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Topic: Splitting a usb drive, Can i split a usb drive to make /home

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beekman001 Offline

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Posts: 5
Joined: April 2005

Posted: April 24 2005,03:25

Basicly, i got a 512mb thumb drive. I'd like to split this into 2 parts, the first containing dsl, the second getting mounted as home. Any thoughts on how to do this?

sega01

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Posts: 38
Joined: Mar. 2005

Posted: April 24 2005,09:04

? if you mean putting 2 partitions on it try using fdisk in bash. after you partition it do a usb pendrive to the dsl partition on it.

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http://www.freewebs.com/doslinux/ - dos linux

ke4nt1

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Posts: 2329
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: April 24 2005,10:11

make two fat16 partitions on it, format them using mkdosfs..
Make the first one at least 128MB's ,
to hold the contents of the 5-way/qemu/dsl embedded files.

Install the 5-way as directed..
see the readme in the 5way.tgz in the repository

Once installed , boot from your USBkey ..
Upon hitting the boot: prompt , type

dsl home=sda2

this will make a permanent home dir on your second partition.
Every time you boot using home=sda2 in your boot line ,
you'll have it mounted as your /home/dsl dir..

This works using DSL-1.0 or later ONLY...
and ONLY in NATIVE mode, not emulated in Qemu..

If your not interested in the embedded/qemu tools,
then simply run the "Install to USB script" from the menu..
That only needs a 50MB partition as your first one..

73
ke4nt

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: April 24 2005,13:23

And if you do this, make sure to set your web browser disk Cache to 0 KB size, OR delete your old cache directory and instead make a "cache" in /tmp/cache and create a symlink in /home

This will make sure that you are not frequently writing to your flash device while surfing the web.

Also, if you were adventurous, you could figure out a way to create a jffs2 filesystem partition instead of an ext2 partition. jffs2 works better with flash drives due to wear-leveling logic.

beekman001 Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: April 2005

Posted: April 25 2005,17:22

ok, so im having a little trouble with the whole usb booting thing. I figured out how to get my pc to boot from a usb device. Now im getting the wonderful L04 04 04 message(screwed up boot thingy i think). Suggestions?

5 replies since April 24 2005,03:25

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Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » USB booting » Splitting a usb drive