Guest Crusty Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 I recently downloaded Mandriva One 2007 and I love it, but I want to be able to customise my settings and keep them rather than losing everything when I reboot, so I tried the 'Live Install'. I didn't want to put anything on my hard drive so I tried to install to a 1GB USB flash drive, which the installer recognised and partitioned automatically with the 'Erase and Use Entire Disk' option. After it had changed the partitions it said that I needed to reboot for the changes to take effect, which I did, then I selected 'Use Existing Partitions' on sdf6 (my usb drive). The progress bar comes up with the 'copying files' window which normally gets to either about 2 blocks in or just over half way (I have tried it several times) when the computer freezes (apart from the mouse) and there is no disk activity on the CD or USB drives. Is there a way to do a 'Live Install' install onto a USB disk? Or alternatively, getting the USB disk to act as a Live CD, but saving my files, programs and settings onto it? I have managed to put SLAX onto a usb disk before using the guide at www.pendrivelinux.com but this didn't seen to work on Mandriva if I followed the same instructions. Also, I notice that there is a folder called USB in the same place as the CD folder in the iso file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 AFAIK Mandriva One isn't designed to be installed on a pendrive. And (this is a warning!) using a permanent swap file on a pendrive isn't recomended- the drive will be killed way sooner than expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crusty Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 Is there a way to get it to save your files and settings to a USB disk though so you can use it with the Live CD to keep your files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crusty Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 using a permanent swap file on a pendrive isn't recomended- the drive will be killed way sooner than expected. Isn't this what windows vista does with readyboost - constantly reading and writing to the drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 Isn't this what windows vista does with readyboost - constantly reading and writing to the drive? A pendrive is not a hard drive- it tends to wear out much more easily and faster. Still, if you have a pendrive to spare, try it. But first see what the Slax boss says about the issue, HERE (and he's not the only one, of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crusty Posted October 28, 2006 Report Share Posted October 28, 2006 OK But how can you save settings to a usb instead of losing them when you logoff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldman Posted October 29, 2006 Report Share Posted October 29, 2006 (edited) It will cost a little more but you could do an installation of Mandrive 2007 to a regular external USB drive. This is what I have done. I run my Mandrive 2007 from an 80 GB drive in a USB enclosure so that I do not have to modify my internal drive. The installation is the same as installing to an internal drive except you have to specify that the bootloader be placed om the MBR of the EXTERNAL drive. Also you will have to generate a initrd.img file which forces the the preload of the necessary USB drivers. On previous Mandy releases for my computer I was able to only use --with-usb int the mkinitrd but with Mandy 2007 I had to resort to the same set of preloads as is necessary for Fedora Core. The command forn being: mkinitrd --preload ehci-hcd --preload usb-storage --preload scsi_mod --preload sd_mod /boot/initrd-<kernel version>.img <kernel version> I have encloseues with Western Digital, Seagate and Maxtor drives installed. All work great. Note that inorder to do this you BIOS must be set to boot from USB. If your BIOS can not be set to boot from USB you can make a cd that will boot and transfer control to the USB drive. I have been using USB drives for my linux distros for a little over a year. It seems that the biggest bunch of linux USB users I have noticed are on the Fedora Forum where There are lots of threads and install howdos for USB in that forum. Edited October 29, 2006 by oldman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Just a note about "pen drives". Pen Drives are just one of a large number of external USB Drive types (not brands) and they do not all use the same type of memory. Pen Drives are one type, and may have limited repeat use but many of the other types do not and are therefore quite suitable for Live CD live settings savings use. You need to find what is available in your part of the world. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crusty Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 I don't understand most of what you said oldman but thanks anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest booster.ring Posted December 20, 2006 Report Share Posted December 20, 2006 I tried what oldman said about mkinit but it still doesn't work... where is the problem ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted December 21, 2006 Report Share Posted December 21, 2006 If you would like to install a Mandriva-based OS onto a USB-pendrive, you should certainly take a look at MCNLive "Cherbourg". This a Mandriva-based Live-CD, with the option of installing the complete OS onto a USB-pendrive and booting from it. Without use of the Live-CD. That is, if your bios is capable of booting USB-pendrives. Some older don't. You can find MCNLive "Cherbourg" here: ftp://ftp.belnet.be/pub/mirror/urpmidev.m...live/Cherbourg/ and here: ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/man...live/Cherbourg/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmanuel_uk Posted December 21, 2006 Report Share Posted December 21, 2006 the other thing to be sure is that /etc/fstab use the noattime flag so the pendrive lives longer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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