Question about USB install

ed · 2012-02-08 15:37:27

How to install Arch on an USB stick is explained in the wiki(https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_a_USB_key#Painless_boot_on_different_machines_without_using_UUID).

That's great.. just installing Arch the normal way so you can carry your own install everywhere. And even better..you can keep it up to date. But how does it work on other hardware. How can I be sure it works on every wireless adapter for example. Does hwdetect that for me? Is there a package which contains all device drivers, so I will have them all and automaticly get new ones with sudo pacman -Syu?
Will hwdetect on the fly select the right ones?

How does this work on the Ubuntu live cd's and Knoppix?

Because Windows only seems to understand the first partition, I thought of first a fat32 partition followed by ext4 with Arch. In my home directory a symlink to the first partition where I can store data accessible to windows. And on the first partition of course some portable apps. That would be the ideal USB drive: use Portable Apps on windows or boot Arch with hardware detection.

Last edited by ed (2012-02-08 15:38:04)

DSpider · 2012-02-08 16:06:20

You can install local packages with:

# cd /some/dir/name
# pacman -U *.xz

But configuring them for each individual machine is the hard part. Make sure you have the wiki (or part of the wiki) saved as HTML or PDF or something. You'll also need their wifi password, PPPoE info (if they're using ISDN) and so on which may be a little inconvenient for some. They'll probably ask you to just work from their installed OS.

Performance will also depend on how fast the USB stick is. Larger ones tend to be slower, not to mention expensive.

ed · 2012-02-08 16:24:40

Every time I tried an Ubuntu livecd it just worked.
I know it isn't the Arch philosophy at all, but I'd like to have the USB installation automaticly configures the hardware. Of course I need to have a password in case I want to make a wireless connection, but I like to have Arch configure everything automaticly when it's possible.
It just want to have an easy always working USB install. Just as easy as an Ubuntu livecd. Just pop in in and it boots and configures all hardware. Ready to use. But it will be Arch with Awesome. Fast... really fast.

DSpider · 2012-02-08 17:16:30

The Linux kernel is equipped with a lot of drivers and the Arch kernel was built to work on *most* machines. But this "automatic configuration" thing you speak of is... blasphemy. I once transferred my Arch install with "cp -a /source/dir/* /destination/dir" to my current computer when the motherboard died, which is kinda like taking out your HDD (or USB stick in your case) and putting inside another computer.

Everything worked out of the box except for sound (VIA HD instead of Realtek AC'97) and video (Radeon to Geforce card). So naturally, I had to do some tweaking to get them to work. Good thing the network settings were the same and I was able to access the repositories.

So the question is, can you handle working from a command-line interface? And would you? Hmmm... What you probably want is something like Linux Mint (a ~700 MB iso). LiveCD's will have more support than installed distributions simply because they were designed that way. You can get away with 700 MB too instead of 5 GB+.

ed · 2012-02-08 17:35:41

DSpider wrote:

So the question is, can you handle working from a command-line interface? And would you? Hmmm... What you probably want is something like Linux Mint (a ~700 MB iso). LiveCD's will have more support than installed distributions simply because they were designed that way. You can get away with 700 MB too instead of 5 GB+.

I can work with the commandline, but I like to make an always working Arch install. So against the Arch philosophy I have no problem to use scripts to do that for me. It's just for the USB install. I wouldn't use that on a local machine. Installing Arch is easy. With the help of the wiki of course. I'm not afraid of the command line, but I want the USB install just always to be able in the GUI without having to tweak the configs.

I know... there will be systems that have problems, but if it's possible to make them work with manual tweaking it should be possible to do it automaticly. Of course it would be the easiest way to do a persistent Linux Mint install, but I prefer to do it with Arch if possible. Not an iso that boots from USB, but a regular install, but instead of configuring the Arch way, make a script do it. Hmmm.. maybe I have to look how ArchBang does it.

cfr · 2012-02-08 22:27:02

Every time I tried an Ubuntu livecd it just worked.

Some people have all the luck - certainly has not been my experience. I have seen it "just work" - well, a bit. I have also seen it fail to ever finish booting (machine 1, Ubuntu); boot but run like treacle with fallback graphics (machine 2, Ubuntu); boot but kill all video output early on unless the kernel command line was customised to cripple graphics (machine 3, Mint); boot but crash on attempted installation after wiping existing boot loaders but before installing its own (machine 4, Ubuntu). Machine 4 is the only one I can say "just worked" even a bit...

I've only tried Linux on 4 machines to date...

Arch Linux

#1 2012-02-08 15:37:27

Question about USB install

#2 2012-02-08 16:06:20

Re: Question about USB install

#3 2012-02-08 16:24:40

Re: Question about USB install

#4 2012-02-08 17:16:30

Re: Question about USB install

#5 2012-02-08 17:35:41

Re: Question about USB install

#6 2012-02-08 22:27:02

Re: Question about USB install

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