Re: Installing Linux on a USB hard disc
From: Bill Unruh (unruh_at_string.physics.ubc.ca)
Date: 01/07/05
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Date: 7 Jan 2005 15:42:29 GMT
iamfractal@hotmail.com writes:
>Hi, folks!
> I bought a lovely Freecom external USB hard disc (with its shiny,
>blue LED).
> My Dell laptop has WindowsXP, and I wanted to smack Linux all over
>the external disc. (I specifically do not want to repartition the
>laptop's internal disc)
> I hit problems with SUSE 8.2, 9.1, Fedora 2 and Ubuntu (something),
>and googling tells me that the problem is not having usb modules
>loaded at boot, so Linux can't see the hard disc, and can't find init.
The problem is not linux. The problem is the bios on your laptop. Does your
bios on your laptop have the ability to read sectors from the usb hard
drive-- to boot from teh usb drive? Some bioses do, some do not.
Linux MUST use the bios on the computer to initiate the loading. There is
absolutely nothing in the computer at bootup except the program in the
bios. ALL operating systems must use that in order to boot up.
Ie, it is not a question about Linux, it is a question about your bios,
which only you, or more likely your bios/laptop manufacturer can answer.
Now, most can read from the cdrom. So if you really wanted to go down that
road, you could burn a bootable CD with the /boot sector on that CD and
with usb support compiled into the kernel and not into modules. Then the
system would boot off the CD and then go to the USB drive for the rest.
Alternatively you could place a boot partition ( say 20M) (again with a
kernel with usb support compiled into the kernel) onto the internal disk.
This would demand repartitioning but would only take up a miniscule amount
of space. I do not know if it is the repartitioning or the room which
worries you about the internal drive.
> The recommendation from emails concerning this was: a) Use a boot
>floppy, or b) recompile the kernal with usb support built-in.
> I don't want to do (a), so I'll try (b).
> But here is the problem: I don't have a Linux system in which to
>compile a new kernel with the required modules.
> Can I compile Linux under (try not to laugh) WindowsXP?
> I don't have a Knoppix right now, but could I compile a kernel
>under a liveCD Linux?
> Is there anyway to just change a configuration script to force the
>kernel, during boot, to add the USB modules?
AGain the problem is NOT with Linux. The problem is with your bios. IF your
bios can read the usb drive, then you can probably boot from it. If not
then you MUST put part of the OS, the kernel, onto the internal drive, and
compile usb support into the kernel.
> And finally: is there any distribution out there that has the USB
>modules compiled into the kernel already, so that I can just install
>that one?
It does not matter. For the kernel to use its internal usb support, it MUST
be loaded. To load it, it must be read by the system. the only thing at
boot the system has to read anything are the bios routines. Thus the usb
drive MUST be readable by the bios routines in order to be useable by the
tiny MBR program (bootloader) installed by lilo or grub.
Actually I was thinking that it should be possible to put the /boot
directory onto a windows partition. While I do not believe that eitehr lilo
or grub are presently set up to do that, there is no reason why it could
not work with some hacking of the lilo source. The bootloader does not give
a damn where it finds the kernel. It simply loads bytes from raw sector
locations on the disk without caring what filesystem they are embedded in.
The problem is in having lilo or grub recognize where they located so it
can embed the location into the MBR.
Does anyone know if they are able to do that? (Ie, hand lilo the location
of /boot on a windows partition)
Agin you would have to recompile the kernel in order to make the kernel
have usb support in the kernel.
Or since I am speculating here, why not place /boot and /lib and /bin
and /sbin onto a windows partition, and simply use it as the / partition.
Or you could mount a new / partitions on top of / after the boot process.
onto a windows partition.
as far as I know, none of /boot, /lib or /bin conflict with names under
windows. (of course the windows filesystem would then need to be something
Linux could read.)
> Thanks for your time, folks,
>.ed
>www.EdmundKirwan.com - Home of The Fractal Class Composition.
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