Hey,

I just have a couple of preliminary questions in regards to booting from USB. In my time using Linux, I've gotten aclimated with a few distro's. I've most familiar with Suse 10.0, so-so with FC6, same with Ubuntu. Are any one of these distro's good for booting from USB? It's mainly going to be used for trouble shooting different machines (I'm just beginning to do this). Does Linux do a decent job of picking up on different hardware? I'm thinking that it would have a Live USB so-to-speak, right? So, I might have to get a Live CD and copy it to the USB? I'm not sure of the process of getting it onto USB either. I have all the discs for Suse, FC6 and Ubuntu. If there is a better choice of OS, I'll gladly try that Any help is much appreciated.

Regards,

Brandon

Almost any live Linux CD will be good at detecting hardware.

As far as booting from USB, I presume that you mean that you want to boot from a USB hard disk. You could use a live Linux CD with a USB connected CD/DVD-ROM drive. If you want to use an external hard disk or flash memory device then instructions for that sort of thing involve installing the operating system. That eliminates the hardware detection that is usually available in the live Linux CD. It is not unusual for a distro whose live CD can detect hardware very well to have trouble detecting hardware once the operating system is installed. So you are better off staying with the live CD if you want to move around from one machine to another.

Success booting from a USB device is entirely dependent on the computer's BIOS. The motherboard has got to support booting from a USB device.

You might consider Puppy:
http://www.puppyos.com/flash-puppy.htm

Mandriva has a commercial distribution that comes on a flash drive. (Not cheap, but not that expensive, either.)
http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007/node_3481

Hey,

Thanks for the suggestions. I was kind of hoping to take out the live cd aspect. I'd like to be able to save things to the flash drive and boot from it. I'd like to stream line it as much as possible. Boot from the USB device, save to it, so on and so forth. I understand the BIOS needs to be able to boot from a USB device. As time progresses more and more BIOS's support this. I will take the suggestion of Puppy and run with that and we'll see what happens.

Many thanks,

Brandon

So far the standard distros, off the downloadable iso without modification, that I have managed to install into a USB hard disk and bootable are

Slax 5.1.8
Puppy 1.0.8
Mandriva Free 2007
Sidux 2007-1
Sabayon x86-64 3.0

• wanted to have a Ubuntu LiveUSB key
• would settle for a Sidux LiveUSB

If i find a working solution will post it here

So far have tried:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01...b-x-ubuntu-610

• great instructions
• just won't boot on my dell

http://www.howudune.com/knoppix.php

• simple instructions (so I followed them three times)
• just won't boot on my dell or the compaq

This must be really simple 'cuz i spent a lotta time on this and it ain't workin yet; When I spend a lotta time, it is usu. cuz i is tryin to hard

With booting from a USB device you must check the Bios and ensure the facility of "USB lagacy support" is "enabled", Otherwise the USB device may not be recognised by the boot loader because the information from the Bios is not forthcoming.

Since my reply by Post #5 I spent a weekend installing 12 operating systems into a USB hard disk. The write-up is here. It seems to be easier than I thought, as I managed to boot up the big names like Fedora, Suse, Slackware, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Sabayon and Knoppix.

Knoppix, got it working on a USB key 1Gb, from the Install Cd, took all of 10 minutes, and save settings and files through reboots, kde, most stuff you need is on it, use it all the time.. there are a few sites which tell you how to do this, i followed one which told me how to install it to a hard disk, but chose SDA1 not HDA1