[Sugar-devel] USB stick advice

[Caroline Meeks]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:16 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:

> [cc'ing fedora-olpc because we are using unmodified fedora tools]
>
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 23:33, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Thanks. This is all helpful. I wonder what the Fedora USB Creator does
> > when it runs under Windows?
>
> AFAIK, what Mitch says is what we currently do when using both
> livecd-iso-to-disk.sh and the Fedora Live USB creator.
>
> For flashing a big number of sticks with a port replicator, we could
> first use livecd-iso-to-disk.sh to copy the partition files to one
> stick and set the bootable flag, then use dd to read into an image and
> then dd again to write it to the rest of the sticks, provided they are
> actually identical inside.
>

I don't think they are actually identical inside. They show up as all
different sizes.

I used dd to make an image then zcat to write it to new sticks.

zcat ./SoaS-Beta-4-9.img.Z > /dev/disk2

I got a fairly high failure rate so I'm not saying this is a good method.


>
> Regards,
>
> Tomeu
>
> > -walter
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Mitch Bradley <wmb at laptop.org> wrote:
> >> My first order recommendation is "don't use dd to blast an image over
> the
> >> existing partition map".
> >>
> >> The problem with doing so is that it wrecks the factory partition
> layout.  I
> >> strongly suspect that said factory layout is, on many sticks, optimized
> for
> >> the characteristics of the stick's internal firmware and the hardware
> block
> >> sizes of the NAND Flash chips.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, the alternative is rather more complicated procedurally
> than
> >> "dd and pray".  But given the indifferent results from dd&pray, I think
> it
> >> may be worthwhile to go for a more elaborate procedure.
> >>
> >> Here is an outline of what I think really should be done:
> >>
> >> a) Ensure that your filesystem image is somewhat smaller than 1G (or 2G
> or
> >> whatever your base size) so it will fit on "all" 1G devices.
> >>
> >> b) The image is just the partition contents, excluding the partition
> block
> >> and master boot record.
> >>
> >> c) The installation procedure involves
> >>
> >> c1) Editing (not replacing) the existing partition map, setting the
> first
> >> partition's "boot flag" byte and changing its filesystem type to ext2 or
> >> whatever.  (Ideally it would better not to change the filesystem type,
> >> instead sticking with the factory FAT partition, but I understand what a
> >> hard nut that is to swallow for Linux enthusiasts.)
> >>
> >> c2) Copying the image into the partition
> >>
> >> c3) Installing your bootloader using an installation program instead of
> dd,
> >> thus replacing the first sector's Master Boot Record and doing whatever
> else
> >> is necessary to complete the bootloader's installation.  I have had the
> best
> >> results with syslinux.
> >>
> >> There is, of course, a chicken-and-egg problem of how do you run the
> >> bootloader's installer.  On the other hand, you have the same problem
> with
> >> "dd" - in principle, on any machine that can run "dd", you can also run
> >> syslinux.
> >>
> >> If you want to talk more about this issue, please feel free to keep the
> >> conversation going.  It is a topic that has been much on mind recently.
> >>
> >> Mitch
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Walter Bender wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I was wondering if you have any words of wisdom to share with us re
> >>> USB stick compatibility, given your experience with the XO. There
> >>> seems to be a lot of variability in terms of which sticks boot which
> >>> machines in our Sugar-on-a-Stick experiments, e.g., using the same
> >>> machine (a Classmate running XP) to burn the same image (the Beta SoaS
> >>> iso) onto USB storage media from three different vendors, I cannot
> >>> predict which one(s) will be bootable on any particular piece of
> >>> hardware. Is there any deterministic way to proceed, or is trail and
> >>> error our only recourse?
> >>>
> >>> thanks.
> >>>
> >>> -walter
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Walter Bender
> > Sugar Labs
> > http://www.sugarlabs.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >
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-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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