cpace@tampabay.rr.com wrote:
> I have recently acquired a USB Pen Drive and it works
> great under linux. What I want to do is to actually
> put a linux distro on it and boot to the USB drive
> (my bios supports this funtion). I'm working with
> DamnSmall Linux (www.damnsmalllinux.org) since it is
> based on Knoppix and is supposed to have good
> hardware detection. My problem is that I am trying
> to figure out how to make the USB Pen drive bootable?
Your BIOS needs to support booting from your USB device. Otherwise, you
will need to bootstrap off of another BIOS bootable media.
> I believe I could mount it with my main linux box and
> then switch the root fs to the pen drive but the
> damnsmall linux distro has a compressed image and I
> am unsure as to how they get the bootloader to
> decompress it?? I am open to suggestions for another
> distro as long as it has X windows. I have a 256M
> Pen Drive but would like something that fits on 128M
> or less. Any ideas, suggestions or references to
> information would be greatly appreciated.
This is a motherboard BIOS limitation. You can always boot your USB
kernel from floppy and continue using the USB device for your rootfs.
Some Phoenix BIOSes (particularly laptops) have USB bootable floppy
support, which is simply a standard usb-storage device. Unfortunately,
they don't seem to permit booting from a USB Pen drive (I've tried to do
this on my VAIO to no avail).
-- - Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> (This message bound by the following: http://www.nks.net/email_disclaimer.html)----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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