OT: your desktop on a stick
Phil Meyer
pmeyer at themeyerfarm.com
Fri Dec 12 17:57:06 UTC 2008
Phil Meyer wrote:
> Anne Wilson wrote:
>> Much has been said about the ability for a linux distro to be carried
>> around on a usb stick, making any computer into your familiar
>> desktop. Does anyone actually do this?
>>
>> I ask because I installed F9 and Mandriva 2008 onto sticks for tests
>> with my EeePC. Today I put the Mandriva stick into the Acer netbook,
>> and watched the messages scroll on, as it detected and set up the
>> webcam, then the mouse, then I got to
>> "Marking TSC unstable due to: TSC halts in idle
>> Time: hpet clocksource has been installed.
>>
>> Then a loonng pause, after which
>>
>> Wait timeout. Will continue in the background. [FAILED}
>> Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
>>
>> and it has been sitting there for 15 minutes.
>>
>> I confess I have always wondered about such hardware changes. If
>> this is typical, then this is another dream that is far from reality :-(
>>
>> Just to satisfy my curiosity, I'll try the F9 stick. I won't bother
>> reporting back if the result is very similar.
>>
>> Anne
>>
>
> Yes, done this a lot.
>
> Current best method is to roll a livecd will my favorite apps, a
> package containing my login (adds me to sudoers as well).
with my favorite apps
>
> Then convert the iso to a usb bootable livecd on a stick. During
> this, I add a system overlay, and a /home overlay.
>
> My current thumb drive is a 64GB DataTraveler.
>
> It has two partitions. The first is 20GB, and the remainder is in the
> other.
>
> Both partitions are formatted as ext3, thus allowing overlays greater
> than 2GB and
> also allowing me to use rsync to keep my music up to date on the
> larger slice.
> --home-size-mb
cut and paste error!
> here is the command I used to make the first partition bootable:
>
> # /usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk --reset-mbr --overlay-size-mb 4000
> --home-size-mb 8000 --unencrypted-home Fedora_Developer.iso /dev/sdb1
>
> Fedora_Developer.iso is my custom roll of F10-x86_64.
>
> I made the label of the second partition "music" so it would always
> mount as media/music.
>
> Next, I booted from the thumb drive in text mode on my primary machine
> and logged into the console as root.
>
> # mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
> My home is on there.
>
> # cd /mnt/home/pmeyer
>
> # cp -a .ssh .tcshrc .login .mozilla .thunderbird .g* /home/pmeyer
> As an example, but very close to actual -- YMWV
>
> # ln -s /media/music .
>
> # init 0
>
> Remove the thumb drive. Its all done! (except I rsynced my music
> collection to the second partition)
>
> Now I can plug the thumb drive into virtually any system and have all
> my favorite stuff just how I like it!. The only differences between
> systems are video.
>
> The difference between running a live USB vs an installed USB are many.
> 1. Live CDs by nature have A LOT more modules installed into the
> initrd.img, thus allowing them to run on a variety of hardware.
>
> 2. Hardware setting are not saved.
>
> 3. Space! About 1/3 in my experience.
>
> The advent of persistent storage for the OS and for /home mean that
> you can make changes to startup scripts, config files, and whatnot,
> and your changes are preserved over reboots. All the benefits of Live
> CDs, with persistent storage! It can't be beat.
>
> The best part of all, is that its installable to disk, as well. What
> else could you ask for? :)
>
>
> Good Luck!
>
>
I have a bad cold today and my brain is even less functional than usual! :(
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