Booting Linux From a USB Thumb Drive

Ehuwiko · 01-09-2004, 05:34 PM

Someone just gave me a 32mb USB Drive they didn't need anymore, a Lexar JumpDrive. I was wondering if it is possible to install or boot some sort of Linux or BSD on it? 32mb seems tiny, but there's floppy based linux so I can't imagine that you couldn't fit something on it. The only problem I can see is the problems sometimes encountered with USB in Linux. Any ideas?

Pcghost · 01-09-2004, 06:16 PM

Actually from what I have read the only thing necessary to make it work is you must have a bios that supports booting to usb devices.

e1000 · 01-09-2004, 07:31 PM

I had heard somewhere about a open source BIOS (possably linux based), although I'v forgotten what its called. but I wonder if that suports booting to USB devices?

does anyone know the name of what Im talking about?

Ehuwiko · 01-09-2004, 09:31 PM

My mobo definetly supports booting from USB, I checked in the BIOS. Is there some form of linux that's less than 32mb installed, so I could attempt to install something on it?

Edit:
I just found Puppy Linux. Page had instructions to boot the image from a usb device. Worked on the first boot. I should note that I was only able to get 0.6 working, later releases entered a repetitive loop of various error messages during the boot sequence.
http://goosee.com/puppy/index.shtml