Installing Linux from a USB stick
 

Hello, everybody!

I'm looking for a distribution that I can install from a USB stick (and put the distro on the USB stick using Windows XP).
Now, I've noticed there are several distro's around that LOAD from a USB stick into the RAM, but I can't seem to find any that install to the harddrive.
Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong direction :-?

Google turned up a couple of links:

Boot KNOPPIX from a USB memory stick
Linux bootable USB key HOWTO

Those might get you started...

Presumably the key is just making your system boot from a USB key... after that all you need to do is put any linux distro that'll fit onto that USB keypen, and boot up. There are quite a few distros out there to fit sub-64Mb which would fit on a smaller pen... above that I don't know, certainly some larger distros have cut down versions that may work for you.

Okay. I'll take a look :-D

Important note: your BIOS has to support booting via USB in order to be able to do this, and not all mobos have this capability. You might want to check your mobo first before spending any real time on this.

Assuming that your rig does support booting from the USB stick and you want to install a full-fledged distro, then you might want to take a look at Suse. I believe you could load the 9.1 boot ISO (approx 23Mg) to your USB, then perform a network install. There are a number of threads already on how to do that; the main issue from my point of view is that network installations can take a great deal of time (due to the need to transfer a few gig's worth of data over your DSL or dial-up connection) Plan accordingly, but good luck with it. -- J.W.

now if you have a good size USB stick and a laptop with no CD-rom that has a PCMCIA USB card....and the laptop has a Bios Option to boot from a PCMCIA route....would this work???

Hmm... I fear my mobo won't support installing through USB :-(