What is Digg?161 Comments
- phil2490, on 10/27/2007, -1/+54Tutorials this detailed are few and far between. I will definitely try this!
- kirrus, on 10/29/2007, -11/+42Be careful with running a linux distro from a USB key! It can quickly burn up the USB keys' data cells. (Forget the correct term....)
A standard USB key only has 10,000 writes to each area on the disk (minimum cell size tends to be 8-16KB depending on your key & manufacturer). You may see corruptions pretty quickly if you use a USB key for your filesystem...
(Which is why flashlinux uses JFFS2...) - DefaultGen, on 10/26/2007, -3/+29Literally yesterday I installed a driver and Windows completely died on me and I saved my files using an Ubuntu LiveCD. I don't know why I ever thought Linux was useless or for solely extremely savvy people and elitists.
- kushed, on 10/26/2007, -0/+26Any, it will reconfigure itself during boot up and load the appropriate drivers for that machine.
- pak314, on 10/26/2007, -0/+22I think your motherboard still has to support booting from a flash drive. Most new motherboards probably support that already.
- ventralnet, on 10/26/2007, -4/+25hahahahaha you are going to get dugg down so fast.
- kingkilr, on 10/27/2007, -0/+21dyndns ftw
- sardaukar, on 10/30/2007, -2/+22It would be a cooler tutorial if there was no need for a tutorial :) just post a link to a 1GB, 2GB or 4GB image ready to DD into a flash drive already!
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/27/2007, -0/+18You wouldn't have to put up with the ubuntu stories (and we wouldn't have to put up with you...) if you just removed linux from your viewing preferences.
- grinding, on 10/26/2007, -1/+18Seems like a good way to carry around a portable Web/FTP server. With a big enough drive I can see someone hosting various files/torrents (legal or otherwise) on random computers (universities, libraries, and the like).
- ausfahrt, on 10/26/2007, -2/+17Try reading the article !?!?!?
- skiCO, on 10/26/2007, -2/+16How new does a computer have to be to boot from the USB? Would you need access to the bios to configure the boot priorities? I'm asking because this could be pretty useful for keeping your account info secure while traveling. I'm using a U3 system to keep everything safe but this definitely steps it up a notch!
- ubuwalker31, on 10/27/2007, -5/+18Does that mean you like Ubuntu? I mean, since you like suckin balls and everything...
- joolz, on 10/26/2007, -1/+14Or download this script: http://kiwilinux.org/public/isotostick.sh
and type: sudo ./isotostick.sh /path/to/image.iso /dev/sdb1
Courtesy of : http://janimo.blogspot.com/2007/10/live-cd-on-usb- ... - MicrosoftBob, on 10/27/2007, -3/+16Compared to what? Other distros? Windows? Mac? Olive Garden?
- bjxrn, on 10/26/2007, -5/+17Is it possible to switch the USB stick between computers, or will ubuntu be configured for a speciffic computer?
- chsbrgr, on 10/26/2007, -1/+13when ball-sucking enters the development stage I'm sure they'll be calling on him for some *style* tips
- TH3W1R3D, on 10/26/2007, -0/+12Better than calling it Olegovich. Man would that sound terrible...
- TH3W1R3D, on 10/27/2007, -2/+12Couldn't have come at a better time. My cd-rom drive on my laptop just broke and I was looking to install Ubuntu. Bye bye M$.
- sleekdraft, on 10/26/2007, -3/+13awesome tutorial. =)
- Etaoin, on 10/27/2007, -3/+13The thing about a server is it's only useful if other people know where to find it.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/27/2007, -0/+9how would it be any more static than installing it manually? once you dd the image, it would be just as if you had installed it yourself.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/27/2007, -0/+9Perhaps some of them could - by 1999 most Mobos *had* usb drives - but many of them couldn't boot from them. I have a few Mobos as new as 2003 that can't
- NJank, on 10/26/2007, -0/+9I tend to keep a Knoppix LiveCD around just for that purpose. A little easier accessing NTFS volumes out of the box. Not that it's that hard in Ubuntu, but every little bit...
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/27/2007, -0/+9From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb_key#Weaknesses
"Mid-range flash drives under normal conditions will support several hundred thousand cycles..."
Swap usage shouldnt be a problem if the computers you use have enough RAM since linux doesn't really use swap space until physical memory is full.
Also, doesn't linux buffer disk writes to reduce those kinds of problems (as well as corrupted disks during power loss and others)?
