... you don't have to do anything except install some applications. ... and Windows Media Player installed. ... See this page on flash drives: ... > disks or manuals.Should I buy a recovery Disk? ...
    (alt.os.windows-xp)
  • Re: NEW HARD DRIVE HELP
    ... you don't have to do anything except install some applications. ... |and Windows Media Player installed. ... |See this page on flash drives: ... |> disks or manuals.Should I buy a recovery Disk? ...
    (alt.os.windows-xp)