[SATLUG] Linux on CD

[Bruce Dubbs]

Borries Demeler wrote:
>> OOPS, didn't realize this was a knoppix-specific thing with a  lot of
>> non-portable utilities like mkdiskimage.
>>
>> The thing should be to format it as vfat, copy the contents of the ISO to
>> the partition, and copy the first 512 bytes of the iso to the raw device of
>> the USB drive
>>
>> mount -o loop foo.iso /mnt
>> cp /mnt/* /media/usbdisk
>> umount /media/usbdisk
>> dd if=foo.iso of=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=1
> 
> Mark,
> 
> I tried this approach with both puppylinux and with SLAX, to no avail.
> The boot hangs...
> It doesn't seem to make a difference if I mark the /dev/sda1 partition
> as active or not.
> 
> here is some info:
> 
> fdisk /dev/sda
> 
> Command (m for help): p
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 506 MB, 506986496 bytes
> 16 heads, 61 sectors/track, 1014 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 976 * 512 = 499712 bytes
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1        1014      494801+   b  W95 FAT32
> 
> Anything obviously wrong with this?

I may be coming in late here, but if I understand it correctly, you are
trying to make a bootable usb flash ram drive.

Try using fdisk to create a single partition, then use `mkfs -t ext2
/dev/sda1` on that partition.  You might want to run  tune2fs -c 0 -i 0
/dev/sda1 to disable disk checks on startup.

Then install grub directly.

grub
> root (hd1,0)
> setup (hd1)

Assuming grub recognizes it as hd1 which would be normal if there is
only one normal disk in the system.

Then create /boot/grub/menu.lst, copy the kernel and other necessary
files from whatever source you want and you should be ready to go.

Here's a link that does essentially the same thing:

http://www.eecs.iu-bremen.de/wiki/index.php/Creating_a_bootable_USB_stick

  -- Bruce