PenDriveLinuX

All In One Pendrivelinux 2008

2008-10-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

This ALL In One version of Pendrivelinux 2008 can be run from a USB thumbdrive either natively (as a stand alone Operating System at boot), or within Windows using qemu emulation. Moreover, the user can save installed software, changes, bookmarks, email, contacts and more automatically via a persistent loop image and then restore those changes upon subsequent qemu or native boots. This is a major breakthrough as the user can now run Pendrivelinux 2008 from a USB device even if the computer cannot natively boot from USB and still save changes persistently to be restored regardless of whether booting natively or from qemu.

Kudo's goes out to Gerardo Nevarez for the preparation of initrd.gz to make both Native and Qemu Pendrivelinux 2008 boot processes possible while running persistently.

Warnings:

* Do not attempt to use the USB drive while running Pendrivelinux via Qemu or you will corrupt the filesystem.
* By default, Pendrivelinux will setup user networking, so that you can mount shares on the host computer by pointing to smb://10.0.2.2. You have to set the network card to use DHCP.

All In One Pendrivelinux 2008 running Natively:

ALL In One Pendrivelinux 2008 running via Qemu:

Prerequisites:

1GB or larger USB flash drive
AIOPendrivelinux08.zip
Windows Host to perform the install
PC must be able to boot from USB

Installing All In One Pendrivelinux 2008 from Windows:

Download the HP USB Disk Storage format tool and format your stick using a Fat16 or Fat32 filesystem
Download AIOPendrivelinux08.zip
Extract the contents from AIOPendrivelinux08.zip to your USB device
From your USB device, click makeboot.bat to make the drive bootable

Launching All In One Pendrivelinux 2008:

There are two ways to run Pendrivelinux (1) Natively (2) Qemu:

For Native boot, reboot your computer and set your boot menu or BIOS to boot from the USB thumbdrive, save your settings and continue to boot
For Qemu boot, simply launch qemu.bat from the USB thumbdrive and Pendrivelinux will launch within Windows. However, please note that this does NOT work in Vista yet!

Login and passwords:

User: root password: root

User: guest password: guest

Additional notes: A loopfile with a capacity of 256MB has already been created on the USB flash device. If you would like to use a larger loopfile for saving changes, boot using the Boot Live (non persistent) option. Then delete the mcnlive.loop file on your flash drive and create a new VFAT loopfile by clicking the Penguin in the Taskbar and navigating to Pendrivelinux-> Create persistent loop and following the onscreen instructions.

The Remaster Live script used to create Pendrivelinux is included in the download as is seen in the screenshot above, just before the Create persistent loop entry.
This remaster was made from MCNLive and is based on the free Mandriva Linux distribution "without changing the source". Sources are available from ftp.nluug.nl and distrib-coffee or from one of the mirrors.

USB Ubuntu 8.10 install from Windows (non Persistent)

2008-10-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 8.10 USB Live installation from Windows: This simple tutorial covers how to install, boot and then run Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) from a USB flash drive. Upon completion of this simple tutorial, Ubuntu 8.10 can be run from the portable flash device in the same fashion (but much faster) than it would from the Live CD. This specific tutorial does not cover a Ubuntu 8.10 persistence (persistent) feature option. Hence the user cannot save changes back to the USB device using this tutorial.

Note: This is a QuicknEasy USB Ubuntu 8.10 install. Once finished, the installation will act just like the Live CD. No changes are saved back to the USB stick.

USB Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Desktop:

USB Ubuntu 8.10 creation essentials:

Windows PC to perform conversion
Ubuntu 8.10 ISO (the script can download it)
1GB or larger USB flash drive
UB810.exe (contains the files to do the conversion)
HP USB format tool (to format and make the flash drive active)

Easy Ubuntu 8.10 USB flash drive installation tutorial:

Download the HP USB format tool and format your stick using a Fat32 file system
Download and launch UB810.exe, a Ubuntu810 folder is created
Download the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO and place it in the Ubuntu810 folder. This step is optional, the script will attempt to download the ISO if it is not present
From the Ubuntu810 folder, click Ubuntu810.bat and follow the onscreen instructions
Once the script has finished, restart your PC and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device, save your changes and reboot

If all goes well, you should now be booting from a Live USB version of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ipex.

Known issues: Upon boot from the USB device, you may encounter two messages stating "Unknown keyword in syslinux.cfg". This is because the standard syslinux does not ship with the gfxboot hack. The system should still boot as it would from the Live CD, with the exception that language selection will not be presented.

Ubuntu 8.10 Persistent Flash Drive install from Live CD

2008-10-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 8.10 Persistent flash drive install using the Live CD. This tutorial will enable a user to install Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex to a USB flash drive while booted from the Live CD. In addition the persistence or casper persistent feature will be utilized to automatically save changes back to the thumb drive as you work, and then restore those saved changes upon subsequent boots.

Ubuntu 8.10 USB installation essentials

Working CD Drive and an Ubuntu 8.10 CD
Established internet connection
1GB or larger USB flash drive (2GB or larger for script installations)

Create Ubuntu 8.10 flash drive automatically

Note: With this method, you must use a 2GB or larger thumb drive.

