Arch Linux

Kane

Member

Registered: 2006-10-08

Posts: 220

install arch on external hard drive for eee

hi guys
ive managed to get the usb boot image working to boot my asus eee pc,
however id rather keep everything thats on the eee pc ssd as it is, and install arch to an external hard drive.

ive got a 40Gb ide hard drive connected to an external usb caddy, which i have my music on at the minute, but i plan on making a partition to install arch to, is it possible to install arch to this and run it from this rather than install arch over the top of the default xandros install on the ssd?
so basically bypassing the internal hard drive, is this possible? or  is there some reason it needs to be installed onto the ssd?

thanks
kane

pyther

Member

Registered: 2008-01-21

Posts: 1,395

Website

Re: install arch on external hard drive for eee

You should be able to do that without much of a problem. Just realize that disk IO will be slower than installing to the sdd or internal drive. I've heard people say that it is usable though.

---

Website - Blog - arch-home
Arch User since March 2005

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: install arch on external hard drive for eee

Its quite usable yes, the 30MB/s peak bandwidth of the usb bus will do just fine, you may notice a bit more of lag but not a show stopper.
You will want to mount _all_ partitions by uuid (as arch already does I believe) and you also want to add rootdelay=8 (or a larger number) to your kernel line. you may also need to add rootfs=ext3 or whatever you are using.
Don't forget to say you want to boot from usb when asked otherwise it will not work (quite obvious ). Can't remember anything else that might trouble you.

---

R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K