making a bootable DSL usb pen drive.

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[milton]

i am relatively new to Linux (about 12 months).  I have tried several different flavors of Linux, but because my hardware is old (12 years plus) and slow, i am drawn towards small distros.  I would love to try DSL but i am finding it hard to work out how to create a bootable usb pen drive.   In all other flavors of Linux i have tried (and i know i have most probably been spoiled here), it has been quite a simple operation, either using a tool built into a distro, or via the command line using dd.  With DSL this is not working for me, and most of the links i follow on-line do not seem to explain the procedure at all clearly.

Is there a simple, easy to follow, step by step, guide that will show me how to get a pen drive up and running with DSL?  (the simpler the better).

many thanks
milton

[CNK]

First stop would be the wiki  (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/installing_to_a_usb_flash_drive.html). Method II  (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/install_to_usb_from_within_linux.html#Method_II:_Current_ISO_.2B_Syslinux) might be the simplest for you. EDIT: or method I. Also, you don't really need to go through all the reformatting/repartitioning stuff if you already have a suitably partitioned/formatted drive without anything on the target partition.

[milton]

many thanks for your reply.

i have tried the methods described at
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/install_to_usb_from_within_linux.html#Method_II:_Current_ISO_.2B_Syslinux
but with no success.  Method one booted but generated a kernal panic, 2 and 3 would not boot, and i am afraid i have to say that method 4 completely lost me.

I feel i may have to give up on this until i have learned a lot more.

On most other distros i have tried, i have been able to download an iso of the distro in question and then just simply use the dd command to make a bootable usb.  Does such an image exist for DSL?  (i have tried all images i can find and none seem to work in this way).

[CNK]

I don't believe there is a disc image available suitable for "dd" copying straight to a drive.

What error caused method II and III to fail booting? If the startup display said something to the effect of "unable to find the KNOPPIX filesystem", the problem may be that there is a compatibility issue with the USB chipset in the computer you're testing with.