Re: Best Linux To Install on 2 GB USB Drive

Bill Waddington <william.waddington@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
comp.os.linux.misc:

On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:23:10 GMT, Five By Five <5x5@xxxxxxx> wrote:


A gift of a 2 GB Transcend USB drive was presented to me, and it
occurs to me that I want to put Linux in some flavor on it.

No, not a Pocket or Tiny Linux any longer (people still using those?).

It would be nice if this Linux provided the following capabilities or
had the following features:

1. runs a minimal GUI (which? KDE? GNOME? other?) that will also run
a text editor, package manager, oh, and yes, Firefox/Thunderbird (or
better email and nntp client?)...I don't mind a command line
interface, but I don't really want to spend a lot of time showing how
good I am at writing bash shell scripts to do almost everything from
changing filenames to solving the problem of global warming/climate
change, as I am not really good at all in writing bash shell scripts.

2. allows me to do some development: C++ coding mostly for hacking
scientific applications, but also all the other things I need to learn
and gain proficiency in using (Perl, Python)

3. allow me to use at least half the space of the USB drive for file
storage (all the PDFs I have to read)...this space will have to be
read by WinXP and Linux systems...so it probably cannot be formatted
with ext3 (can be read by WinXP?)


I realize there are some of you out there who have crafted the
perfectly minimalist Linux that even runs a GUI and plays the hottest
games and maybe even keeps all the device drivers for all the devices
known to mankind (even the obsolete ones) in an ultra-compressed file
easily managed through a script...maybe.

I would like the benefit of your advice on what to do and how to get
it installed without much hand waving.


=====



I have an Ubuntu Dapper Drake distro with GNOME GUI running on one
desktop with 6 GB partition whose size I will have to increase because
it is used for development of bioinformatics software (shares the 80
GB disk with two WinXP NTFS logical partitions), and so trying to put
that on a 2 GB USB will not work.

[In case you haven't googled up a ton of examples in the time
it took me to post this...]

[Is the Transcend device USB flash? If not, never mind...]

It isn't really necessary to be minimalist with a 2G fob. Start with
a "live CD" distro like Knoppix. The compressed filesystem puts a lot
of stuff in a relatively small space. It runs the OS read-only from
the CD or USB fob, which is necessary to avoid killing the fob with
"write fatigue". You can write to the fob from the running OS or
another OS, just don't _run_ a read/write OS on it.

Use one big FAT32 partition. FAT16 like the fobs tend to use out of
the box works, but if you have a lot of files "outside" the compressed
filesystem (one big file) it wastes a lot of space.

Put the boot stuff on first to mazimize "bootability" on various
BIOSen.

I think the CD version of Knoppix has most/all of what you want. If
not you can remaster to add what you need and remove what you don't.

My notes on Knoppix on USB flash and remastering:

http://www.beezmo.com/FloobyDust.htm


Thanks for the notes on the OS and filesystem type.

I re-(cross)posted this into comp.os.linux.advocacy and alt.os.linux
(after botching the Newsgroups header) and learned about a site that
reports on various distributions of Linux that fit on flash USB drives
from 256 MB to 1 GB.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com

Versions of SLAX, Knoppix, Xubuntu (latest 'E' version), DSL.

Another British site makes Flash Linux that runs the GNOME 2.8 GUI with
all the usual apps too (Firefox, Evolution, etc). Fits it on to 170 MB.

I figured there would be there a lot of choices, and with the greater
number of choices that I have before me, it's now even more difficult to
decide where to go.

I am also thinking that this OS power in the pocket will not be just for
me: I know some Windows users whom I am trying to get to switch to Linux,
and if I challenge them let me set the BIOS to boot from the USB drive and
show them I have a Linux that can do most everything Windows can do---and
on a flash drive in my pocket----I am pretty sure they will faint. You
can probably imagine someone really impressed with Windows saying they can
barely find free space on an 80 GB drive being rendered senseless by
seeing a GUI with networking features running on a USB pocket drive.


hth,
Bill

.

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