Got Knoppix 5.0.1 successfully booting from USB key

[Capricorny]

Thought I should bring up this thread rather than starting a new one..
After experimenting a little with different laptops and USB-sticks, it seems to me that running mkdiskimage is not a decisive factor with the hardware I use. In every case where I was able to get the stick to boot using mkdiskimage, it worked as well with just partitioning (after wiping out just the partition table) formatting and running syslinux/copying files.
Also, if a stick is prepared, it can ALWAYS be used when the computer is able to boot and run off the CD/DVD: Just type knoppix fromhd=/dev/sda1 (or whatever is the partition).... at the boot prompt, and remove the CD/DVD after booting is complete.
The same trick can be used with sticks, if two can be mounted at the same time, or a USB-harddisk and a stick. I set up a 512MB stick with the basic booting, but nothing else, and used it to start booting, reading and running the complete system from larger sticks. This is written running off a 1GB stick started by a 512 MB.

My results with three laptops:
Toshiba satellite: Only CD/DVD booting, running from USB is OK - until interface "dies".
ASUS A3HF: 512MB sticks boot, none bigger.
Dell Inspiron 510m: Up to 1GB sticks boot, none bigger.

Using a 4 or 8 GB stick this way, one may drop remastering - except for doing different configuration changes or adding software not on the DVD. And it is very nice to be able to free up the DVD drive!

[Krellan2]

Thanks for the tip. I haven't tried with very large USB keys, so I haven't ran into the size limit yet. I do know that the 1GB limit is probably due to a cheap BIOS only recognizing USB-ZIP compatible drive geometry. I didn't know there was also a 512MB limit somewhere, I can't think of what would cause that.

I like the fromhd trick as well, to start booting from CD but later free up the CD drive for other use. Unfortunately you have to know what drive letter Linux will assign to your USB key first, on each PC. This will be sda1, sdb1, sdc1, and so on, depending on how many drives are installed in the PC and what kind they are (IDE, SCSI, SATA). This usually means booting up once fully from CD, just to see what it will be, then rebooting using fromhd. I once had a BIOS that would do the maddening thing of assigning completely different drive letters to the USB key, based on whether it booted from CD, local HD, or booted from USB! That was a pain to figure out.

8GB USB keys are great because you can drop the entire Knoppix DVD in there, and still have plenty of space left over for your own use, without having to remaster or delete anything.

It's still my hope that PC manufacturers will start to see USB booting as a sellable feature, and test it more thoroughly, working out all of these weird bugs and putting pressure on the BIOS programmers to please get it right this time

[Capricorny]

I have experimented more, and found out that using a 512MB stick for the initial booting, and then use fromhd=/dev/sdb1 etc is the easist way for me to proceed. Only falling back on the CD/DVD when all else fails. BIOSes are clearly sensitive to the stick size, but I have not had problems identifying a second stick or a USB harddisk. It does not seem to help making smaller partitions on a large stick, therefore the only reason I see for partitioning sticks, is that the volume containing til Knoppix image gets mounted ro, and it is useful to have another partition to save config and home directories in, eventually to have ext2/3 file systems in addition to FAT16/32..

Running from a USB harddisk is very simple and versatile, I now try it out with 4 partitions: One with the knoppix images, one with config, /home etc, one which may be mounted as a Unix /store partition and one to be mounted as /usr/local. Except for the /home cloop image, everything could be placed on a USB stick. Because of the frequent updating, the /home partition (file) is not very well suited for present day USB-sticks, they will get worn out quickly. Therefore, a hard disk partition or ramdisk is probably the best, reading/writing the file(s) to persistent storage at intervals. Is there a script for something like that?

I plan to use /usr/local for additional software installs, like Java versions, Mono varieties/languages, VMware Player/Server may also go there.

[ibgp3]

I service some machines that were purchased without CD's & USB's (probably paid extra.)
I built the USB key version on a key with removable media (a CF card) great! Thanks!
I put the CF card in a hard drive emulator .
When I start up it shows normal, including DMA support for hda [CF Card]
then:
Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.
etc

I have tried a bunch of cheat code combinations, but if the right one exists I haven't found it.
Got it. Thanks to all.
GP

[wilsonB]

I have successfully used Puppy 2.17 and Knoppix 5.1.1, Booting off a USB. ( FAT 32) 1GB Sand Disk Ultra USB SD.


I got a little discouraged with trying to get Beryl working on Puppy. (primary sys- Intel 945G video)

A.)
http://puppylinux.org
I like how puppy boots up fast and runs on older systems.
Puppy was originally build ground up with a small foot print in mind. (These days, size isn't as much of a concern though.)
I had problems installing removing applications in Puppy. Also had problems with packages being outdated/missing or video (Intel 845G) Dri not Active/Open Gl from Original CD. Takes a little work.
Seems to take a lot of tweaking to get Beryl working in Puppy.

