Linux on USB memory?

**mesut** · 02-29-2004

is it possible to make this?
if yes,which distro , how?

P.S: USB memory is 512 meg

Thank you!

**sarumont** · 02-29-2004

A little more info? Are you trying to put a distro ON a USB memory stick? I've read an article about a project to put it on a 128MB stick, but AFAIK, they're not very far with it. If you wanted to try something like that, I'd take a look at Linux from Scratch (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/index.html).

You could build a distro on the USB disk, though making it bootable would be another issue. I know that some newer BIOSes allow booting from a USB device, but the best bet would be a bootable CD/floppy that allowed the user to select the boot device (i.e.: USB disk).

**mesut** · 02-29-2004

Yes, i meant installing a distro on USB memory.

i know LFS its a bit hard, is it possible with but zipslack? Only extracting files?

**Giro** · 02-29-2004

I might be trying this soon i was thinking of making an image of a working system then copying it to the stick and installing lilo on there.

**mesut** · 02-29-2004

Hi,
installation is quite easy, how can i boot from it now? updating bios did not work. it still can not boot from usb.

**sarumont** · 02-29-2004

Check around for a floppy image that allows you to boot from USB drives, etc. I'm looking for one atm...will post linkage if I find it before you.

**andutt** · 03-01-2004

Its possible to do that....

You have to build a very small root-filesystem with only the stuff you are needing, and then put that on the memory stick.

You then have to add a patch to the kernel so its able to load the usb-drivers before trying to access the root-filsystem since it have to load and use the driver before attempting to use the files on disk.

A little more info

Code:

Q&#58; Is it possible to boot off a USB Device? 
A&#58;There are &#40;at least&#41; three things you need for this to be able to happen.

BIOS Support to boot from USB 
Kernel support for USB Storage &#40;including SCSI&#41; 
A patch to delay boot process 
The first of these is something outside your control, either your BIOS supports it or not. However, you could put your kernel and initrd on a floppy and then use a USB root file system to get around this.

In your boot kernel or initial RAM disk you need to include support for all the needed items to support using a USB disk. These are documented in the Linux USB User Guide.

You also need to patch this kernel to delay when it tries to open the root file system, as the USB subsystem takes longer than is allowed to initialise and make the device available to the kernel. You'll find a patch suitable for 2.2 and 2.4 here &#40;although the 2.4 patch could be put in init/do_mounts.c&#58;mount_block_root&#40;&#41; instead of fs/super.c which would be cleaner&#41;. A patch may be added to kernels later than 2.4.20 &#40;latest current released version as I type this&#41; to remove the need for this patch, but this hasn't happened yet.

Some external references are available here and here.

Look here for more information http://www.linux-usb.org

Let us know how it workes out for you.....

**danbo** · 03-01-2004

capacity wise i think it is very feasible, think of SLAX, apparently this is one a 'small' cd-r, they only hold upto about 200mb of data

http://slax.linux-live.org/

**mesut** · 03-01-2004

Thank you for answers,

but the actual problem is to boot from USB with no Bios support.
i did it for CD-ROM once, using a floppy from http://btmgr.sourceforge.net
but i think it is not usable for USB.

Thanx again.

**danbo** · 03-01-2004

you wont find many m/b with usb boot support, you could just get SLAX (bootable slackware)...... its on a small cd, could fit in your shirt pocket easy (asssuming you wear shirts)

Thread Tools

Display

Linux on USB memory?

Posting Permissions