Buying preinstalled bootable USB drive vs. making own?

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Originally Posted by Clinton

... New blanks seem to range in price from $10 to $17 for a quality 2 GB (excluding special offers, closing down sales and other exceptional opportunities). ...

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But why exclude "special" offers? Over the last two months I've seen many 4 gig flash drives in the $8-9 range (including Newegg with free shipping and off the shelf at Target). And quite frankly, I didn't consider those to be great deals. Last year I bought three very high speed 8 gig SDHC memory cards for $12 after a sizable rebate, shipping included. And that's not $12 each, that is $12 for all 3! Yes, as I said previously, I do shop for deals, but making comparisons against prices excluding sales. special offers and exceptional opportunities rather seems to bias the comparison in favor of someone wanting to charge the highest price the market will pay.

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Originally Posted by Krellan2

Rather, it would be an *exchange* of USB keys.

The customer would mail me a USB key, along with a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) and a small amount of money. I install Knoppix, and perhaps also PortableApps, make sure it boots, and that everything is correct, and mail them back the USB key. Quick turnaround, and they wouldn't have to pay the cost of a new USB key.

Would there be any interest in this?

Josh

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I would avoid the use of the term "exchange of USB keys", which seems to imply that one mightt get back someone else's key. But still, I question the value of this over just running a simple script that puts Knoppix onto a USB key. I'm not saying that there are not some people who might buy into it, but I question the starting of a business based on other people's gullibility or lack of knowing that they could run the same script that you run themselves.

For the vast majority of users, having a CD or DVD is still a good idea, as a much larger number of currently running systems can boot from a disc rather than a USB flash drive. While I'm no fan at all of buying commercially burned Linux discs (which I believe are always burnt at high speed), I have to think that it would be a lot cheaper to buy such a Knoppix disc and hope that at least one of my systems could read it and install the software on a usb device rather than pay shipping two directions on a securely packaged USB drive, plus whatever the service charged for running the script for me. At least that way I end up with both forms of media. And if I can download and burn the disc myself, I see no reason to use service at all.

Krellan2, that sounds like an excellent idea. But I'd put some more value add into it. What else could you do on the USB that would
a) help the user
b) save him time
c) make him more productive?

That makes you stand out from those just selling USBs with knoppix on them. It seems more personal. Perhaps you could even have a form on your site with various choices so they user can customise his order. It shouldn't be too difficult to demonstrate that you want to help people rather than prey on the gullible.

Harry, you've got a better nose at sniffing out deals than I have ;) I just don't have the patience. In any case, we don't get prices like that here in the UK. If you're paying $9 for something in the US we are paying £9 ($14) for it here.

But I think you're being a bit harsh if you think they are charging the highest price the market will pay. Bear in mind that these were people selling the CD for $1.95 - including postage - as recently as last year (now raised to $2.19). That fee pays also for providing customer services and a returns/replacement facility. It doesn't sound too shabby especially if you consider that it includes a commission for me. And their service must be at least reasonably good or we'd be hearing about it in the forums. I often ask people to post in public if they've had any problems with a disk bought from our vendors.

From my email discussions with the vendor I suspect they were/are making a loss on the disks and they only kick into profit when customers add on service packages to the order. So, all you've got to do is resist the urge to add a service package ;)

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Originally Posted by Harry Kuhman

For the vast majority of users, having a CD or DVD is still a good idea, as a much larger number of currently running systems can boot from a disc rather than a USB flash drive.

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Harry is right, not all systems can boot from USB, but ALL can boot from CD/DVD... for old system only the LiveCD makes sense...

Anyway, I just like to put 2 tests here I did last year.
It's about boot time (speed) difference from CDs and USBs, I think this information should always be offered to potential buyers...

For Ubuntu:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/...f4cdc6d73f.jpg

For Fedora:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3257/...9868cfbce3.jpg

This may works as argument to use USBs instead of CDs.

Valter

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I would avoid the use of the term "exchange of USB keys", which seems to imply that one mightt get back someone else's key. But still, I question the value of this over just running a simple script that puts Knoppix onto a USB key. I'm not saying that there are not some people who might buy into it, but I question the starting of a business based on other people's gullibility or lack of knowing that they could run the same script that you run themselves.

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Good point, I'd call it a "USB drive preloading service" or something like that, not exchange.

I talked to others and they told me the same thing: there might have been a market for this back in 2005, but these days, it's just too easy for the average person to make a bootable USB drive, and attempting to start a business to do this is just taking advantage of people who don't Google first, as you said.

So, I'm giving up on this idea, as its market window has came and gone.

Should have thought of it back then!

Thanks for your advice.

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Originally Posted by Clinton

Krellan2, that sounds like an excellent idea. But I'd put some more value add into it. What else could you do on the USB that would
a) help the user
b) save him time
c) make him more productive?