B.)Knoppix 5.1.1 boot off USB.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01...b-knoppix-510/
It does seem to boot slower. Beryl is native using cheat codes.
I like that Knoppix has a lot support in Package manager and hardware detection. It seems easier to install apps.
It seems Knoppix is more solid and supported. Is this assumption true?
If Knoppix booting off USB 'Emulates' a live boot from CD, how easy / hard is it to add remove apps? Do I have to recreate the "Live-CD"?
For example; I don't need Open office at the moment (400MB) or silly games and other apps that are packaged with 5.1.1.
How do I remove them? I tried through the package manager, but Office was still there and the updates didn't stick after restarting.
Do I have to stick with a 750MB partition for the "emulation of a Live CD" boot? I want to trim down the original package to what don't use, then build it up with what I do use.

Is Puppy linux ideal being that Knoppix seems to simulate a live CD distro using Persistence mode versus Puppy using one big personal file.
I ran out of space on the 1Gb memory with Knoppix. (Im getting a 2Gb tomorrow.)

Trying to way to cons/pros


Is there a way to configure a hardware profile at boot up? Meaning, It wont have to do a hardware detect again. I could just select, PC#2 or #4
At boot up and it would boot faster. It seems the Knoppix sits at boot up for a long time then continues then re-detects everything.

I do like the Eye Candy and transparencies (like Beryl) but also the portability. (Being able to boot on any of most of todays systems - good hardware detection.)

Trying to figure which Distro I want to stick with. (Knoppix or Puppy)

I want to decide, so that way I will spend my time to configure and customize...

Thanks for all you time / input/ Advice on this.

I am a novice to linux. , but learning.. [/b]

[wilsonB]

B.T.W: A neat little trick is to keep a floppy disk image of Linux USB boot disk on the USB for older systems. If the bios is old and doesnt boot off the usb, find a floppy and create the floppy in windows. Then reboot into USB Linux with floppy and USB

[marques]

Thanks to Krellan2 for his brilliant guide. I've just booted a 5.0.1 Knoppix from my 1GB USB pendrive.
It all works fine and, obviously, faster than CDrom. Fast and fine as your guidelines are.
Being me a 4ever-newbie had to repeat the mkdiskimage step, for root privileges are needed from this point on.

The BIOS, a Phoenix-Award did recognize the pendrive as an USB-HDD either before and after. It was enough to change the priority of the HDD list and restore the Boot devices' list to HDD first (instead of CDrom first as it used to be for Knoppix to run).

Well, thank you very much again

[Krellan2]

Thanks to Krellan2 for his brilliant guide. I've just booted a 5.0.1 Knoppix from my 1GB USB pendrive.
It all works fine and, obviously, faster than CDrom. Fast and fine as your guidelines are.
Being me a 4ever-newbie had to repeat the mkdiskimage step, for root privileges are needed from this point on.

You're welcome! I'm glad it worked well for you. Yes, everything has to be done in the root shell, as root permissions are needed throughout.

[Quixand]

I think I've posted this in reply to someone's post a long time ago, but not in the main thread here (and I've checked, nobody else did either)

Anyway: A nice setup that works for me:
1. I used an 8gig stick, formatted everything to one big FAT32 partition, made it primary and bootable using the syslinux method in winxp.

Now, at this point there's an issue, a normal windows machine can't see two partitions on a USB because of the way the windows USB drivers are written. Found a solution on the net: edit the drivers, have windows see the drive as a USB HDD instead of USB Flash Drive. Works.
Now you can partition and format the drive as if it was a normal HDD. You can also read and access all sections from windows.

2. Resized partition so that the SECOND partition is 4.1 GB (because I'm using the knoppix 5.1.1 DVD)
3. Copied contents of the Knoppix.iso image into the second partition (leaving about 300mb for persistent home image on the partition).
4. Moved contents of boot directory from second partition to the root of the first partition. Deleted boot directory from second partition.

Then I ran syslinux32 on the first directory again just in case.

Now, you basically have a USB flash drive with two partitions, both visible and accessible under linux, and only the first will be accessible on windows installs that don't have the tweaked USB Flash Drive driver.

Why? Because I wanted a separate data partition for school purposes that doesn't expose my Knoppix USB to corruption. This way I can avoid accidently (or intentionally) screwing up my persistent home file, or any other config files saved on the Knoppix partition, as they're not normally accessible under Windows.
Since the Knoppix bootloader actively searches the entire hardware for the Knoppix.img file, it doesn't really matter whether the bootloader is actually in the same partition as the image, so the whole setup works well. It will easily boot knoppix with the boot files in the first partition and everything else in the second, and this will also allow the first partition, containing whatever data you wish to store on it, be accessible under any windows machine.
I installed PortableApps on the first partition.

I used Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 Pro for all of the partitioning/formatting.
Link to the driver tweaking instructions: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?...=0#entry474505

[flaky]

oh

i can not make my usb writable

how??

i run the code like yours

but do nothing