Arch Linux

Jagged

Member

From: Blacksburg, VA

Registered: 2003-07-18

Posts: 153

I couldn't wait

I was gonna wait till I had this project done to announce it, but I'm too excited about it (and many have heard my rants on IRC about it)

Archlinux on USB drives!
I've created a 112 mb image that contains just about everything you would need (except it has no header files for compiling).  It uses Fluxbox 0.9.6 for it's window manager.  TinyX (aka KDrive) is the xserver, it runs in VESA mode with xrandr, xrender, and xft (iirc compiling it in) compiled in.

Plenty of neat tools:
nano (sorry, vim takes up too much space)
mc
mp3blaster
mpg321
mutt
links2 ( -g support enabled)
naim
irssi
gtk+/gtk2
gaim
sylpheed
mozilla-firebird
aterm
mplayer (full codecs installed)

A full package list is at:
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jodavis5/packagelist

Right now, I am about 3/4 way done with creating the initrd.  The system should boot on any IDE or SCSI based system.  I'm also creating a bootdisk to go with this (for my box cannot boot usb).

I have no way of testing the usb's actual bootability other than having my friend test on his work machine, so any volunteers would be awesome (at least a 128 mb stick required).

I was gonna use uClibc with this system to make it even smaller, but i couldn't get the toolchain to compile so i could rebuiid all the arch utils necessary for the sytem.

Anywho, thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome

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Nkawtg...n!

rasat

Forum Fellow

From: Finland

Registered: 2002-12-27

Posts: 2,296

Website

Re: I couldn't wait

I am glad you are working on this idea. LiveUSB is more practical than LiveCD when using for day-to-day usage.  LiveCD is good for PR and "try-how-does-it-work" though its slower and "read only" because not getting misconfigured and viruses.

For my information, USB Thumb Drive (aka Flash Drive) is not bootable... what system is your friend using?

There is a system called "USB Keys", which suppose to be bootable (if I'm correct). I am not yet familar with this, cannot tell more. Does anyone have information?

To know how does it work, check with Flonix LiveUSB:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/flonix

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Markku

Jagged

Member

From: Blacksburg, VA

Registered: 2003-07-18

Posts: 153

Re: I couldn't wait

Well... my USB drive is listed as:
/dev/discs/disc3/disc
/dev/discs/disc3/part1

part1 was fat32, but i formatted it to ext2.  If you can install grub or lilo to it (haven't tried yet) it should be bootable.  If not, you'll need a bootdisk.

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Nkawtg...n!

zen_guerrilla

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2002-12-22

Posts: 259

Re: I couldn't wait

Another solution would be to have optionally a floppy with initrd to boot & load the fs from the usb stick. That way it'd work on older systems, that don't support usb booting. Devil-Linux (www.devil-linux.org, nice distro for firewalls ) uses it that way, so check their cvs for scripts and stuff.