[mdlug] Suggestions for flash-drive Linux?

[Richard Herrell]

There are adapter cables available so that you can plug your flash 
drives into the IDE slot.  Your bios should have no problem, but they're 
normally not hot pluggable.

If you're flexible on price, then a 4GB flash drive (about $70 at 
Amazon.com) should be sufficient space to install most modern Linux 
distributions.  If Fedora doesn't fit, then Ubuntu or Knoppix should fit.

If you don't want a GUI, and you're mostly concerned about reducing 
space required, then you might want to start with a custom kernel and 
the busybox shell / basic embedded utilities.

Regards,

Richard


Robert Meier wrote:
> Ray,
>
>   
>> I'd like to experiment with a flash-based, bootable Linux distro.
>> What have y'all found out about such things?
>>     
>
> Several months ago,
> I spent a day unsuccesssuly loading knoppix on a flash drive.
>
>   
>> What's a good place to start,
>>     
>
> I started by simply copying knoppix to the flash drive.
>
>   
>> what kind of experience do people have with them?
>>     
>
> I found that my laptop bios doesn't recognize a usb device as bootable,
> and doesn't recognize the flash drive as a hard disk util after linux
> and its drivers come up.
>
>   
>> In practice, what works better - all on flash,
>> or a combination of a bootable CD/DVD and a flash drive as a home directory?
>>     
>
> <SUGGESTION>
> Unless your bios can boot from usb, you will need boot from a CD/DVD.
> If you are already using a CD/DVD, I see no benefit from putting the OS
> anywhere else.
> The flash drive is then the storage for your home directory,
> OS extensions (e.g. /opt), ...
> </SUGGESTION>
>
> I did not have time to actually implement the above suggestion,
> so there may be pitfalls.
>
> Suggesting,
>