USB booting :: USB boot: how to make /cdrom writeable



Hello all,

i'm new to DSL but have some previous *nix  kowledge.

DSL is an attractive rescue tool for Windows systems, especially given the increase in size of usb memory sticks and their affordability.

Using DSL RC2, what i want to do is to have DSL mount my memory stick device /dev/sda1 as 'rw' and not 'ro' on /cdrom.

In fact i am sure DSL 1.5 mounted /cdrom as rw (?)

I read somewhere that you can pass the 'write' boottime argument to grub... so i boot 'dsl write'  but /cdrom is still ro.

I also read in one post that you can edit the grub options / arguments file and insert the 'write' argument for each boot option in the Append line.  no joy!

finally i copied minirt24.gz to another partition, gunzipped it, mounted it type ext2 rw using loopback option and modified the /etc/fstab to make /cdrom mount rw..... still no joy!

so, i'm getting a little stuckk now..... please can someone inform how i can mount the memory stick rw by default.

thank you!
The 'write' option is unrelated...it runs the mkwriteable script so that you can write to the base system (/usr, /lib, ...).
If your KNOPPIX is on sda1 then it's probably being treaded as a standard cdrom.  Check your boot options again...if 'frugal' is not there, add it and things should work for you.
hello mikshaw ...thank you for the rapid reply!

booting with 'dsl frugal' as typed at the grub loader boot prompt  does indeed make the /cdrom filesystem writeable now.... but looking at the root directory of my usb stick, frugal appears on every append line of my grub conf file and for every type of boot.

now perhaps there is some other problem here.... i am not familiar with grub as i used to use lilo with its /etc/lilo.conf file.

on preparing my usb stick for use with DSL, and when i wrote out the bootfloppy-usb.img file to the memory stick, the grub config file simply has the name '  (single apostrophe) on the filesystem. I thought this a little odd but accepted the name for what is was. Maybe the grub config file should be called grub.conf or  similar ? so it is not being parsed at the moment ?

Just checking the bootfloppy-usb.img  file again under windows, the file within still has the name '

thoughts?

thanks again
S
OK, so i just spotted isolinux.cfg  which is the same grub configuration file as the ' (single apostrophe) file.... and i found that the 'frugal' arguement is missing from every boot option in this file.

But still /dev/sda1  gets mounted on /cdrom as ro ..... now i am confused because if i provide the frugal argument to grub and manually type  @boot prompt:  dsl frugal   then /dev/sda1  gets mounted on /cdrom rw

so  does grub neither read isolinux.cfg not '  then ?

one other thing i noticed before the x server kicked in...

"chgrp /cdrom   operation not permitted"

i'm getting there but a little more advice would be appreciated

with thanks
S
I'm not sure what that means...only vaguely recall seeing something like that mentioned here once before.  If you installed grub to your master boot record when DSL was installed, I think the config file would be /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

EDIT: isolinux.cfg, as far as I know, is used only for the liveCD.  Grub does not use it
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