To boot from usb mass storage is as simple as this:-

Install a minimal 2.4.x kernel with mass storage support.

Use "root=/dev/sda1" - this is the 1st partition of my usb mass storage.

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I'm trying to make a silent computer, I have a 128mb smartmedia card and interface support and working, to replace the noisy harddrive. My hope is to get as much on there as possible.

Hopefully as a router but possibly as a streaming home movie and music centre too.

If all fails I'll go the cdrom route but it's not as clever or dynamic.

I just tried this with a custom boot floppy and a mini-install of Slackware on a 32MB Compact Flash Card. If I had the $200 for a 512Mb card I would probably build a full distro with X and the whole mess. Can't wait till the prices come down, then I can avoid having to use Windows at work!

Cheers,

Finegan

So you guys are using this as a replacement for a boot floppy then? And Fin you are taking this a bit further, and making it a floppy distro, only USB style, and MUCH bigger?

Sounds very interesting, I might just have to give this a try. I've got a 128 and a 64 Sony stick at home that I think I will give a go to.

Thanks for the idea(s) guys

Cool

Not really a floppy distro. Think of all of the ways of running Linux without installing to the local drive:

Network booting: you need another machine on the network.
Live-CD: Everything is read-only or lives in RAM. You can't save anything.
Floppy Distro: No space, diddly poo.
External Drive, USB drive, Zip Disk: okay, more space, but still limited, and clunky to carry around.

With a USB adapter, a CF or Smart Media card, and a floppy disk, you can run Linux on any machine you want... Now that's nifty.

I left my CF card formatted for vfat, maybe it'll work better in ext2, or maybe even one of the journalings(?!?!) I just barely crammed most of Slack packages A, AP, and N on there, but I had all the modules for my laptop: pcmcia, sound, etc. I wish I had a bigger CF card around to play with.

Post about how your experiment comes out MasterC.

Cheers,

Finegan

a copy of that usb boot disk would be a real time saver, and help show me how 2 do it.

Any chance of putting a copy online? Or telling me how you did it?

One more thing:

Is it possible to boot linux from windows? - without booting from disk? Admin rights needed? That would be handy for any bios'es I can't crack.

Didn't actually notice the whole thing is portable

I used the Slackware "makebootdisk" command, pretty Slack specific, the one for RedHat I'm sure doesn't give you a lot of options. This allows you to have one that boots to an interrupt page that allows you to aim the kernel at whatever partition you choose, although the default is the root filesystem of whatever machine you build it upon, so mine was /dev/hda2, but I just overrode that by giving it the option

root = /dev/sda1 rw

at the prompt. If you're not running Slack, I'll post an image online and you can just download and dd it.

Cheers,

Finegan

could you post an image online please? that would be great

I can't get that to work like I though it would. I dd'd the image off of the floppy to a file and then back to a different floppy, but its not booting... beats me, but here's what will work. Download a copy of the Slackware boot disk for 8.1, dd it, mount it, and copy over the slack bzImage or vmlinuz with

wget http://www.clockwatching.net/~fin/random/bzImage.cfboot

That kernel has support for FAT, ext2,3 all the USB goop that can fit in 2.4.19, etc, and is compiled 586+ (not like you can find a 486 with USB ports), weighs in at about a meg.

If you can figure out what I'm doing wrong with the image copy, let me know... maybe its a partition and flagging it bootable thing... I'll look into that next.

Also, in order to get this trick to work, you're going to have to format the CFdisk ext2. I couldn't get makedev to work right on FAT. I haven't tried one of the journalers. I had to give back the 32Mb card I used to play with this and found it easiest just to boot with the custom kernel and go about installation normally, then I used package-tool to drop a few extra goodies on there. When I was done I had pcmcia, lynx, ssh, and of course BitchX. 32MB doesn't go very far when you don't know what you're doing like me :P

Cheers,

Finegan

using bootdisk howto:-

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/buildroot.html

to make my disk, i'll let you know how i get on.

I'm also going to try using http://www.demolinux.org

- boot this live linux cd, possibly using bootdisk
- use the 'anchor' program to install extra programs onto the USB mass storage

Fin, are you trying to extend tricky's main processing unit (brain) to include main functions on a flash card, this is nifty.
Tricky, no offense

Ok, so I am confused. As I stated in another thread, I am thinking about ways to make a faster HD. I must be honest, I never gave this a try, as I forgot about it, and just remembered it now. I will though, probably tonight.

But I have a question or 2...

I will be plugging in my USB Memory Stick reader, and using it soon, but how do I boot from that? Do I have to have the option in my BIOS for that? If not, how would I set up to boot from a USB device?

Anyway, I will get started soon, but if anyone has some hints on getting things rolling smooth, let me know. I am going to be running Slack as my host distro, and am guessing this would be something like an LFS install?

Cool

No need at all to pull an LFS, more importantly, you won't have the room; and actually you'll never be able to boot to the device, at least not until some BIOS manufacturer makes that an option. First, build a kernel where all of the USB mass storage support is built into the kernel, then use the nifty makebootdisk command to build a bootdisk out of that. Then, on your slackware machine, run "setup", with the usb card reader plugged in, and just start and go through the entire setup, packages and all, just don't install anything to the Slack machine, just that the USB CF reader.

A, AP, and N should take up a ballpark of about 30-ish Megs, anything after that is gravy. Between the bootdisk and the USB reader, you'll be able to boot any machine into anything you want.

I wish I had a bigger card.

Cheers,

Finegan

Cool, thanks. Well, here I go, gonna try it out on the 64MB first, just in case it screws it up, that way I won't be out a 128 stick.

Cool

Ok, so I built my kernel, made the boot floppy, and formatted my card...

Few questions:

1. I edited the lilo.conf on my bootdisk, do I need to run lilo to make the changes, if so, how?

2. I run "setup" and get command not found. So I tried SETUP, still no dice. I thought maybe you meant start the slack install, and actually I am sure that's what you meant, BUT how do I specify /dev/sda1 rather than have it... Nevermind, I think I will try it first, and then see if I can't figure this part out.

But how about #1?

Cool