My current IT projects
USB Key drive Live Linux installation
The result would a small piece of kit that you can easily carry with you, plug in and fire up a PC into Linux from the stick! And I want lots of tools useful for helping fixing computers. Of course you can now buy USB U3 sticks already loaded with applications set up with your data/settings. Some sites have Linux on a stick for sale too!
I have done some research now and there are a few distros that offer this sort of package or parts of it:
- RIP - the (R)ecovery (I)s (P)ossible Linux rescue system
- SysLinux a boot loader so needs other bits
- DSL - small and extendable
You can get DSL to boot from a pen drive (PC permitting) and add various tools so looking at this for a start. You have to admire the guys who put the efforts into these projects and share their results. So far I have managed to use QEMU to run DSL in a window on a few XP machines. Booting the Live CD version on an old (1998 Toshiba Satellite) nearly worked. It seemed to fail at the last step when trying to fire up the windows manager. I suspect the meager 64MB of RAM was an issue; I think they recommend 128MB. I did get it running in the emulator though on the same machine.
September 2007
The instructions I started from needed a 256MB USB pen drive and trying with a bigger capacity one failed when trying to format the drive so I spent time looking for a smaller one. No luck finding any this small. The smallest in my local shops started at 1GB! So I have invested in the new book by the DSL guys: the DSL Official book. So when I get time I will try putting DSL on that.