In the future it *would* be nice to see more official support for this like alternate filesystems to accomodate, but I'm not sure its as serious an issue as some think. - plizard, on 10/26/2007, -3/+12another win for linux!
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/26/2007, -0/+8It depends on the motherboard, as some supported it before others. I'd say most computers made in the last 2/3 years (maybe except some really cheap laptops) should have this support.
Theres usually a prompt for a boot menu on the initial boot screen. Something like 'Press F2 to enter system setup, press F12 for boot menu' where the boot menu is just a list of detected bootable drives. - MicrosoftBob, on 10/27/2007, -0/+8Dugg down for signature.
- DefaultGen, on 10/26/2007, -1/+9+10 points for not owning an XP cd? I just borrowed a friends TinyXP cd to install windows.
- MicrosoftBob, on 10/26/2007, -0/+8But then he wouldn't get the pleasure from getting the Ubuntu supporters' goats.
When you feed the troll it tends to keep coming back. - marshmel, on 10/26/2007, -3/+10Thanks for this great how to! It's the only one that has ever worked for me. Thank you!!!!!!
- TH3W1R3D, on 10/27/2007, -1/+8Why doesn't somebody just follow these steps, archive the whole flash drive files to a rar, and upload it via bittorrent?
I would, but I am one lazy bastard. - TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/26/2007, -0/+7Interestingly, windows 98 was pretty good at adjusting to new hardware, probably because its foundation (DOS, really) wasn't too complicated - it would just go through a process of detecting everything and installing new drivers. This was one of the few things to actually get worse with the switch to the NT base - XP has a conniption when you seriously change hardware on it (and I don't just mean activation...)
- DefaultGen, on 10/26/2007, -1/+8Who puts "tear" before "wear" ?
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/26/2007, -0/+6I don't know - not needing different ghost images for different computer hardware configurations would be a big hit with corporate sysadmins - and since MS primarily targets businesses I'd think that if they could do it, they would.
- ubuwalker31, on 10/26/2007, -0/+6The question isn't how new...its whether the motherboard bios supports booting AND whether the bios has been locked out. It is hit or miss, really, with hotel computers.
- stutimandal, on 10/27/2007, -2/+8Kirrus is wrong. Memory cells have write cycles (the number of unique writes you can perform) of about 1 million now. If you use a SanDisk memory key, it surely should be fine for a while.
Also remember, that Sandisk's technology allows infinite number of reads, but only a finite number of write cycles (1 million).
Flash Hard-Disk would not have been a reality if write cycles were only 10000 - DefaultGen, on 10/26/2007, -0/+6I believe Knoppix mounts the volume automatically and puts in on your desktop.
- Skod, on 10/25/2007, -0/+6That's why I have mine on a small hard disk that powers itself from the USB.
- zezerik, on 10/26/2007, -0/+6I believe you hold Shift-A and punch yourself in the nuts.
- zwaldowski, on 10/26/2007, -1/+6Yes, but copying the CD gives you the hardware detection support. The Ubuntu you 'installed' is configured for YOUR computer, primarily in X11.
- edzilla, on 10/26/2007, -0/+5samba is integrated, and what kind of GUI exactly are you talking about?
- plizard, on 10/26/2007, -0/+5this looks like a better idea than running a vm on my machine since i'm looking to learn linux.
- zezerik, on 10/26/2007, -0/+5what article?
- NJank, on 10/25/2007, -0/+5It will (should) run just like a LiveCD, which self-configures. Now, some of your individual data and settings may be specific to the platform you're using it on, but that will vary from case to case.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 10/26/2007, -0/+5Not trolling - serious question - what do they do to make it easier?
- NJank, on 10/26/2007, -0/+4This is correct. I spent an evening or two trying to get one working on my laptop. QEMU would virtually boot just fine off the stick within windows, but it would never actually boot successfully. Finally just gave up after reading about the couple different methods that a motherboard could treat a USB device at boot, and that only certain ones would work. (and my laptop, a not too old Dell Inspiron D610, apparently didn't support the write method.)
- condormcs, on 10/26/2007, -0/+4Would there be any point to putting it on the USB drive in the first place if you weren't going to run it on different comps?
- TheRealPod, on 10/26/2007, -0/+4I did kill a drive this way. I think it was from trying to format it however. All of a sudden it started freezing after sustained writes. I also went with a small hard drive, but I'd like to upgrade to 7.10 without losing everything....
- TH3W1R3D, on 10/26/2007, -2/+6Yay, USB Flash Drive tear and wear!
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