Other Help Topics :: DSL on USB stick from Windows XP HOWTO



After months of waiting to use DSL on my USB key rather than just via the CD, just because its damn cool, I finally decided to go ahead and get a new usb-key. My generic pocketflash 128 wasn't working with DSL for any number of reasons, so I bought a new Lexmark 128mb Elite drive. Works like a charm...

This is how to install DSL to a USB Key from Windows XP (98,NT,2000?) workstation without burning the ISO and without having to boot into DSL from the CD and partition theUSB key. (of course if you want to partition it you'll have to use a partitioning tool, cfdisk, or something else like that)

1. Procure USB Key and make sure it is formatted with FAT, just to be sure its working. (ugh.)

2. Download the images necessary (as of this writing, bootimage 0.8 was used and filesystem image 0.9.0.1 was used.) and also download WinImage (a share/freeware program -- google it.), and install Daemon Tools or some other ISO viewing/manipulating program.

3. Open winimage, Select the boot image you wish to use, select "Use removable disk (x:) with x: being the drive letter of your USB key you wish to install DSL onto.

4. Select write image. It may say 'image must be resized' blah blah. Do it.

5. (addendum--Once that is complete, open the main DSL zip file (rather than the ISO image) and extract the contents onto the USB drive. Make sure you extract with folder names. It's okay to overwrite the current content of the USB drive.) View the USB drives contents in windows Explorer. Mount the filesystem image to another drive. The filesystem image contains a directory called 'boot'. You can overwrite the files in the root of the USB Key with the files from boot/. This basically replaces bootimage 0.8 (since it seems to not be updated with the system release) with what I'll just call bootimage-current. (basically the boot files for whatever filesystem image you're using) In this case, 0.9.0.1. 5.

6. Confirm overwriting of the files. Assuming your bios is up to date, and you've read a lot of the other facts on 'making sure your usb key will work with your bios, etc') then all you should have to do is reboot and set the USB drive as the boot drive. DSL boots up, loads, and thats where I'm writing this from.

7. For more help on 'customizing' your DSL install check doom4's post in this forum about 'DSL on USB-stick HOWTO' It also goes over some DSL basics that I didn't cover. doom4's thread http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=3613

For the record, stay away from cheap knockoff USB keys...they're fine for windows and stuff like that but apparently it doesn't like DSL.

Basically I wrote this because there is no one be all and end all guide. Perhaps someone should compile all of this useful forum information into an official "install faq"...a lot of the other howtos don't seem to cover it in a completey detailed manner from start to finish, and I didn't find one that specifically helped for Windows XP straight to DSL without a lot of work (practically none really now that i think about it). If i've stepped on any toes or been redundant here I'm sorry.

Thanks for DSL. It's pretty cute, and may actually be pretty useful! I'm a BSD System Administrator, and so I haven't really been a fan of linux distributions for a while, but I like your style, DSL.
hi!
I wanted to point out that when i did this I kept getting an error about the knoppix filesystem not being found, after searching for USB devices... (unless i also had the CD tucked in)...

from what I understand, some *hci modules werent loaded, and it somehow couldnt recognize the stick from which it was running... (weird, isnt it? :P)

anyway, i tried not overwriting the files, and it worked... so if you run into problems, you can try that.
tronik,

Your tutorial is much appreciated, it succeeded where many of the other How-Tos failed.  The difference:
Quote

5. Once that is complete, view the USB drives contents in windows Explorer. Mount the filesystem image to another drive. The filesystem image contains a directory called 'boot'. You can overwrite the files in the root of the USB Key with the files from boot/. This basically replaces bootimage 0.8 (since it seems to not be updated with the system release) with what I'll just call bootimage-current. (basically the boot files for whatever filesystem image you're using) In this case, 0.9.0.1.

This step made all the difference, thanks again.
=) thank you. welcome to dsl on pendrive!
With the exception of using winblows to do this ( yuck! )
your post and tutorial are very well done..  Good Work.

For those of us who don't have, or want,
a $200.00 - 1.5GB + copy of winblows XP on our systems,
could you explain how to do this , using only your little DSL CD and a USBkey?

That would be even better!

73
ke4nt
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