Knoppix on USB flash memory

[Zentesis]

In my opinion it’s possible.
I have a Pen Stick of 256Mb. The Knoppix lite have a 208Mb. The “only problem“ is that we find a booteable floppy that it allow boot with the Pen Knoppix.
Anybody know anyone?
Is true the problem of write 1 million times but the advantage will be enormous.
You imagine all the students that in theirs colleges or universities don’t have own theirs computer. All owns configurations (desktop, mozilla, etc.) go with them. But no only the students, the cybercoffee or airport terminals will have a USB connect and you have your computer in your pocket.
The advantages for the administrator is clear, because how the computer don’t have a hard disk, the people don’t break the system.
The second requirement is a post it in the monitor whit your own IP and the gateway.

[garyng]

In my opinion it’s possible.
I have a Pen Stick of 256Mb. The Knoppix lite have a 208Mb. The “only problem“ is that we find a booteable floppy that it allow boot with the Pen Knoppix.
Anybody know anyone?
Is true the problem of write 1 million times but the advantage will be enormous.
You imagine all the students that in theirs colleges or universities don’t have own theirs computer. All owns configurations (desktop, mozilla, etc.) go with them. But no only the students, the cybercoffee or airport terminals will have a USB connect and you have your computer in your pocket.
The advantages for the administrator is clear, because how the computer don’t have a hard disk, the people don’t break the system.
The second requirement is a post it in the monitor whit your own IP and the gateway.

That is my vision too and not just student but my view about future computing(like phone booth on the street with my computer(the hd/CF) in my pocket).

As for a boot floppy for usb, assume the support for usb reader/drive is getting better, it is pretty easy. just change the miniroot.gz to include usbcore.o, usb-storage.o usb-ohci/usb-uhci and load them in the linuxrc script before KNOPPIX do the 'where am I scanning'. need to remove some of those scsi driver though as the space on the floppy image is tight.

As for the limited writes for CF, just use the current KNOPPIX idea of everything is in RAM and once I am done. rsync it back to the flash and pull it from the computer and go(well remember to umount to flush everything). Even with 300,000 write cycle, I can do it 10 times each day for 10 years. For the paranoid, start a cron job to do it automatically every 20 minutes so even I work on the computer for 8 hours a day, it is 24 writes, still good for 5 years use and at worse I lose 20 minutes of work(same can happen on a standard desktop).

[Zentesis]

I newbie in Linux and I'm very interested in bootable floppy.
I read a interesting web when explain the proces for make a bootable floppy and other things.
The web is http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/
In this web follow the same proces that explain the partner garyng.

But I arrived at the next point:
" Now we still need the usb modules (that aren't on the miniroot).
Mount the compressed KNOPPIX file (insmod cloop file=PATH/KNOPPIX && mount -t iso9660 /dev/cloop /cdrom) and copy the following files under /cdrom/lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/kernel/drivers/usb/ to /mnt/modules/usb/:
ehci-hcd.o uhci.o usb-ohci.o usb-storage.o usb-uhci.o usbcore.o
Now you're finished modifying miniroot.
Umount it and gzip the file again."

I can't make the last point " Now you're finished modifying miniroot. Umount it and gzip the file again."

Anybody could explain me, point to point, how can I do?

[HedRat]

No moving parts? What about a cpu and psu fan? And maybe a northbridge fab?

Still possible with an Epia motherboard and matched case with external PSU unit (like laptops). Checkout the link:

http://www.ultim8pc.co.uk/index.asp?...products&idd=2

As far as the Mini-ITX / Epia mobo's are concerned, it's a matter of finding the fastest passively-cooled one available.

Outside of the Mini-ITX arena, there are a few full-strength passively cooled PSU's around, and you'd then have to look into heat-pipes or peltier units with external water coolers. Messy and a lot harder to spec and source - but the performance would be there.

HedRat