Knoppix from a flash drive?

[jscinoz]

hi everyone,

im not sure if this is the right forum but here goes:

i'm new to the world of linux and i have to say that knoppix truley owns, but i was wondering if it is possible to boot it from a flash drive?

my flash drive is 1gb and is usb 2.0.

if knoppix cant be booted from a flash drive then are there any other distros that can be?


thanks in advance
jscinoz

[ruymbeke]

hi everyone, im not sure if this is the right forum but here goes: i'm new to the world of linux and i have to say that knoppix truley owns, but i was wondering if it is possible to boot it from a flash drive? my flash drive is 1gb and is usb 2.0. if knoppix cant be booted from a flash drive then are there any other distros that can be? thanks in advance. jscinoz
Yes it is possible, I have done it on my USB dongles. There is actually more than one way to di it.
But one of the tricky part is to make your USB dongle bootable by reformatting your USB dongle.
You may loose some usable space but now it will boot... Then you will need to copy the files required to boot Linux.
Have a look in here: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11796&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=240
You will find the tool to reformat your USB dongle under XP (sorry), and grub.exe to load kernel and ramdisk.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Gilles

[jscinoz]

im confused, could you tell me exactly what i have to do? like what file system do a reformat it to? and where is grub.exe in that file on the topic that link goes to just has 3 files linux, menu.lst and minirt_nfs

im sorry but i'm new to linux

[eco2geek]

One place to start would be with Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/index.html) (or "DSL" for short), a 50MB distro based on Knoppix that comes with a script that'll format your USB key and install DSL on it. (They sell USB keys with DSL pre-installed (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/usb.html).)

Since it's only 50MB, it'll fit even on 128MB USB keys with room to spare. OTOH, it sacrifices a lot of eye candy, uses FluxBox (http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/) as its window manager, and uses a 2.4-series kernel, in order to stay small.

They also have a forum section where they discuss booting from USB (http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=17).

Of course, it all depends on whether or not your computer can successfully boot off a USB stick (http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=17;t=2925).

[jscinoz]

ok thanks ill try dsl now

[ruymbeke]

im confused, could you tell me exactly what i have to do? like what file system do a reformat it to? and where is grub.exe in that file on the topic that link goes to just has 3 files linux, menu.lst and minirt_nfs.im sorry but i'm new to linux
I will describe below how to format a fat 16 partition on a USB dongle and make it DOS bootable
and automatically launch a dos version of grub which will start knoppix from the iso cd image
(+kernel +inird files) all located on the USB dongle:

1) Download: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip
2) Extract the directory grube.zip\Grube\Root_Of_USB
3) Launch the program HPUSBFW.EXE, and follow the instructions
and when prompted, point to the system files included in the Root_Of_USB directory
4) copy the rest of the files of Root_Of_USB into the root of your dongle (but do NOT overwrite the io.sys)
5) copy the files required to boot linux: kernel, ramdisk and iso (linux, minirt_ntfs.gz, knoppix.iso)
(you can download the various customized version of the INITRD_NTFS.GZ ramdisk required
to boot from an ISO file (even if the filesystem is not ntfs but a fat or ext2/3) here:
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip for knoppix 3.6, 3.7 and 3.81
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip for knoppix 3.82 and 3.9 (same files)
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/kno40.zip for knoppix 4.0
6) modify the menu.lst file to match your need
(path to the kernel and initrd file + kernel boot options, cf grub and knppix doc.
But be very careful, the path is case sensitive !!!)
7) setup your bios to boot from usb, reboot and have fun...

Hope this will help. Please give me some feedback.
Cheers, Gilles

[jscinoz]

ok i've copied it all the the flash disk but what locations do i type for the things in the menu.lst.


also im using the 700mb knoppix 3.9 iso because the 4.0 one is 4gb and wont fit, is there a smaller english version knoppix 4.0?

[ruymbeke]

ok i've copied it all the the flash disk but what locations do i type for the things in the menu.lst.
also im using the 700mb knoppix 3.9 iso because the 4.0 one is 4gb and wont fit, is there a smaller english version knoppix 4.0?
Ok, let's assume that you copied all these files in the root of your usb dongle:
KNOPPIX_V3.9-2005-05-27-EN.iso
linux, minirt_ntfs.gz (from the Knoppix382.zip)
grub.exe, menu.lst, ... (from the Root_Of_USB of grube.zip)
Then after update, your menu.lst should looks like this:

################################################## ####
# GvR July 25th 2005
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=0

title Knoppix 3.9 from FAT16 on a USB dongle
kernel (hd0,0)/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/sda1/*.iso noprompt
initrd (hd0,0)/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/memtest

################################################## ####

You may need to replace /dev/sda1 by what ever your USB dongle is seen as a device on knoppix booted from the cd.
Hope this will help.
Regards,
Gilles

[jscinoz]

thanks gilles im going to reboot now and give it a try

[jscinoz]

nope nothing, i think its not the disk its my bios or somthing.

this is my boot order

1. removable device.
2.-Harddrive0
3.-harddrive1
4.cd rom
5. network boot.


but when i start it with the drive in it just goes straight to the windoze xp loading screen.

am i doing anything wrong?

my computer is a toshiba sattalielt m30 laptop with bios ver 1.20

i found ver 1.70 on toshiba website but it wont install because it says its for a different machine even though i have contacted the tech support guys and they say it is for mine.


any ideas?
jscinoz


PS sorry if i'm being annoyin with all my questions

[ruymbeke]

nope nothing, i think its not the disk its my bios or somthing.
this is my boot order
1. removable device.
2.-Harddrive0
3.-harddrive1
4.cd rom
5. network boot.
but when i start it with the drive in it just goes straight to the windoze xp loading screen.
am i doing anything wrong?
my computer is a toshiba sattalielt m30 laptop with bios ver 1.20
i found ver 1.70 on toshiba website but it wont install because it says its for a different machine even though i have contacted the tech support guys and they say it is for mine.
any ideas?
jscinoz
PS sorry if i'm being annoyin with all my questions
No, everything looks right.
Could you try on an other computer to check at least if the dongle setup is working ?
Did you ask the Toshiba tech support if the pc can boot from a usb dongle ?
Did you enable USB support in the bios ?
Good luck,
Gilles

[isachan]

Toshiba laptops / tablets don't support any USB booting, except from an external CD and a FD drives.
I own an old and cursed Satellite 505-507 and Protege M200, and had been looking for a solution.

Only thing you can do is to use CF disk with PCMCIA card, and I successfully HD installed Damn Small Linux 1.4 on my 1GB CF, but hangs when the kernel starts to look for the root partition with the message similar to saying "Kernel Panic : Can't find VFS volume ...".

I'm thinking about adding lines to "linuxrc" to modprobe yenta_socket, and run "cardmgr" to fix the problem, but I havn't tried yet.
Do I need some conf file for the "cardmgr" ? By reading man page, it seems like I don't really have to.

ruymbeke, is my assumption reasonable enough ?

RSVP,

Isao