[plug] Installing Debian GNU/Linux onto a USBkey

Ashley Jennings fooscope at gmail.com
Tue Dec 6 12:30:57 WST 2005


Thanks David,

your experience helps me a lot. :-)

I've been trying some "out the box" installs like DSL and Puppy with a
view to trimming them to include only the parts needed to bring up a
console application, but still have a preference to build from the
bottom up including only what is needed.

To reduce wear, I'm installing onto an ext2 filesystem without using
any swap, as per the details in the debian-administration.org article.

I have not created an initrd previously, hence the reasons for
investigating "out the box" solutions.
Have you published any images of these installs? I'd be keen to start
with one of them as a base to build from and would be glad to include
any README or AUTHORS files to indicate the research and testing which
has gone into producing them.
My focus at the moment is on new releases of gumnut and creating easy
ways to use it on any platform. Happy to discuss off list too.

Ashley
http://gumnut.sf.net



links:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/179


* Thanks to Garry and Eric S for the previous links provided.



On 06/12/05, David Godfrey <D.Godfrey at multiline.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Ashley,
>
> Having done this many times.....
>
> Although it is possible to not use an initrd, you will go insane trying.
> in most instances it just don't work.
>
> Within the initrd you will need to insert a delay, and possibly an error
> correction loop,
> before and arround mounting the root filesystem (on the USBkey).
> this is due to usb storage devices not being available instantly once
> the driver is initialised.
> I have seen some mention that this may have been corrected in the latest
> kernels though.
>
> It will help a lot if you put a partition label on the partition and
> mount using the "LABEL" option.
>
> Virtually all of my USBkey installs have included networking, sound,
> midnight commander,
> ppp, and other apps with a total uncompressed install space under 10Mb.
>
> Another thing, using GRUB is a much better option than LILO.
>
> I have also done installs that include X, Konqueror, and a subset of KDE.
> Once sorted this fitted comfortably into less than 64Mb uncompressed.
> (Can't remember how comfortably though!)
>
> All of these systems were based on Debian.
> While I did hand craft by selecting individual files
> from a "REFERENCE" install, I only used files as found within a standard
> system.
> That is I did not use busybox etc.
> Having said this I did have to create a few custom config files and a
> couple of init scripts.
>
> One last thing, just remember that FLASH devices have a limited
> write-cycle life.
> Therefore be carefull about what filesystem you choose.
> It may also pay to use more than one partition so that your system is
> mounted read only.
>
>
> Hope this is of some help.
>
>
> David Godfrey
>
> Ashley Jennings wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I am starting to research methods for installing Debian onto a USBkey.
> >
> >My goal is to create an install which will boot any box into a console
> >application(gumnut) that is then able to write back to the key for
> >data storage.
> >A secondary requirement is to automatically pick up available LANs or
> >setup a dialup connection.
> >
> >Currently using a 256MB key and looking to keep the installed size to
> >a minimum to be usable on smaller keys.
> >
> >I'm following the steps in this link, which is for an encrypted
> >filesystem but this is not an essential requirement.
> >http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/179
> >
> >I'd be very interested in information,links or experiences from anyone
> >who has had success(or not :-) with similar installs.
> >
> >
> >Ashley
> >http://gumunt.sf.net



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