installing linux from USB?

[Kerry Hoath]

Many installers do loop mount an iso off the thumb drive and are configured 
to do so. Debian's installer can do that, as can Ubuntu's.

They expect to load the kernel and initial ram disk, and then find the rest 
of the installer after that.
Usually the kernel is loaded by a boot loader such as syslinux, grub lilo or 
similar. The boot loader also has to understand and load an initial ramdisk, 
then once that is all set the installer finds components from there.
It can pick the files directly up off the thumb drive, however depending 
what file system you have on the drive depends whether Linux or the Bios can 
recognize it.
Whatever file system you use needs to be supported by Linux and preferably 
support long file names unless you use the .iso file and the installer loop 
mounts it.


Many bioses won't boot a USB drive unless it contains a FAT file system 
either in floppy mode, (no partition table)
or on a primary fat partition complete with boot sector and partition table.
This is the difference between booting USB floppy, and USB HDD support.
If booting from an USB CDROM it's an eltorato boot and different again.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cody" <churst35 at verizon.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: installing linux from USB?


> Why burn the iso? just extract the files from the iso and then copy them 
> onto the drive and boot with it. an iso program is not going to pick up a 
> USB thumb drive because it is looking for a opticle drive/that is what 
> those apps are designed to burn on.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 11:36 AM
> Subject: installing linux from USB?
>
>
>> Hello,
>> Is it possible for me somehow to take an iso and write it to a USB key so 
>> I can install debian like that? the computer I want deb on has a messed 
>> up cd drive.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
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