[NBLUG/talk] Linux on USB

[Mark Street]

I see where you are going with this.  I do this all the time with my 
Soekris boxes (AMD Geode 586) and with the DreamPlug dev environment 
(ARM based).  With these we work with CF, SD and minSD.  All of these 
are headless and must be accessed through serial port or boot 
environment until you get networking up.

Debian is your best best as Frank mentioned earlier for the smaller / 
specialty based processors.  You can get the RH/Fedora/CentOS distros to 
go as well depending on your hardware.  I am building up a CentOS 6.2 
install onto a Soekris right now to fit on a 4G CF card.  Installed it 
today in fact.

http://wiki.soekris.info/Installing_Ubuntu_7.04_Server_via_debootstrap
http://alpha.freearchive.org/o/76580f60419bfb4417f23edbf4b50519cf8cb25ff21ca210f4a29a4cc5acabbe

Have fun..


On 12/26/2011 11:33 AM, glenn at spontaneousdancing.net wrote:
> Dearest NBLUGers,
>
> I come to you with a question.
>
> I need to have a lightweight, x86-compatible (i586 specifically) GNU/Linux
> distribution. I can't use VGA (so X is useless), and require serial
> communication.
>
> I also need to add some additional software packages and need to build my
> own kernel.
>
> The trick is that I need the Linux distro to boot and operate like a
> LiveUSB, in so far as that I can tell my BIOS to boot from USB and
> eventually land in a root shell.
>
> My current solution is insufficient.
>
> I looked into modifying an Ubuntu LiveCD and then putting that onto a USB
> stick. See this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallCDCustomization
> . This is, however, very tedious.
>
> Can any other Linux hackers help me out?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
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