debian on flash drive?
 

Well I read on their site that the main way was just treat the flash drive as a regular hard drive and install it on there... so I went ahead and did that (keep in mind other OS's do work fine) and everytime I try to install it, whether graphical.. or not.. or automatic.. I get a GRUB boot loader error at the very end of the install, after it does everything.. so the only thing that is failing is the boot loader.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks? I'm working virtually right now, since after I had this error I tried on a separate machine but it was the same error and it only seems to happen with debian. If anyone needs to I'm open to remote connecting and you can show me some things.

Thanks

Hi -

1. Getting the installable image on a bootable USB stick is half the battle - it sounds like you've already accomplished that. Cool :)

2. Q: What's the exact error message? That would help enormously...

If you mean a regular Debian install you can do it and is not hard to do.

If you are talking about DebianLive and running it as a live session that is more difficult. I have successfully set up multiple DebianLive isos on a flash drive once doing it manually. You can use multisystem to do it but even multisystem has difficulty running in Debian so you will probably need an Ubuntu install to make a Live session USB with Debian on it.

You could also use a premade usb-hdd image (http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/re.../i386/usb-hdd/)

Example with the xfce desktop:

$ wget http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/re...ce-desktop.img
$ dd if=debian-live-6.0.3-i386-xfce-desktop.img of=/dev/sdX (X being your usb drive)

Next, run gparted (or whatever you use) as root (umount the usb drive if needed)
*set the first partition as boot (label)
*add a new partition for persistence with label live-rw

... and you're done.

Something along the lines of "Grub: failed to install bootloader" I'll reinstall now so I can get the exact message. I'm not sure but it seems you're talking about putting an install image on there? To install to other computers? I am talking about putting a full installed version that boots, to the desktop, when you plug it in a computer and boot to from USB

Well a live boot would be closer to what I want, but a live boot you cannot write to (since they're CD's or DVD's usually) I want an actual install

Sorry you totally lost me, are you talking about doing this within a linux distro? (no problem, I'm far from limited on resources, just tell me what I need to get this going)






A little more info on what exactly I am doing:
I normally run my dedicated machines off of USB flash and have multiple copies of the OS, in case it goes down it's a quick switch and bam, back up and running.
Inside the machines I usually have two drives that are raid1 where I'll have all of my database information being read and written or my web information, etc...

So these would be just OS installs, and ext2 would be preferred if anyone has an idea how to do that. I have never had any problems before so I am totally lost - I don't really know that much about linux especially installing... I know more of setting up database and web stuff

Here is some info to troubleshoot GRUB problems in Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/GrubRecover

Why ext2??

It isn't journaled. I'm installing on flash :P


That super grub disk looks pretty cool, after this install I'll give it a shot and see if it can do the grub stuff for me, thanks

Journaling is very nice if, for example, the power is interrupted or the flash drive is accidentally removed during operation.

Just a suggestion. :)

The flash drive has no information that changes on it, it's just the operating system.

I'll have and do have multiple clones of the setups for all machines, power doesn't go out and there are many big UPS' here.

Thanks for the suggestion, that's more toward mechanical drives though which I will have and will be doing and have only had better results in the past doing it this way.





The exact errors I'm getting are coming up in a few minutes, it says 1 minutes 20 seconds remaining on the downloads for the install

Check this and this out. The site has instructions and of you want more head over to PendriveLinux. As already stated create 2 partitions with the second being a rw for persistence and you are done.

http://i.imgur.com/1FJ8z.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zIcwD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/LN42Y.jpg

so this is where I'm stuck at.. I BBC for imbed images doesn't work so I just have the links above.



Going to test out that super grub disk linked above, hopefully that is the solution

When you downloaded the iso did you check it against the checksum? You may have a faulty download.

It works on virtual drives just not the flash drive, it is the net install so most stuff is downloaded as it installs, could that be a problem?

The flash drive should be seen as just another drive. I'm not sure with the availability of DebianLive I'd be trying a netinst on a flash drive anyway.

I have to go out for a while but I might try later today to do what you are doing and see what happens.

Lead me in the correct way I am "medium level" familiar with linux once I'm inside but as far as installing I'm pretty much brand new, other than just clicking next through everything or setting up a basic raid 1...

I'm unfamiliar with DebianLive netinstall? I am all ears, all I need to be able to do is boot from the USB to the desktop (GUI desktop is nice but I can work through a non GUI too.. either way GRUB is the problem I have) and then I need to be able to edit some key files that will save when restarting or something, like the apache2.conf and other files / firewall settings.. on the live CD I cannot do this

http://www.debian.org/CD/live/

I have never really done anything with DebianLive but it seems you recommend it? Let me know when you get back, I'll download them now so I am ready to go, thanks!