Booting from 8GB USB flash memory sticks? (was RE: [lug] Next Install Fest)

[Hugh Brown]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Stephen Queen wrote:

> On 1/10/07, siegfried <siegfried at heintze.com> wrote:
> >
> > I just had another thought: I've been google searching for the procedure to
> > boot from a USB flash memory stick. I think this would be an extremely
> > useful thing to do. Does anyone know how to do this? I have a few links I'm
> > currently reading up on that I have found by google searching and posting
> > queries in forums. Someone in some forum explained that FC6 requires 7GB. I
> > just found some 8GB flash memory USB sticks for $100. 16GB and 32GB sticks
> > are available for more $.
> >
> > Would this be a topic for a monthly meeting or an install fest? Has anyone
> > done this? I would love to have a meeting where we have a presentation on
> > booting from a USB memory stick followed by a laboratory exercise where we
> > all configure our computers to boot from our own flash memory sticks.
> >
> > Siegfried
> >
> I got grub to load from the MBR of a 1 GB stick once. I didn't have a
> kernel or anything for it to boot, I was just playing.
>
> I have loaded linux on a 20 GB USB Hard Drive for some people at work,
> that didn't want to modify there company supplied laptops, but were
> interested in running linux. It is a fairly simple process. Most of it
> involves either configuring initrd to load the correct drivers and
> then doing the pivot-root correctly, or maybe just compiling the
> kernel with the drivers. I haven't tried the 2nd method so I don't
> know how well it works.
>


The other gotcha is that the BIOS of the box you boot has to support
booting from USB and it has to be enabled (which might be a problem if you
don't own the box).

Hugh