Download the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO and burn it to a CD
Restart your computer, booting from the Live CD
Insert a 2GB or larger USB flash drive
Open a terminal and type the following into the terminal window:

wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/u810/u810.sh

chmod +x u810.sh && sh u810.sh

Follow the onscreen instructions
Once the script has finished, reboot your computer and set your BIOS or boot menu to boot from the USB device

Create Ubuntu 8.10 flash drive manually

Download the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO and burn it to a CD
Restart your computer and boot from the Ubuntu Live CD
Insert a 1GB or larger USB flash drive
Open a terminal window and type sudo su
Now type fdisk -l to list available drives/partitions (note which device is your flash drive Example: /dev/sdb). Throughout this tutorial, replace all instances of x with your flash drive letter. For example, if your flash drive is sdb, replace x with b.
Type umount /dev/sdx1
Type fdisk /dev/sdx
- type p to show the existing partition and d to delete it
- type p again to show any remaining partitions (if partitions exist, repeat the previous step)
- type n to make a new partition
- type p for primary partition
  - type 1 to make this the first partition
  - hit enter to use the default 1st cylinder
  - type +750M to set the partition size
  - type a to make this partition active
  - type 1 to select partition 1
  - type t to change the partition filesystem
  - type 6 to select the fat16 file system
- type n to make another new partition
- type p for primary partition
  - type 2 to make this the second partition
  - hit enter to use the default cylinder
  - hit enter again to use the default last cylinder
  - type w to write the new partition table
Type umount /dev/sdx1 to unmount the partition
Type mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n ubuntu810 /dev/sdx1 to format the first partition
Type umount /dev/sdx2 to ensure the partition is unmounted
Type mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L casper-rw /dev/sdx2 to format the second partition
Remove and re-insert your flash drive (if prompted that a new medium has been detected, select to open in a new window and click ok)
Back at the terminal, type sudo apt-get install syslinux mtools
Type syslinux -sf /dev/sdx1
Type cd /cdrom
Type cp -rfv casper dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines install/mt86plus /media/ubuntu810
Type cd /media/ubuntu810
Type cp isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
Type rm text.cfg
Type wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/u810/text.cfg
Reboot your computer and set your system BIOS boot priority to boot from the USB stick

USB Xubuntu 8.04.1 Persistent install from Linux

2008-10-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

This tutorial covers the process of installing Xubuntu 8.04.1 to a USB flash drive from within a running (Ubuntu) Linux environment. Xubuntu uses the xfce desktop environment as opposed to Gnome or KDE. Xfce helps Xubuntu run smoother and quicker on older and slower PC's. In addition, this installation tutorial utilizes the casper persistence feature to enable changes to be saved and restored on subsequent boots. If you have access to a working Ubuntu Linux installation and your system does not have a CD drive, this tutorial is for you.

Update: Works with Xubuntu 8.04.1only!

Basic essentials for Xubuntu 8.04.1 USB installation:

* Working Linux environment (we used a local Ubuntu installation)
* Established internet connection
* 1GB or larger USB flash drive

How to install Xubuntu 8.04.1 to a flash drive from Linux:

1. Insert a 1GB or larger USB flash drive (2GB+ recommended)
2. Open a terminal and type sudo su
3. As one line, type wget cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/hardy/release/xubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso
4. Type mount -o loop -tiso9660 xubuntu*.iso /cdrom
5. Type fdisk -l to list available drives/partitions (note which device is your flash drive I.E. /dev/sdb). Throughout this tutorial, replace all instances of x with your flash drive letter. For example, if your flash drive is sdb, replace x with b.
6. Type umount /dev/sdx1
7. Type fdisk /dev/sdx
* type p to show the existing partition and d to delete it
* type p again to show any remaining partitions (if partitions exist, repeat the previous step)
* type n to make a new partition
* type p for primary partition
o type 1 to make this the first partition
o hit enter to use the default 1st cylinder
o type +750M to set the partition size
o type a to make this partition active
o type 1 to select partition 1
o type t to change the partition filesystem
o type 6 to select the fat16 file system
* type n to make another new partition
* type p for primary partition
o type 2 to make this the second partition
o hit enter to use the default cylinder
o hit enter again to use the default last cylinder
o type w to write the new partition table
8. Type umount /dev/sdx1 to unmount the partition
9. Type mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n xubuntu8 /dev/sdx1 to format the first partition
10. Type umount /dev/sdx2 to ensure the partition is unmounted
11. Type mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L casper-rw /dev/sdx2 to format the second partition
12. Remove and re-insert your flash drive (if prompted that a new medium has been detected, select to open in a new window and click ok)
13. Back at the terminal, type sudo apt-get install syslinux mtools
14. Type syslinux -sf /dev/sdx1
15. Type cd /cdrom
16. Type cp -rfv casper dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines install/mt86plus /media/xubuntu8
17. Type cd /media/xubuntu8
18. Type wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/xu8/syslinux.cfg
19. Type cd casper
20. Type rm initrd.gz
21. Type wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/xu8/initrd.gz
22. Reboot your computer and set your system BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB stick. Save your changes and proceed to boot from the USB device

You should now be booting Xubuntu 8.04.1 from the memory stick and by default it should save your changes, restoring them on subsequent boots.

Notes: If your having trouble getting Ubuntu to boot, your memory stick may have a corrupted MBR. To repair the MBR of your USB device, at the terminal type sudo apt-get install lilo then type lilo -M /dev/sdx (replacing x with the letter of your flash device)