USB booting :: Permanent java apps on a USB stick

Hi,

I hope I am at the right place to post this. What I want to do is to make my DSL installation on a USB permanent with all the applications (mainly java apps, but also from MyDSL and apt-get command) I installed. The applications are related to geomatics. Here are the procedures I followed so far:

1°Partitionning and formating of my 4 Gb Flash drive. I copied from Windows the DSL 4.2 iso on the frist 500 Mb FAT 32 partition (/dev/sdb1), leaving the second 3500 Mb FAT 32 free (/dev/sdb2).

2°Setting my keyboard to "cf" from the control panel, restarting X.

3°Upgrading to GNU utils and enabling apt.

4°Changing the default repository in sources.list to "http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/debian oldstable main contrib non-free". The GRASS and QGIS geomatics apps are not available in the other repos.

5°Installing jre1_5_0 from MyDSL-System so I can install jar apps.

6°Downloading OpenJUMP (http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/download.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/s/si/sigle/OJ_ViatorisLinuxInstaller.jar)
wich is a geomatics software. There are others like Landserf, but the install procedure is the same.

7°Opening a terminal and typing PATH="$PATH:/opt/jre1_5_0/bin" so I can use the java -jar application.jar command.

8°Changing directory to where the downloaded file is. Installing the software with: java -jar OJ_ViatorisLinuxInstaller.jar successfully. The executable OpenJUMP-unix.sh file has been put in the /usr/local/OpenJUMP/bin directory.

9°In a terminal, changing directory to /usr/local/OpenJUMP/bin and typing again PATH="$PATH:/opt/jre1_5_0/bin" otherwise the software won't open.

10°Opening up the software with the command ./OpenJUMP-unix.sh.

There. Everything is set up properly, I can use the GRASS and QGIS softwares, and the OpenJUMP java software as well. My question is "How can I make all these installations permanent" so when I reboot my DSL stick everything will appear without having to reinstall?
1°the keyboard setting
2°the enabled apt
3°the installed apps (GRASS and QGIS) from apt-get
4°the jre1_5_0 java app from MyDSL (I have tried to modify the /etc/profile file without success)
5°the installed java apps (OpenJUMP)

Damnsmall is perfect for USB stick because it leaves lots of free space on the drive compared to other distros. I have been searching a lot to make averything working so far. I would appreciate a lot if someone could give the answers I am looking for.

Many thanks.

Chamane

Assuming you do not want to remaster the base DSL image...

The file bootlocal.sh may be of interest to you and backup/restore.

Here's some pointers...
1. `loadkeys <mysetting>` (or boot with lang=?)
2. Look in `cat ~/.fluxbox/menu | grep -i apt`
4. What DSL version are you using? If newer, place a symlink to java in /opt/bin would be better than to modify /etc/profile. In any case, you'd have to back up either file.

Suggestions:
For 2, 3: unless the version in those apt repos keeps changing, you're better off to either
- download the debs and installing them locally, or
- convert them, i.e. using deb2dsl, which will also reduce the need for dsl-dpkg

5: Depends how the installation goes. Would be better to convert to a mydsl package as well (and installed in /opt)

it's hard to tell wether you did a frugal install or a hard-drive install.

anyway, have a read through this;
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Persistence

Thanks both for your reply. I will give a feedback in a near future.

Chamane:)

Hi,

I tried a few things without success. I followed the procedures in the link on persistence:

dsl@box:~$sudo su
dsl@box:~$mkdir /mnt/sdb2/opt
dsl@box:~$cp -arv /ramdisk/opt/ /mnt/sdb2/opt
dsl@box:~$mkdir /mnt/sdb2/home
dsl@box:~$cp -arv /ramdisk/home/dsl /mnt/sdb2/home
and setting up sdb2 as back/restore device from the DSL Control panel.

When rebooting, I typed:

dsl fromhd=/dev/sdb1 home=/dev/sdb2 restore=sdb2 keyb=cf

The only thing that worked was the home directory where I found my jar files again. I lost jre1_5_0 and the installed apps from apt-get and from java installation (OpenJUMP.sh).

I would be willing to give installation of deb files, but I am not that good with Linux (like I don't know what a symlink is) and it seems to me that there are a lot of dependencies that I would have to solve with GRASS.

BTW, my DSL version is 4.2.2.

Any solution welcomed.

Chamane

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