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General discussion

Linux on a jump drive

by babykittie Jun 20, 2006 12:58AM PDT

I heard something about being able to run linux from a jump drive. I would like to do this so I can learn how to use it without changing from Windows. Currently, I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2. I have a Toshiba with an Intel (R) Pentium (R) M processor 2.00 GHZ, 1.00 GB of RAM. I would like to know if anyone has ever ran linux from a jump drive and what size it would need to be. Also do you prefer linux over Windows?

Discussion is locked

5 Posts
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Me.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 20, 2006 1:47AM PDT

I have just such on one of my USB memory keys. I won't duplicate web content but I used DAMN SMALL LINUX and instructions from it's site I found on google.com

Bob

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Bob,
by chuckieu Jun 20, 2006 4:37AM PDT

if you had a 1G jump drive, couldn't you use something like Knoppix? Of course, using a live CD would do what
user wants without worrying if jump drive will boot.
chuck

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Yes I could, but since I had a spare 256MB stick...
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 20, 2006 8:14AM PDT

That's what I used (DSL)

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google 'knoppix'...
by null. Jun 20, 2006 4:37AM PDT

or 'linux live distro'

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A GRUB Jumpdrive
by deanlowe Jun 28, 2006 10:58PM PDT

Booting linux is easy off a jumpdrive when you know how to configure GRUB properly. Make a /boot/grub filesystem on the jumprive, and make an initrd by gzipping an ext2 loopback filesystem.

To create loopback filesystem:
dd if=/dev/zero of=initrd blocks=< num of MB * 2>
/sbin/mke2fs initrd
(as root) mount -o loop -t ext2 initrd /mnt/<mountpoint>
(as root) edit filesystem
(as root) umount <mountpoint>
gzip initrd
mv initd.gz initrd

Read the infopages for grub ("info grub" on a command line) to read how to install grub onto your jumpdrive (probably /dev/sda1 if you don't have SATA, or /dev/sdb1 if you do). Make sure you include the "initrd" element in each section.

Note that you should use a USB2 Jumpdrive or booting will be _very_ slow.

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