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Not too sure about that, unfortunately. I could have the USB key also give the user the choice of booting Mac OS or Windows XP, but there's all sorts of copyright/licensing problems there that I don't even want to go into. Besides, it's really the same as Knoppix, in that there's free images out there for anybody to use already, if they're interested in doing this. BartPE is an example.

I could throw PortableApps onto the USB key, as it's a good use of extra space, but again, that's just something that anybody can download and do themselves, with a few clicks.

I do like the idea of a "service package", though. I'd need to add some better kind of value-add.

Back to the drawing board!

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Originally Posted by netzen

Josh, the “PreOS” seems interesting (at least for somebody like me).

In fact, believe me or not, I have one “splash O.S.” prototype done!
It’s working.
Core only 6MB, boots up in 3 seconds (Celeron 3.3GHz).

My name: SubiTux = Subito Tux or Subito O.S.

You can read about here:
http://sites.google.com/site/subitux/

All source and scripts are open.

I have more few docs and 3 small videos to upload to YouTube, please just wait a few days (or hours) and I will be compiling all the info (more) into a cohesive and more easy to read documentation. These first pages just “happen” last 12 months and I was unable to make them “palatable” and easy.

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I finally finish editing 3 small (very small) videos and uploaded them to YouTube:

[SubiTux booting]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg8hwKNoq8A

[SubiTux running Firefox]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NFHvLQqJsc

[SubiTux running xGalaga]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ4xQGhVB14


I'm finishing compiling a PDF explaining the idea, need some more final touch and will be online...

Valter

Hi Josh (and all people that the idea of LiveCD/USB may interest),

I like to ask you more information about your “PreOS” concept and I want to offer more details about my “subito OS concept” (the SubiTux).

Perhaps there are things we can share and collaborate with each other on the subject.

[The General Information Site]
http://sites.google.com/site/subitux/

[The “Subito Information Revolution Manifesto”]
http://sites.google.com/site/subitux/manifesto

If you have a link with any information about your “PreOS” that you feel safe to share with us, please post here so that we may start a kind of “dialog” around the subject matter.

My “SubiTux” project has part of its roots on Debian Project and Knoppix Project, so, it will be interesting to build here the “dialog”, because its implications can help inspire Knoppix users and developers.

Because my “SubiTux” Project is 70% about “information” and 30% about FOSS software, I am absolute sure that Knoppix people (users and developers) can benefit directly from that “70% informational” part and, at least indirectly from the SubiTux software itself.

I’m still working to make the documentation better, but right now those pages can communicate a fairly good idea about the project.

Thanks all,
Valter

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Originally Posted by netzen

Hi Josh (and all people that the idea of LiveCD/USB may interest),

I like to ask you more information about your “PreOS” concept and I want to offer more details about my “subito OS concept” (the SubiTux).

Perhaps there are things we can share and collaborate with each other on the subject.

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I actually don't have any more information. The links I give you below, are about all that was the extent of it.

It would be a combination of many different pieces of open source software.

Here's an early prototype I made, to boot from PXE and autodetect various Ethernet cards in computers (this was back before PXE became standard in almost all new Ethernet cards these days):

ftp://ftp.scyld.com/private/jlehan/pxe-on-a-disk.html

I made this back in 2005.

It's a compilation of all Etherboot drivers, all stuffed onto a floppy (or very small CD) image. Worked great.

Write this image to a floppy (or very small CD), put it in an old computer that doesn't have built-in PXE, and presto, as if by magic, that computer now has PXE!

Here's some additional tools that I looked at, but did not end up using:

Here's a boot image which has 2 key features, let you boot from any hard disk partition of your choice (not just the first partition), and boot from an IDE CD-ROM drive on very old computers that didn't have working CD-ROM booting already in their BIOS:

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html

As for compiling all these tools together into what might have became "PreOS", somebody already is working on a similar project, which combines many, many boot images for specialized tools or booting from alternative media that might not be supported by the BIOS:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

And, somebody also has an adapter program that can convert many CD boot images to Live USB boot images instead, for booting from USB:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

All of these should be good leads to follow up with, for your project.

A request: Can this thread be closed? Perhaps start another thread for your SubTux project, since it's something completely different from my original question.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Krellan2

All of these should be good leads to follow up with, for your project.

A request: Can this thread be closed? Perhaps start another thread for your SubTux project, since it's something completely different from my original question.

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Thanks for reply with all the information. The more we know, the greater the chance to avoid recreating something that already exist.

Sorry, I apologize for creating deviation from the subject on the topic. Let's keep the topic around the original subject.

Valter

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Originally Posted by Krellan2

A request: Can this thread be closed? Perhaps start another thread for your SubTux project, since it's something completely different from my original question.

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Hi, I started a new (continuation) topic to try to create the exchange there:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...=122061#122061

Thanks all,
Valter