USB Stick boot

KrYpToN · 10-06-2003, 12:42 PM

Guys,

I have been playing with this thing for days. Is it possible to boot a usb stick by itself without a floppy disk to start it off?

If so, who can tell me how to start the device, boot wise; syslinux, lilo, grub?

I have tried all those three mentioned above and I just can't get it to play, thanks in advance,

KrYpToN

Hans Zarkoff · 10-06-2003, 01:04 PM

How is it failing?
Can the BIOS see it?
Does the boot loader see it?
Does the kernel start to boot?
Does it have a problem seeing the root disk?

I've never tried to boot via a USB stick, but it's certainly possible. At least according to the disk-encryption howto at tldp.org. If you want, head over to http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Disk-Encry...OWTO/x266.html and make sure you didn't forget anything.

I hope my lack of information helped...

michaelk · 10-06-2003, 01:09 PM

Yes, does your motherboard BIOS allow booting from a USB device? I have tested mine with DOS but not linux.

http://www.ncsu.edu/resnet/runt/

Any bootloader should work but you need a initrd that loads all the USB modules to load the kernel. Also you want something like a Knoppix CD version because flash memory has unlimited reads but only 100,000 writes or so. It wouldn't take long to wear it out.

Hans Zarkoff · 10-07-2003, 10:07 AM

The USB drivers should probably be compiled directly into the kernel, bypassing the need for an initrd. Slackware doesn't use initrds out of the box.

KrYpToN · 10-08-2003, 07:43 AM

Thanks for your help guys, I will see what I can find

maroonbaboon · 10-08-2003, 08:32 AM

The freevix project (www.freevix.org) has a section in the forum (at http://www.txrx.org/forum/) about booting from USB devices.

Also puppy-linux (http://www.goosee.com/puppy/) is supposed to boot off USB memory devices.

Haven't tried it myself.