I'd like to install Puppy on a USB stick, giving be a portable Linux computer that lets me bypass any Wankows installations on other hardware.
Last time I attempted to put a suitable file system on a USB stick, it wiped the stick, leaving it unusable. I've heard that sticks from different manufacturers have different qualities of memory, and thus differ in the number of times they can withstand writes/rewrites.
I was using a Verbatim 2Gig stick from a discount retailer. Could somebody please advise me as to the relative quality of Verbatim sticks, or if there is something else that I'm doing wrong.
TIA
USB Stick Problems
Hi Plymouth,
I've run a Verbatim 2g for years without problems (even used it for a swap for 6 months on a diskless machine).
I now use Sandisk Cruzers as I think they are faster but both are good quality from my experience.
Use Gparted to format the broken sticks to ext3 and you should find them usable again for Linux.
Best,
Eric
EDIT: you need to get rid of U3 on the stick to use it in Linux.
I've run a Verbatim 2g for years without problems (even used it for a swap for 6 months on a diskless machine).
I now use Sandisk Cruzers as I think they are faster but both are good quality from my experience.
Use Gparted to format the broken sticks to ext3 and you should find them usable again for Linux.
Best,
Eric
EDIT: you need to get rid of U3 on the stick to use it in Linux.
Last edited by Caneri on Fri 09 Jan 2009, 19:03, edited 1 time in total.
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
Chinese Proverb[/color]
Chinese Proverb[/color]
I recommend partitioning the USB Pen Drive using GParted in Puppy. Frequently the USB Pen Drives come with a file system in an unpartitioned space.
Second. I've found that the Boot manager installer that comes with Slax works in most USB Pen Drives. Actually I usually use it and then add the puppy entry to the menu.
Second. I've found that the Boot manager installer that comes with Slax works in most USB Pen Drives. Actually I usually use it and then add the puppy entry to the menu.
[url]http://rarsa.blogspot.com[/url] Covering my eclectic thoughts
[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to
[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to
I installed it on a Kingston DataTraveler like this:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=36014
Artie
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=36014
Artie
UNetbootin FTW!
UNetbootin is the hot ticket for this, IMHO:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Installs Puppy to USB right from the .iso...
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Installs Puppy to USB right from the .iso...
The puppy universal installer on the setup menu includes an experimental install option for memory sticks that will repartition the disk automatically.
Some people have reported problems using unetbootin (and some have reported problems using the universal installer).
Some people have reported problems using unetbootin (and some have reported problems using the universal installer).
Will
contribute: [url=http://www.puppylinux.org]community website[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/6c3nm6]screenshots[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/6j2gbz]puplets[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/57gykn]wiki[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/5dgr83]rss[/url]
contribute: [url=http://www.puppylinux.org]community website[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/6c3nm6]screenshots[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/6j2gbz]puplets[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/57gykn]wiki[/url], [url=http://tinyurl.com/5dgr83]rss[/url]
Yep - the Universal Installer wouldn't work for me, but UNetbootin did...HairyWill wrote:The puppy universal installer on the setup menu includes an experimental install option for memory sticks that will repartition the disk automatically.
Some people have reported problems using unetbootin (and some have reported problems using the universal installer).
Thought I'd put in my 2 cents. I've tried to install puppy on USB various times. Most recently, last week and today. So here's some "what works and what doesn't" info from my experience...
I'll skip my previous attempts because I don't remember how they went.
Recently I bought a 2GB SD card for my camera. The label on it boasted good speeds of 15MB/s. I verified this with Flash Memory Toolkit. I dunno how realistic figures that program gives, but it was good enough for comparison between USB devices.
My new SD card gave me 18 MB/s read speed. Even better than the 15MB/s it said on the card. My older 512MB SD card gave me 6MB/s. I put that thing back in my 5MP camera that doesn't require huge speeds.
My Cruzer Micro gave me a steady 14MB/s read speed.
My dad's Kingston DataTraveler (1GB) was lying on teh table so I tested that as well: measly 6 MB/s. I stole an 8GB SDHC card from my sister's camera: 16 MB/s.
