I think I'll just try to install void. That will give me the chance to learn a new distro and I'll understand the process better. Where you're talking about setting up wifi you say you use a script but you don't say what it is. Thanks














2wh

if you were thinking about using that method of mine in the wiki you have to already have a POSIX system installed then install Voids tools then a little fiddling to configure the conf file. before that works. It is written for one that already has Void installed and using that system to install it onto a USB Stick.

but the iso flash to USB Stick then install it onto another USB Stick via some computer as a bridge can be done too. that method lead me to write the wiki how to method that is I already explained that the base needed for that is another (Linux) POSIX system.

Okay now I understand. I can access the notebook via Kubuntu but at this time I need to set this aside for a little while because my frustration level has reached the point where I think my head is going to explode. I seriously need a break. I've put so many hours into tthis and it took a lot of trial and error just to get to boot into kubuntu live. I'm not giving up though. I hope you understand because you've been so good to me. But I am still new to linux and maybe I need to gain a little more expertise. I am going to head to the cabinet and get some aleve now.

NP - take your time -

The thing with gparted is that it needs root permissions to do it's things. But you generally cannot run GUI apps as root. So it can be tricky with most distros system defaults.

$ xhost local:
$ sudo gparted

Where the xhost thing allows "ANY" user to access the GUI / X. Which is generally reserved for ONLY the user who started X. Not exactly intuitive but if you understand some UNIX and POSIX basics, understandable -ish.

I am still thinking about this and I mentioned it before. I want to install freebsd on a usb stick and I was reading on the freeBSD forum and the guide is pretty clear (wouldn't work for linux) they talk about installing free bsd on the thumb drive and using a separate one for grub. Now, I haven't gone through and read this lengthy thread but I do have kubuntu installed I just can't boot into it. Wouldn't it work the same to put grub on a thumb drive and boot into kubuntu that way? Sorry if we've gone over this before. Like I said sorry if this is a repeat. If that works how would I install grub on a thumb drive? As you can probably tell I'm obsessed with this. I don't like to fail

just remember the drive address. /dev/sdc perhaps - lsblk remember?

Yes I checked. It's /dev/sdb. But how do I install grub on it? Or could I just use grub from my other notebook and modify it?

if installed
if during an install just tell it which to install to if it asked, 99.99% it already is showing you the drive it installed on and is only giving you an option to change it.

Got it! thanks again

I thought I'd let those that have helped me know that I have not been able to succeed in getting it to boot from a usb stick. I wound up switching from kubuntu to debian and it installed with no problem, But when I went to reboot I ran into the same problem. There is an entry to boot into the hard drive using that file system or whatever you call it but it doesn't boot. I put my usb stick in and ran blkid and it showed up as the mm whatever so I didn't think it would do me any good to use it. I tried apt-get install grub /dev/(both sda and mmc) and I got an error about not recognizing /dev. I think that this is just too far over my head and I don't understand what and why so I decided to let it go. Maybe someday I'll be able to fix it but not now. Plus I have one exactly like it that works plus my chromebook and two nice touchscreen laptops. The other notebook is going to my better half and it works great to just surf the net. Thanks for all the help. Hopefully I'll not need that kind of help in the future. Thanks again

Depending on your version of grub, and if you configured /etc/fstab BEFORE installing grub, you might need to fiddle with the resulting grub.cfg. The root=/dev/sd?? method isn't likely to work for usb sticks, since the name changes with more than one stick and may depend on which port it's plugged into. You should use the root=UUID= or root=LABEL= methods, which may not be the default for your version of grub.

$ sudo blkid
$ sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Not that either of those are easy to do if you cannot boot linux in the first place.

Well I said I wasn't going to give up! I installed kubuntu and then used the dvd as a live dvd and then chrooted into kubuntu.
I couldn't install grub on the usb thumb drive during install and it won't let me install it now because it's reading it as ext 2 when I formatted as ext4. It doesn't work with fat32 either. I can edit grub.cfg, copy it to the usb drive and in bios have it boot from usb first. I was looking at grub.cfg and I saw the menu entries for boot and they're set to boot from a mmc boot. Can I just change that to /dev/sda1 which is what blkid sees? Thanks

USB sticks tend to need --force. The MBR reads as smaller than expected or some such, but afaik it's just another storage device. I tend to allocate a small sacrificial partition (1GB) at the front just to be cautious, but otherwise it "should" be a usable partition if you need to.

$ sudo grub-install --force /dev/sdb

Thanks