OT: Knoppix on a usb hard drive (dual purpose)

[Paul Howarth]

On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 16:16 -0400, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> Paul Howarth wrote:
> 
> >On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 02:08 -0400, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>I'm in search of advice on hwo to realise my wishes.
> >>
> >>I would like to setup a 40 GB external usb hard drive so that if plugged 
> >>in normally, a FAT32 partion can been seen in any OS, which would have 
> >>my multimedia and data.
> >>
> >>But I would also like that if I'm in a pinch, I can connect the drive 
> >>preboot, and with the BIOS's permission, boot to the ext. drive,  and 
> >>have a knoppix install bootup, autodetect the hardware as necessary, and 
> >>allow me to access my data.
> >>
> >>I'd also like to keep the a home dir on the knoppix install synced with 
> >>my currect home dir in FC4. Possibly even have the KDE's look the same etc.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Should be possible if you just treat the USB drive as a regular disk,
> >i.e. make partitions on it, one a bootable Linux partition for Knoppix
> >and a FAT32 partition for data sharing.
> >
> >Paul.
> >  
> >
> I am not yet familiar with partioning structures. Coudl you possibly 
> suggest a partion structure to have this drive bootable , etc, with knoppix?

Use fdisk to delete any existing partitions on the drive. Create two new
primary partitions. The first should be type "Linux" and have the
bootable flag set. The second should be FAT32. Install Knoppix on the
first partition. Use mkdosfs to format the second partition.

(Note: I have never used Knoppix so there may be a gotcha here that I'm
not aware of).

> Also, it would be great If I coudl jstu clone my Fedora installation 
> over to the drive. But how well does Fedora handle being bootup on 
> totally diferent hardware than it was ont he last time it boot, as can 
> be the situation ?

Don't know; never tried that. I suspect you'd be better off using
Knoppix though because it's designed to be used like that, whereas
Fedora isn't.

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>