USB booting :: New DSL user's USB questions

Hi folks. I've been playing around with Linux for a little over a year. I recently picked up a couple Mini-ITX boards cheap. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them, but I know I want to boot off of a USB pen-drive. So, I followed the instructions in the Wiki and I'm actually posting from DSL running in QEMU. Pretty cool.

But my question is this. Since I'm able to launch off the USB pen drive, does that mean that the drive is bootable? I have those motherboards packed up until after Christmas, and my laptop is not bootable off of USB, so I have no way of testing at the moment. I'd like to have the drive set up so I can just start playing. So, how do I know it's bootable?

Thanks

F_M

You will need to check in your machine's BIOS to see if there is an option to allow you to boot from a USB device - if so, you're in business.

I know the Mini-ITX boards are USB bootable. I'm hoping that being able to launch via QEMU is an indicator that it's bootable.

No it isnt - qemu runs as an application under your host environment.

Check your BIOS boot options. You need USB-HDD or USB-ZIP as an option, then you're in business.

I use the VIA EPIA 5000 Mini-ITX board and this is bootable with USB-ZIP (but not USB-HDD, unfortunately).

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