Trying to put a VMWare OS on a USB stick

JoaoaoJ · 05-10-2018, 01:47 PM

Hey so i'm new to linux and what not and im working with debian on VMWare player for a school project, we are supposed to put a couple of programs on the virtual machine (php,mysql,apache,etc.) and then put in a pen drive and make be installable and able to run live. I've done everything but i cannot make the last part work so my question is : how do i put the debian os, that i have put all the programs in, in a pen drive and make it bootable on other computers. Please Help! Thank you.

AwesomeMachine · 05-10-2018, 06:38 PM

If you have vmware player on each machine you want to use the VM on, you just load the VM files onto a USB drive. Wherever you put the Debian VM, that's where it should be. But if you want to boot the VM on a machine that doesn't have vmware player, that would be more difficult. You'd need a whole Linux system on the USB drive. It's doable though.

jefro · 05-10-2018, 07:06 PM

I guess I had better ask this. Do you require that the usb be bootable and be a debian installer method?

As for any other method, a VM can be considered a real physical computer for the most part. You'd take any method to clone or copy some install across hardware. Things like command line dd or bootable images like clonezilla would move across vm to file on usb and then from file on usb to physical.

JoaoaoJ · 05-11-2018, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

If you have vmware player on each machine you want to use the VM on, you just load the VM files onto a USB drive. Wherever you put the Debian VM, that's where it should be. But if you want to boot the VM on a machine that doesn't have vmware player, that would be more difficult. You'd need a whole Linux system on the USB drive. It's doable though.

Yeah i need i to be bootable without vmware.

JoaoaoJ · 05-11-2018, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

I guess I had better ask this. Do you require that the usb be bootable and be a debian installer method?

As for any other method, a VM can be considered a real physical computer for the most part. You'd take any method to clone or copy some install across hardware. Things like command line dd or bootable images like clonezilla would move across vm to file on usb and then from file on usb to physical.

Yes i need to be bootable so that you can boot your computer from the usb and install the os or run it live.

Teufel · 05-11-2018, 07:14 AM

There was a nice project - remastersys, which was supposed to pack your debian system into bootable (and installable) iso file, but unfortunately that project was abandoned for a few years now.
However, there is LinuxRespin - fork of remastersys - https://github.com/ch1x0r/LinuxRespin. Though I didn't try this fork

AwesomeMachine · 05-11-2018, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoaoaoJ

Yes i need to be bootable so that you can boot your computer from the usb and install the os or run it live.

I'd really need to know more about the Debian VM to determine how to do it. If it's a real Debian VM, where Debian has been installed in a VM, I can't figure out how I would use that for installation.

But if you want to try something, I have an idea. Set up the virtual machine with a shared directory to the host. Then, boot the VM. Then do

Code:

$ dd if=/dev/sda of=/shared_directory/debian_image.img bs=64k.

Then, write the img file to a USB drive using dd.

Or, you could make the USB mount point the shared directory in the VM, and you could save a step. The resulting USB drive should boot, and you can use dd to copy it to the hard drive, kind of like an installation.

jefro · 05-11-2018, 01:22 PM

sudo apt-get install debian-installer-launcher in the vm maybe also to start. Not sure an installed system has it.

Now to get the usb to take the files/programs.

Kickstart might be used but I've never used it like that.

JoaoaoJ · 05-12-2018, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

sudo apt-get install debian-installer-launcher in the vm maybe also to start. Not sure an installed system has it.

Now to get the usb to take the files/programs.

Kickstart might be used but I've never used it like that.

So I installed it but what now?

yancek · 05-12-2018, 07:44 AM

Simplest solution would have been remastersys which could be installed on Debian and would then create an iso of the installed/modified system with the installer. Haven't tried Respin suggested above so it might work. There are at least two other programs which do this with current major Ubuntu systems but I doubt they will work with Debian. Even remastersys had a different version for Debian.

You could try the suggestion by AwsomeMachine above. If you've done some online searching on this subject, you should have found a large number of sites discussing it and some with similar (although more convoluted) methods. Generally, didn't work though from my reading. Not having anything similar to remastersys, you would probably need to use the host machine or a live system with mkisofs/genisoimage.

dave@burn-it.co.uk · 05-12-2018, 07:56 AM

I use a minimal Puppy Linux with VirtualBox and it works well.

Or if the target machine has a working Windows, just portable VirtualBox.

yancek · 05-12-2018, 01:17 PM

Just to clarify what you want to do, so we are all of the same understanding. My reading of your post(s) is that you basically want to install Debian, configure it to your liking by adding and or removing software (including the Debian installer) and when that is accomplished, you want to remaster it and create an iso which is bootable and of course, installable. You have done this in a virtual setting (VMWare) and do not want to boot/install it or use VMWare, VirtualBox or other virtualization software but want to boot it from a usb on your computer or other computers, is that all correct?

JoaoaoJ · 05-14-2018, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Just to clarify what you want to do, so we are all of the same understanding. My reading of your post(s) is that you basically want to install Debian, configure it to your liking by adding and or removing software (including the Debian installer) and when that is accomplished, you want to remaster it and create an iso which is bootable and of course, installable. You have done this in a virtual setting (VMWare) and do not want to boot/install it or use VMWare, VirtualBox or other virtualization software but want to boot it from a usb on your computer or other computers, is that all correct?

Yes that is correct, teh usb has to install the debian os along with the programms added by me (apache,php,etc).

yancek · 05-14-2018, 09:55 AM

Have you tried the dd command suggested above? If so, what happened.
Remastersys installed on Debian would have done the job but I doubt it will work on a new version of Debian. Have you tried Linux Respin suggested Debian? If so, what happened? I would try that first as it would be the simplest, if it works?

Have you tried the method suggested in post 7? If so, what happened?

I haven't used VMWare but did this in VirtualBox by using a Linux iso situated on the host drive and accessing it through the Settings/Storage option and then from Settings/System, setting the optical drive to boot before the HD in VBox. I'm sure there are similar settings in VMWare.