So anyway, I thought read speed is the key here and installed Puppy on the 2GB SD card using an external USB card reader to connect it. The installation went just fine with all default settings. I kept the FAT filesystem.
But, PC #1 refused to boot from the card reader. Another, more modern PC (PC#2 from now on) booted it fine and I was happy
I still need to compare times between Live-CD and SD boot times. Maybe try to make the SD card ext3 and see if that makes a difference (I think the pup_410.sfs gets uncompressed when I do that?)
On to the Cruzer Micro. Actually I did this before trying the SD card. I didn't use the universal installer, but I ran Unetbootin in Windows instead to make a "live-USB".
It refused to boot on PC #1 at first.. After a while I noticed I had to make changes to the hard disk priority in the BIOS. I had set it to boot from "Removable", but for some reason the Cruzer was recognized as a USB-HDD, which wasn't a boot option, but showed under hard disks. This was stupid because it wouldn't remember the HDD priority if I removed the drive. Basically I have to go the BIOS every time before trying to boot Puppy from that stick. But at least it works. After realizing this issue, I retried the SD stick. That one still refused to boot. It wasn't listed as a USB-HDD either.
Cruzer Micro also booted just fine on PC#2. I haven't tried an "install" on it yet, just Unetbootin.
My big challenge today was to get Puppy running from a 320GB FAT32-formatted LaCie Mobile Disk. I've tried this before on PC #2 and failed. Decided to give it another try.
I ran the universal installer using PC #1. I had 200GB of data on the drive by now so wiping wasn't an option. I stuck with FAT32 and the defaults. Gparted confirmed that the partition had the boot flag set.
Haviing learned that BIOS would most likely recognize the device as USB-HDD instead of "Removable" (whatever that's supposed to mean, then), I went to set the boot priorities right away and yes, it was USB-HDD. Meaning that I'd have to enter the BIOS everytime unless I kept the thing plugged in at all times, in which case it would always boot puppy, which is not the way I want. However, it worked flawlessly.
With high hopes I plugged the hard drive into a USB port on PC #2, knowing that PC #2 had booted both Cruzer Micro and an SD card without BIOS hassle other than setting Removable as the first boot device. I booted up the computer. Failure.
I went to check the hard drives in BIOS. For some reason this computer will NOT recognize the Lacie as a USB-HDD, nor "removable". I'm very disappointed about this.
UPDATE: I just found out that the M2N-E comes with a boot menu, activated by pressing F8 at startup. From the boot menu I can choose the LaCie no problem! Now I'm very pleased with PC #2. It can boot anything! Just why didn't ASUS tell me about this cool menu before by, say, putting a white text during boot-up saying "F8 for Boot Menu"?
On my To Do list:
- Try ext3 on the SD card. EDIT: Done. Works better with FAT. Boots 10 seconds faster (53s from power-on to desktop) than ext3 or even a live-CD with the pup_410 and save files on the internal HDD! I would have expected otherwise. Hmm, live-SD with Unetbootin with pup_410 and pup_save on HDD? When I have time, I'll try.
- Make a real install on the Cruzer Micro instead of Unetbootin. See what happens.
- Use Unetbootin on the LaCie and see what happens with PC #2. EDIT: Nevermind, happy now that it boots. Will need to measure and compare boot times to SD.
Extra info:
PC#1 has an Asus A7S8X-MX motherboard. Win XP Home on IDE HDD.
PC #2 has an Asus M2N-E motherboard. Win XP Pro on SATA HDD.
Both only have the one hard drive installed with WinXP on it.
I'll skip my previous attempts because I don't remember how they went.
Recently I bought a 2GB SD card for my camera. The label on it boasted good speeds of 15MB/s. I verified this with Flash Memory Toolkit. I dunno how realistic figures that program gives, but it was good enough for comparison between USB devices.
My new SD card gave me 18 MB/s read speed. Even better than the 15MB/s it said on the card. My older 512MB SD card gave me 6MB/s. I put that thing back in my 5MP camera that doesn't require huge speeds.
My Cruzer Micro gave me a steady 14MB/s read speed.
