11 replies to this topic

[nyphonejacks]

I am looking to install an OS onto a thumb drive I have just sitting here.

I do not have much Linux experience, so something with a GUI would be preferred.

I do not have a reason, or objective with doing this, I just want to mess around with it - if I find it useful I may consider getting a larger thumb drive to install something with more features.

only requirements would be:
1: my pen drive that i have is only 512M (windows shows 486MB)

2: this will be used on my acer aspire one netbook, so at minimum should have drivers available for the trackpad. As long as the wired NIC was supported WiFi connection is not necessary but would be nice (Atheros AR5B95)


if you have a recommendation, i would appreciate help with installing an OS onto a USB thumbdrive.

thanks...

[johnnymanson]

I tried out Damn Small Linux a while back. It is small enough to fit on your flash drive. Don't know how well it work on the Aspire One but it worked ok on the desktop PC I tried it on. Puppy Linux is another small one. Here is the link to DSL.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

I also recommend UNetbootin to make bootable USB drives. It comes with several Linux distros and some utilities. You might want to check it out.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Good Luck

[nyphonejacks]

I tried out Damn Small Linux a while back. It is small enough to fit on your flash drive. Don't know how well it work on the Aspire One but it worked ok on the desktop PC I tried it on. Puppy Linux is another small one. Here is the link to DSL.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

I also recommend UNetbootin to make bootable USB drives. It comes with several Linux distros and some utilities. You might want to check it out.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Good Luck

nice loader... i just tried installing puppy with the loader you linked to, but it dropped me to a command line and not a GUI, and since i am a complete N00b with linux, i am going to try to load some of the other distros onto this thumb drive to play around with

[johnnymanson]

The bootable USB drive is not really the best way to play around with Linux because usually the USB installs are not persistent. By that I mean that when you boot into the USB install and make changes to the OS such as screen background WIFI settings or anything else really they aren't saved. Rebooting causes all the changes you made to revert to whatever they were when you initially setup the install. I have a secondary hard drive in my PC with Ubuntu installed on it. With a dual boot system like mine you can use Windows or Linux according to what you want do. This really comes in handy when Windows crashes and you need to recover files. With dual boot any changes you make in the OS are saved and you can get really learn a lot about Linux.

[nyphonejacks]

i understand that it is not the ideal way to run a linux distro..

but i have several reasons to get my feet wet this way..

first off, i am playing around with it on a netbook, so i could not easily reinstall windows..

secondly, i want to learn about live USB installs so that i can use a distro on any PC that i have physical access to

finally, so that i can play around with different distros.... i do have 4 PCs that are not currently being used, that I will likely use some form of linux on at least a few of them...

[jeremy_]

Get a better thumbdrive, a 4gb costs $10 now.
http://www.geteasypeasy.com/ was designed for Eeepc's.

[nyphonejacks]

Get a better thumbdrive, a 4gb costs $10 now.
http://www.geteasypeasy.com/ was designed for Eeepc's.

yea i am going to get another thumb drive, i saw an 8gb one for like $15-20 today... just wanted to play around the other night with what was on hand..

[johnnymanson]

If you go with the larger drive give Backtrack a try.

[nyphonejacks]

If you go with the larger drive give Backtrack a try.

thanks for all of the useful assistance... going to have to wait till at least next week to pick up a larger thumb drive as funding is low, and any funding that i have has to last to cover my nicotine habit...

probably should have picked one up yesterday when I was at radio shack - but at least on a side note, i did pick up a replacement rubberized antenna for my scanner - and it was only 97 cents! now if i could only find a digital scanner that doesn't cost so much money everything will be good... =)

[5imp7y]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Its your best shot on a 512mb jumpdrive, but it is a guest OS.

I agree with jeremy. Even a 2gb will work.

[bardolph]

i found on a drawer an old mp3 player 256mb that could be used as a thumbdrive- but then i thought i could not save anything, for there could not be a casper file
i use ubuntu and mint in 4g and 8g thumbs with casper and they work great

[Afterm4th]

If you go with the larger drive give Backtrack a try.

+1


Also, Hirens Boot CD. You can put it on a flash drive, it has a miniXP loader, a crap load of DOS tools and the newer versions (v13+) has a mini linux loader.. I havent played with it much but I believe it's a stripped down ubuntu

it also has a shitload of DOS tools with shit like manufacturer HDD test tools, active kill disk for DOS, memtest+ and all sorts of other awesome shizz

www.hiren.info <- hiren is from India and he told me he was a guy, but I imagine hiren as a sexy blonde indian babe for some reason.

Edit: its also smaller than 500MB!

Edited by Afterm4th, 25 February 2011 - 04:57 AM.