heres the scenario. i have a bunch of 2GB flash drives. im trying to install CentOS/RHEL 5 on them and have them run just simple CLI. these are going to be used for flashing firmware onto some ATCA blades.

usually in the past when i have done this i use Unetbootin or something similar. trouble is, using the ISOs that i have, they attempt to install the full distro and my flash drive runs out of space.

so my question is, what would be the best way to slim down this installation and have it run from the USB drive. obviously i dont need any X programs or other flash & flair.

You could use one of the more minimal distros
slax
dsl
there are bunches of really good ones.

Do you have iso files for a live CD or a DVD? I routinely use 1GB flash drives and live CD images with no problems at all. You should have plenty of room for a CD on a 2GB unit.

HTH
Dave

as much as i would like to use a different distro, the coworkers try to stick with a standard of centOS/RHEL. i could probably find a smaller CD iso from the distro site but as i said before, this doesnt need any GUI. these things dont have video adapters. we interface with it through serial connection

You should be perfectly fine with your distro of choice. I would just make sure you have an iso of the CD. Unetbootin should work fine for you then.

HTH
Dave

If you're dead set on redhat/centos, I don't know how to explain the process, but if not, look at minibuntu http://www.ubuntu-mini-remix.org/

2G is plenty. You are doing something wrong. I have used 1G stick for years and only retired it a few weeks ago.

See pendrivelinux.com for tons of ways to install almost anything.

If you want you could easily make a native install to a linux formatted disk too. That tends to use a lot of space but if you only want cli then you should have plenty of room left over. Almost any newer version could be installed on a usb device. I'd be sure to use a test computer on this.

I didn't think about it before but you have a good point here. Use centOS' netinstall to perform a minimal install to the usb stick, then just add your needed packages.

HTH
Dave

see thats what i was thinking. im using a provided CentOS disk that they gave me. and i dont know if its been customized or anything but its definately too big.

if i remember correctly though unetbootin or some of the other apps that automate this dont let you really specify how you want it installed. i dont mind doing it the primitive way. but im going to be training people with 0 linux experience on how to do this. so im looking for the easiest way possible if you catch my drift lol. i will tinker with it some more tomorrow. i know i have done something similar before but i cant remember exactly what. thanks guys

The servers might run customized Rhel as their os, but i dont think the os in the flash drive (which is used for maintenance and not for work) is required to be customized the same way or even to be Rhel. It does not affect the os installed on the hard drives