My dad's Kingston DataTraveler (1GB) was lying on teh table so I tested that as well: measly 6 MB/s. I stole an 8GB SDHC card from my sister's camera: 16 MB/s.
So anyway, I thought read speed is the key here and installed Puppy on the 2GB SD card using an external USB card reader to connect it. The installation went just fine with all default settings. I kept the FAT filesystem.
But, PC #1 refused to boot from the card reader. Another, more modern PC (PC#2 from now on) booted it fine and I was happy
I still need to compare times between Live-CD and SD boot times. Maybe try to make the SD card ext3 and see if that makes a difference (I think the pup_410.sfs gets uncompressed when I do that?)On to the Cruzer Micro. Actually I did this before trying the SD card. I didn't use the universal installer, but I ran Unetbootin in Windows instead to make a "live-USB".
It refused to boot on PC #1 at first.. After a while I noticed I had to make changes to the hard disk priority in the BIOS. I had set it to boot from "Removable", but for some reason the Cruzer was recognized as a USB-HDD, which wasn't a boot option, but showed under hard disks. This was stupid because it wouldn't remember the HDD priority if I removed the drive. Basically I have to go the BIOS every time before trying to boot Puppy from that stick. But at least it works. After realizing this issue, I retried the SD stick. That one still refused to boot. It wasn't listed as a USB-HDD either.
Cruzer Micro also booted just fine on PC#2. I haven't tried an "install" on it yet, just Unetbootin.
My big challenge today was to get Puppy running from a 320GB FAT32-formatted LaCie Mobile Disk. I've tried this before on PC #2 and failed. Decided to give it another try.
I ran the universal installer using PC #1. I had 200GB of data on the drive by now so wiping wasn't an option. I stuck with FAT32 and the defaults. Gparted confirmed that the partition had the boot flag set.
Haviing learned that BIOS would most likely recognize the device as USB-HDD instead of "Removable" (whatever that's supposed to mean, then), I went to set the boot priorities right away and yes, it was USB-HDD. Meaning that I'd have to enter the BIOS everytime unless I kept the thing plugged in at all times, in which case it would always boot puppy, which is not the way I want. However, it worked flawlessly.
With high hopes I plugged the hard drive into a USB port on PC #2, knowing that PC #2 had booted both Cruzer Micro and an SD card without BIOS hassle other than setting Removable as the first boot device. I booted up the computer. Failure.
I went to check the hard drives in BIOS. For some reason this computer will NOT recognize the Lacie as a USB-HDD, nor "removable". I'm very disappointed about this.
UPDATE: I just found out that the M2N-E comes with a boot menu, activated by pressing F8 at startup. From the boot menu I can choose the LaCie no problem! Now I'm very pleased with PC #2. It can boot anything! Just why didn't ASUS tell me about this cool menu before by, say, putting a white text during boot-up saying "F8 for Boot Menu"?
On my To Do list:
- Try ext3 on the SD card. EDIT: Done. Works better with FAT. Boots 10 seconds faster (53s from power-on to desktop) than ext3 or even a live-CD with the pup_410 and save files on the internal HDD! I would have expected otherwise. Hmm, live-SD with Unetbootin with pup_410 and pup_save on HDD? When I have time, I'll try.
- Make a real install on the Cruzer Micro instead of Unetbootin. See what happens.
- Use Unetbootin on the LaCie and see what happens with PC #2. EDIT: Nevermind, happy now that it boots. Will need to measure and compare boot times to SD.
Extra info:
PC#1 has an Asus A7S8X-MX motherboard. Win XP Home on IDE HDD.
PC #2 has an Asus M2N-E motherboard. Win XP Pro on SATA HDD.
Both only have the one hard drive installed with WinXP on it.
Last edited by Zeppis on Wed 14 Jan 2009, 18:17, edited 1 time in total.
Pesky USB Installs
To all who have problems with pesky USB installs read the Free PDF book by Grant Wilson...
It sure worked for me....
Grant's Book can be down loaded FREE from:
Check it out here: http://www.lulu.com/content/5560578
It sure worked for me....
Grant's Book can be down loaded FREE from:
Check it out here: http://www.lulu.com/content/5560578