ubs mem stick install

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2007-09-07 at 18:05 -0500, Fred Grant wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-09-07 at 13:43 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > I keep reading about linux ubs systems.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Do you mean USB?  (Dyslexics Untie!)
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > Is it possible to install
> > > > > > > > Fedora from one of these?
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > I think so, if the box will boot from a USB device.  I think the more
> > > > > > > recent boxes do.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > I don't have a dvd and am reluctant to buy
> > > > > > > > one just to upgrade to FC-7.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > The other alternative is to download the DVD ISO to a hard drive,
> > > > > > > internal or USB drive, then boot from the F7 rescue CD to install.  I
> > > > > > > think that will work.  Not tried.  I'm still migrating to FC6.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > There's also an "F7 Live CD" you can download, burn and boot.  It will
> > > > > > run all by itself or you can do a network install from it using public
> > > > > > servers.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > I have access to cable Internet at my son's on a Windows PC.  Could I
> > > > > burn the live CD and then install to a usb device that I could bring
> > > > > home and use on my system?  If so, how would you suggest going about it?
> > > > 
> > > > The live CD is designed to be burned to a CD as it's an ISO file (CD
> > > > ROM image file).  I suggested it as you said you didn't have a DVD
> > > > but I assumed you may have had a CD drive.  The nice thing about the
> > > > live CD is that you can "try it first" and install to hard drive if
> > > > you like it.
> > > > 
> > > > If you want to install and bypass the "try it first" stuff, you can do
> > > > a network install using a USB thumbdrive.  Download the "diskboot.img"
> > > > file from one of the mirrors and copy that to your thumbdrive using
> > > > "dd" or (under DOS/Windows), "rawrite".  You can boot the thumbdrive and
> > > > do a network install.
> > > > 
> > > > Have a look at this page:
> > > > 
> > > > http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f7/en_US/sn-which-files.html
> > > > 
> > > > Try to figure out what you want to do and we'll do what we can to help.
> > > > 
> > > > think it'd work, however.  I can give it a try.
> > > > > 
> > > Here are my bios usb options:FDD,HDD,ZIP,CDROM.  Do you think I could
> > > boot from usb?
> > 
> > A thumb drive will appear as an HDD, so if those are the options under
> > USB boot devices, yes.  You do have some work to do:
> > 
> > 1. Download the "diskboot.img" file from one of the repositories
> > 
> > 2. Use some program to copy the image file to the thumb drive.  Under
> > DOS or Windows, find a copy of "rawrite" and use it.  Under Linux, use
> > "dd", e.g.:
> > 
> > 	dd if=/path/to/diskboot.img of=/dev/sda bs=512
> > 
> > That assumes that the thumb drive showed up as /dev/sda.  Use the
> > "dmesg" command to display where the kernel actually found it.
> > 
> > 3. Plug the thumb drive into the target machine.
> > 
> > 4. Reboot the target machine. If the system already has a bootable OS on
> > the hard drive, change the boot order in the BIOS screen to boot the
> > USB drive first.  If there is no bootable OS on the hard drive, you
> > can skip this step.
> > 
> > 5. Follow the prompts at the boot screen you see.
> > 
> > Again, for about $40 you can get an external USB DVD/RW drive.  They're
> > REALLY handy to have around.
> 
> I think you're trying to tell me something here.

Not really.  It's just that a lot of newer software is going to arrive
on DVD media--not just Fedora.  Trying to sort out some other mechanism
to load software can be a royal pain (getting a CD/DVD ISO image to
install on a thumb drive being just one of them).  Having an external
USB or firewire DVD drive can be very handy for machines that don't have
them.

For example, we have about 800 Dell 1850s and 2850s that don't have DVD
drives.  If we need to install software on any of them and that stuff
comes on a DVD, that's a problem.  Network installs aren't always an
option in our business.  So, we wander over to the machine with a
USB-based drive and do what needs to be done.

I've mandated that we have two USB-based drives in each data center...a
500GB to 1TB USB hard drive (for immediate backups) and a USB CD/DVD
rewritable drive (for software installs, archival backups, etc.).  I
found one company that actually makes a 500GB drive and DVD+-RW in one
box.  We have two of them.  No, I can't recall who makes it.

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- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
- CDN Systems, Internap, Inc.                http://www.internap.com -
-                                                                    -
- If at first you don't succeed, quit. No sense being a damned fool! -
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