User Feedback :: Bunch of questions ;)

Ok, Christmas is over, and I'm back at messing with DSL, this time on a USB drive instead of a CD.

I've gotten DSL to boot and run from the USB pendrive using the directions from the wiki.  I'm  posting under it now, so it seems ok (still no sound on this Compaq, apart from the motherboard speaker beeping, but that's a question for later.)

I want to have this USB pendrive (256MB) be my portable desktop with DSL.  I want to have stuff I work on be saved to the USB drive, (there should be like 200MB of free space left on the thing, right?)  and never have to mount the HDD of whatever machine I'm on. Want to carry it around on a keychain like a techno-stud and be able to stick it in anything and work on my book, or write a letter wherever I'm at.

I want be able to get some Mydsl programs and games, and have them be ready to go, on the pendrive.  I want the thing to boot with my own favorite wallpaper, bookmarks, settings, etc... from the pendrive when DSL starts.

I know all this is doable, but I don;t have a clue.  I can see that /mnt/sda1 is there. But I can't see anything on it (the os is supposed to be there, eh?), I can't  save anything on it, I can't make new directories on it with emelfm I don't have permission to do anything.

I think I just don't speak enough linux yet is the main problem, but can anyone point me to a tutorial to do what I want to do with this?  Do I have to multi-partition the pendrive?  Will I erase the OS from the pendrive if I try to save a work file or a settings list?

Like I said, right now it works, but it was done like the wiki said.  Under XP I did this, formatted the drive with fat32, 'applied" syslinux (whatever that does to the drive letter that xp gave the pendrive (H, btw), and unzipped the entire contents of the embedded version.ZIP into it, and rebooted from the USB drive.  DSL started, and I can surf and post and type and play taipei.  I can download Mydsl games and play them, as long as I put them in /tmp.  I just cant seem to understand the persistence. Or be able to save docs, settings, anything...

I'm seeing files and directories that don't seem to physically exist outside of RAM, and that will dissappear when I reboot, and I can't save anything.  It's all new and strange to me, but fascinating, if I could just figure it out XD

BTW, I love the pendrive thing!  (I just got it for christmas)  It seems like it should save me the endless piles of drink-coasters I was creating with making live CD's.  

So, do I need DSL help here, or am I just basically linux-tarded and need a good read on the subject?

OKay! wow.  I did get practice, but I'm still sort of stuck.  Here's What I did:

1. Booted from a Live CD (isolinux version) with a "DSL 2" text only boot.

2. ran fdisk for "/dev/sda" and deleted all partitions until there was nothing listed when I hit "p" but the headers.

3. Used "n" to create partition, primary, 215 sectors (55MB)  It got labeled SDA1

4. Did the same thing with the second partition, made it a primary, numbered it "2" and the remaining 199 MB of the usbkey got labeled SDA2

5. Hit "w" and made it write the new partitions, then went back into fdisk to make sure they existed

6. used "mke2fs /dev/sda1" it said it made a filesystem, did the same on the secont partition "mke2fs /dev/sda2, it said it worked

7. rebooted , and then tried to do the frugal  by doing: /usr/sbin/frugal_lilo.sh

8. told it to make SDA1 the location of the frugal, and to do it from the Live CD
9. told it no special boot options or languages
10. told it to make SDA2 the backub/restore location
11. told it to make SDA2 the MyDsl location
12. Formatted and installed to the keydrive


I know it said something about sda1 not being active, so I didn;t hope for much  Sure enough, attempting to reboot from the USBkey I got nothing but a blinking cursor.  


So I booted from the Live CD again, got back to fdisk, and flagged SDA1 as 'bootable" then  did frugal on it again the same way (frugal_lilo.sh) it had a notice at the bottom like this:

Warning: /dev/SDA1 is not on the first disk.
Added DSL *

Install complete

Didn;t know what it meant, but at least the "not marked active' warning was finally gone, so I tried to boot from the USBkey again.

No go.  Instead of <blinking cursor> now I get "L_" the second thing is the blinking cursor.  WZTF is "L_" ?

It booted from the USB key fine when I had the keydrive formatted FAT32 and syslinuxed and just unzipped the embedded version.ZIP into the drive under XP.  (Well, for a day or so, then it wouldn;t boot no more, hence my deciding to try this.)

But now i get "L_"  When I reboot from Live CD and look at the partitions with fdisk, they're still there, SDA1 is still marked boot, but no boot happens.

Any guess where the major screw-ups were?

tnx in advance

EDIT:  Ok, I did the same  procedure with an old 2gig hard drive I had in a drawer, and I was able to partition it with fdisk, make the filesystems with mke2fs, (i even used mkswap and gave it a 128 MB swap partition woot!)

All that worked, I'm posting now from my frugal install on the old HDD, it's awesome!  

SO, the problem appears to be that frugal lilo and BIOS don't get along unless it's on a primary hard drive.  Sometimes the bios boot menu doesn't even LIST the USBkey!  And it won;t boot from it with lilo

However, it DID boot fine with sticking the embed version and syslinux on the USBkey when it was FAT32. The problem with that it it takes up like HALF the space on the USBkey installed like that.

I think I might have to get like a 1 gig USBkey to make my portable desktop, leave the embed/syslinux version bootable from the first FAT32 partition, (at like 120MB?) and make the other partition 83 for storage.  Think it might work?  I'll have to let you know when I get the scratch together for a fatter USBkey!

I tell you though, after messing around trying to get the USBkey partitioned and formatted right, and doing frugal after frugal on it, partitioning and doing frugsl on this old hard drive was like SO easy!  I learnt'  something!