USB booting :: Installing and Using DSL on USB Pen Drive



I am fairly new to Linux, having used SUSE for about six months.  I'm doing pretty well there and now want to try DSL with a USB pen drive.

Here is what I have:
CD with DSL 1.4 (Screen opens with 50MB Live BizCard CD)
128MB Lexar USB Pen Drive

I have read a lot of the FAQ's and such, but am still a bit confused.  Perhaps it's my newness to Linux together with my 60 year old brain, but I'm still at a loss as to exactly what to do.  Better if I try to explain what I'd like to be able to do with DSL and the USB pen drive.

I would like to install DSL on the USB pen drive.  I would then like to be able to take the pen drive with me, to use on any computer I might be at.  Probably always a Windows box.  Since I don't want to change BIOS settings on a box belonging to someone else (and their BIOS may not support USB booting anyway) and I don't want to carry a boot floppy or anything with me, I'm looking for an option.  I have read that it's possible to boot DSL from within Windows.  I believe that requires something like QEMU, with which I'm totally unfamiliar, except to understand it's some sort of emulator application.  I'm not sure if there is enough room on a 128MB jump drive to install both DSL and QEMU, if this is what I would need to do.

I'm sorry if I'm not being specific enough here, but hope that someone will understand what I'd like to do and could make some suggestions.  I have two Linux boxes and one Windows XP box on my network, so can work from any of them, to set up the USB pen drive.

I would appreciate if someone could suggest the way to go with what I'm trying to do and possibly assist me in setting up the USB pen drive with DSL from the CD and whatever else I would require to boot from within Windows on a Windows only box.

Thanks in advance,
zenarcher

Could someone tell me, perhaps, if QEMU is part of the DSL package, or if it is something which must be installed separately???
QEMU is part of the DSL-embedded package.

If you are going to exclusively use DSL from inside a running Windows operating system, then you should download the dsl-embedded version and unzip the contents into your USB pendrive.

Then double-click on the dsl-windows.bat file and you are up and running.

It is also possible to get a "5-way" install up and running, and this lets you boot dsl either natively or via QEMU from inside Windows or another Linux OS.  For this method, first download dsl.iso and then burn a DSL cd-r disk.  Then boot into DSL and choose Apps -> Tools -> Install to Pendrive -> USBHDD install (I prefer it to USBZIP unless your BIOS only supports USBZIP booting). Then after compeleted, download the 5-way install script from the dsl download site and run it on your pendrive. It will then download and install the embedded version.
Thank you very much for the information.  It is most appreciated!  I'd been having difficulty figuring out how to do anything with the DSL CD I have.  Then, I tried the F2 boot options and figured out how to run it like a Live CD.  Thanks to one of the other posts you made on this forum, I discovered about the Apps>Tools>Install to Pendrive.  It really helped me out!

As for the 5-way install script...I have a question.  After I download it from the dsl download site, do I merely copy it over to the pendrive, or is there some other means of install?  Again, thanks for the help!

Regards,
zenarcher
You should download the script from the website to your home directory (/home/dsl).

Then you can unzip it by typing

tar -zxvf 5-way.tgz

then go into the newly created subdirectory. I think it was called 5way.

Then type in the name of the script to start it up.
Again, thank you very much.  I've tried the DSL embedded package, per your instructions.  I haven't really had time to play with it, but it did work.  I will try this 5 way, now that I have the info from you.  I'll be interested in seeing how it works.  

Regards,
zenarcher
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