I want to carry around the Mandriva 8.1 installation DVD on a USB stick for convenience. It's too big for a 4GB stick, so I bought a new 8GB stick. Fine, but the new stick comes with a VFAT filesystem, which will not store a single 4.2GB file. So I tried to break it up into partitions and mkfs.ext3 on a big one; this appeared to work, but appearances are apparently misleading. I've been looking for a general introduction to "Partitions and Filesystems on a USB Stick" but couldn't find one. Does anyone know (a) if this can be done at all; and if so, ( how to do it? This isn't the first time I've been burned by the VFAT file size limit. The worst thing about it is that a too-large file copied to a VFAT filesystem appears to have transferred without incident, but is actually just truncated at (IIRC) 1 GB. WOOPS! I meant Mandriva 2008.1, not 8.1, doh!

I would suggest getting a more recent release of Mandriva. 8.1 is really, really, really, really old. In fact, it may not even install/work from USB.

I think he meant Mandriva 2008.1, not 8.1.

Yeah, I don't believe Mandrake Linux 8.1 was even on a DVD.

You never know...
Sometimes I don't think before I post. It's a bad habit...

Wouldn't it be better (and easier) to carry around the Mandriva One and use that as an installation source instead.

That memory stick does not have to be fat32. There is no reason why it cannot be converted to ext3 so there would no longer be a 4Gb limit would there ???. I think I am I correct in believing that NTSF has no such limit but then of course you can't install Mandriva on to NTSF and why would you.

I am pretty sure there is a method to install mandriva on to a USB memory stick somewhere, isn't there ???.
After all Mandriva does it with their own Mandriva Flash.

Cheers. John.

Using a journaling filesystem on a memory stick will kill it in no time. Suggest using ext2, it will be faster without the journaling - not as safe, but the problem is journaling will kill the memory stick far quicker. Of course, they are so cheap that it doesn't matter, but I don't like to waste memory sticks

I have that, of course, but Mandriva One is not a complete distro, unless you want to debate the semantics of "complete".

That's what I was wondering. Obviously "it can be done", but when I tried it using fdisk the results were confusing, to say the least. "Didn't work" is an oversimplification. Does anyone know of an operational "stick partitioner"?

Yes, so I've heard; but I'm not talking about using the stick to run from, I just want to install from it, which should be no more wear than ordinary usage (unless I'm missing something important here). I want to make a "DVD stick" and use it exactly the way one would use a DVD.

You could try using dd to put the image on the usb stick, but I don't honestly know if it would boot afterwards. However, what you could do is make sure you have a partition on the usb stick using the full space, hopefully about 4gb if it's a dvd, and then:



presuming that:

filename.iso = mandriva version you downloaded of the dvd iso.
/dev/sdb1 being the usb stick on your system - change this where necessary because I don't know what disks are in your system, etc. The command dd will read the dvd iso using the if parameter and then output it using the of parameter to the usb stick.

As I said, I don't know if it will work, but that would be how to write it to the usb stick from what I know.

stupid question, but did you try the partition tool (diskdrake) from the control center?

It was a few months ago so I can't remember for sure, but I think so. Can't recall the outcome, but I do remember coming away with the firm impression that, "There's more to partitioning a stick than meets the eye."

Maybe try again, I guess you have little to loose....