Hello,

I have several dozen IDE Flash Modules that I'd like to throw a small copy of Linux on. It's part of a server refurb process I'm part of and rather than having some drives formatted in one format, others with openBSD, and others with nothing on them, I'd like to have them all have a simple and small Linux OS installed so that there is some uniformity and they can be used for testing/hardware diagnostics.

Most of the Flash Modules are either 1 GB or 2 GB. Ideally I'd like to just plug them into an enclosure or a Shuttle box, install an image on them via CD or USB, and continue on the process. So I'm looking for a fairly minimalistic distro but I'd like it to have either an automated installation or GUI install to speed things along.

Alternatively, would it reasonable to assume a Bash script can be made, stored on the device with the image, and ran to automate the install? In either case, I'd like some recommendations for this task. Currently I'm looking at DSL (Damn Small Linux), Tiny Core Linux, and MINIX but they all require a standard command line partioning procedure that requires partioning, reboot, then install via Command-Line. I'm looking for something a little more efficient/automated.

Thank you for your time!

Install DSL on to one 1GB flash disk. Once that is done, make an image of the disk using dd. You can then copy that image to any other disk with a minimum size of 1GB. No further installation is needed.

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Fantastic! Thank you very much for the suggestion That should suite my needs perfectly.

No problem.
I have an image but as far as I can remember it was a live image that stored persistent data on a second partition on the flash disk. It used the TORAM option, but still gave full access to the main system.
I would post it but (a) it's an older version of DSL, (b) it's 1GB and (c) I don't have the upload speed

Well ultimately I found that all the servers only have a single IDE connection available so mirroring the image from one IDE to another via DD isn't really feasible without an external enclosure. I thought about simply storing the image on a flash-drive and copying it over but found that the Live-CD (ISO) has a really straight-forward and simple install feature. When you boot from the Live-CD you can simply enter the boot command 'install' and it will bring you to a menu with a slew of install options. It also has a cfdisk menu where you can quickly view/delete partitions and create a new one. I found that I can delete all partitions, format, and install a Frugal DSL image on an IDE using the install menu in under 60 seconds. Aside from minor boot/load-time, I'm content with that speed.

Thanks again!