hey all,

i am trying to find a way to install kubuntu on my usb 2.0 gb stick so that i can be able to boot from there and have there all my preferences and my home directory.. how can i do that?

i found sth relevant on the ubuntu site but it is not what i want..i want to be able to load the kde...

thx a lot;-)

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-143925.html
... did you see this?

You really should state which "sth relevant" you found on "the ubuntu site" so we know what to avoid.

you are correct and i apologize for that.. by "sth relevant" i mean this

by the way the link that you gave me is broken..well not the link that you gave me..but the link in your link leads to an unabailable link);-P

although i searched on their main site and they sell usb sticks with the knoppix and kubuntu preinstalled...

i am not intresting in buying a usb with a disto, i already have one and i want to install it :-P

any other ideas plzzzz

Sorry about that - you can install the live CD to a USB stick:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost...&postcount=100

There are similar for a usb HDD.

hmm i ve tried this one...the distribution seems to boot from the usb and after the blue logo in the middle i get a screen saying

"BusyBox1.1.3 Debia blha bla

can't access tty; job control turned off.

(initramfs):"

and wait for my commands(

any ideas what is that and what went wrong?

I've been wanting to do the same, run Linux off a USB drive for a long time, now. Today with the help of above link, I now have Kubuntu working on my 20gb USB HD. It's great and much faster than booting off the CD.

To test 'persistence', I created an OpenOffice document plus changed the background wallpaper. After rebooting, both the document and the wallpaper were still there. Cool!

alaios,

Have you tried doing the process all over again? Maybe you missed a step along the way.

I used the HP format utility then I booted off the Kubuntu Live CD and shrunk the FAT partition to 700MB. Then used cfdisk to create a Linux partition on the rest of the USB HD. Finally, ran mke2fs on the second partition to label it 'casper-rw' and make it ext2.

This is the command I used to label and format the Linux partition:
replace sda2 with your drive designation

Then I followed the rest of the instructions to put Kubuntu on the USB HD.

One last note of caution, maybe everyone knew about this, but the FAT partition was not set active after HP was done formatting it. I had to boot with a DOS floppy, run fdisk and make the FAT partition active.

Hope this helps.

man many many thanks for the reply.. i ve tried to do it again.. the only different thing that i do is the following

a) i dont use the HP software to format it under windows.. it is kind of useless isn't it? i just boot from the kubuntu live and run the following

-> sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

i erase the partitions that i get with the p option..and then i create two new primary partitions.. the first is about 700 mb and the second is the rest (1.3 gb).. i then use the following

-> sudo mkdosfs -F 32 -n casper-rw /dev/sdb1 and then the same for the sdb2 because i want both partitions to be fat32... i then follow the procedure as it is..

have you copied the syslinux.cfg file from the site as it is, as well? i ve tried many many things and they dont seem to work...

btw do you use the paths as they are? e.g you have APPEND preseed/file=preseed/kubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=initrd.gz or sth like preseed/file=<b>/</b>preseed/kubuntu.seed and so on..

although i tried both of them...and they dont work(

aaa and another thing.. have you tried the 6.06 or the 6.10 version of the kubuntu? because, whichever one i choose i definitively have more files than the one that this guy reports at the end of his story...

hmm the thing that you said that the format utility does not make the partition active i think helped me a lot.. i did the procedure again (and again and again;-P) and i was able to make it start the booting procedure.. It loads the kernel and then it mounts disks and finds the network card and so on... but after some seconds it writes in a black screen this error message

"user not known to the underlying authentication module" ...and it repeats it 3-4 times and then it goes back to the screen with the blue kubuntu logo in the middle and the bar below it, and stucks there.. the usb stick seams to try and read data from time to time (its led flashes) but it doesnt go on... and i left it there trying 7-8 minutes but nothing...

any ideas?
why it doesn't load/?!?!?!?


ps. i have two fat32 partitions and the usb's name is casper-rw, although this affects the persistent feature...

I would stick with the first partition being fat32 and the second being ext2. And yes I totally agree that using the HP utility added some unnecessary steps.

I loaded my own copy of syslinux.cfg and manually made the necessary changes. Then looked at the example and mine to make sure I didn't miss something.

I'm fresh out of ideas on what else you could try, though.

Oh and I used Kubuntu 6.06LTS.

what could be the problem of the ext2?.. it is only used for the persistent feature which, for now, i am not trying to use it at all... (

i cannot find anything on the net informing me about this error message how is this possible....