Installin DSL on a 256 MB USB pen drive ???

Forum: USB booting
Topic: Installin DSL on a 256 MB USB pen drive ???
started by: erajsri

Posted by erajsri on Feb. 26 2006,02:41

I'm ready to try out DSL. I have downloaded the dsl-2.2.iso from http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html. But the problem is that is an CD image file and doesn't run when I extract the contents of it and copy them to my pendrive.

Is there a place or link where I could download the "disk images" required for making a Pen Drive to boot using DSL ? How is it possible to convert the CD image to a USB image ?

I havent come across any page or site describing how I could make a Pen Drive to boot using DSL although DSL has been advertised as a mini Linux version that could be even installed on a Pen Drive.

Im awaiting your help to join the mini linix world !

Posted by Avinux on Feb. 26 2006,06:27

burn the file you downloaded to cd then boot from it and go to apps-->tools-->Install to USB Pendrive

and then choose one of the options (depends on what your computer's bios works with) and you'll be done

hope this helped

Posted by fuzzybud on Feb. 26 2006,20:16

You also want to use dsl 2.2b as it corrected an issue in dsl 2.2 with booting from a usb pendrive. One of the sweet virtues of dsl is that downloading a new .iso goes so quickly.

Posted by erajsri on Feb. 27 2006,02:01

awww..... but do u hav to go thru the pain of burning to a CDROM and then installin on a Pen Drive ? Cant we have something that does the Pen Drive one shot ?

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 27 2006,06:25

Even on a SLOW CD burner, it takes about 4 minutes to burn the 50MB DSL image to a CD-R disk.

If you can't spend $0.10 and 4 minutes to burn the CD, I feel for you.

There are other ways to do the installation, but for my money this is by far the easiest way.

Posted by stewball on Feb. 27 2006,07:15

*deleted* didn't read the thread propperly

sorry

-Samuel

Posted by Ana on Feb. 27 2006,08:14

"If you can't spend $0.10 and 4 minutes to burn the CD, I feel for you"

Maybe he hasn't got a burning CD-drive

And empty CD-R:s cost about 1$ (not 0.1$) in some countries... like here

which is still not THAT expensive

Posted by erajsri on Feb. 27 2006,10:37

hmmm.... ok... I'll stop whining and do it the hard way

Posted by erajsri on Feb. 27 2006,10:45

Ppl, I have got a DVD Writer plus a CD-RW that I cud damn well use to do what you say.
That aint the point. What I want is a utitlity that would install DSL directly to the Pen Drive rather than making us go rounds. I mean if it was meant for Business Card CDs and Pen Drives, why not have an iso or anything like that for pen drives ?

Posted by roberts on Feb. 27 2006,17:37

If you bother to search the forums you would know that you can install to pendrive two other ways without making burning a cdrom.

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 27 2006,18:20

So this hypothetical person cannot afford a CD-R disk but CAN afford a USB pen drive? I am skeptical.

My reply was my opinion on what I thought was the easiest way to do a pendrive installation.

As roberts said, there are other methods out there, but in my opinion they are harder than simply burning a disk and booting DSL and choose "Install to Pendrive" from the menu.

But my opinions are not shared by all

Posted by erajsri on Feb. 27 2006,18:41

Could you be so kind enuf to tell me how that is possible ? I tried searching but that wasnt successful. Maybe the words I searched for didnt match the exact post you are talkin of ...

Posted by roberts on Feb. 27 2006,20:13

First of all, I agree with cbagger01, in that installing to pendrive from a liveCD is by far the easiest way to do it. Those install scripts have been improved over time and work well for natively booting DSL either USB-HDD or the older USB-ZIP.

However, for those you use Windows OS then...

There are two ways to install DSL to a pendrive from Windows without burning a cdrom.

The first way:
From windows, download the dsl-embedded version and unzip to your pendrive. Try it out. You may not need to do anything further your pendrive may already be boot enabled. If not then you may need to first format your pendrive with the manufactures utility and select the option to make it bootable. Or you can try to manually make it bootable by using syslinux.
You then need to grab syslinux version for windows and run the syslinux.exe to install the boot loader onto the pendrive. It may not work with your bios. It may work if you have boot from usb-zip.

The second way:
Download and install the free Vmware player for Windows.
Download the dsl-vmx version and unzip on Windows.
Plug you pendrive into your computer.

Double click the dsl.vmx icon and startup DSL vmware version.
You should see the usb pendrive device shown at the top of the vmplayer status line. Click the status line to connect the usb pendrive to the virtual machine.
Next click in the main area of DSL to enter the DSL system.
Navigate the menu to find the install to pendrive scripts.
Use usb-zip or usb-hdd as appropriate for your system.
The pendrive device is DSL is usually sda, change if needed.
Also select install from (L)iveCD as this is emulating the live CD

This works with vmware as their virtual machine allows direct access to the pendrive. Qemu does not.

Note dsl-embedded allows dual booting, natively and within Windows. The VMware way allows a native DSL pendrive using the standard pendrive scripts as mentioned above.

Posted by danube on Mar. 01 2006,06:05

Burn a RW!

Posted by erajsri on Mar. 01 2006,07:25

Heyya Roberts,
One thing I gotta say, u really nailed it on the head man ! That was all the infor I was lukin for in this forum, and what I was hopin id get out of this thread too. So cheers for a splendid reply. Gimme time and Ill try the things you hav mentioned. ( i think most prolly the first method shud work for me ).

And for all the ppl who asked me to burn it on disks and then make a pen, all i gotta say is I wudnt hav posted this thread if "burning" was appealing enuf to me. If it was damn small linux and if it was meant to be installed on a pen then why the hell wouldnt they have utilities or options to make a bootable USB out of DSL straight away ? I assume there must be hundreds of other guys out there who like linux this way ( to be installed straight onto a pen ) rather than goin rounds doin it. And besides I hav plenty of burnt CDs and DVDs already which usually get piled up in my room. I wudnt wanna add anymore onto it unless I cant help it. This is one reason I like DSL - the fact that you can install it on an erasable media and then wipe it off when ever you wanna use that media again ( I know u can do this with CD RW but dont forget the limit u can do that on optical drives ) So its quite useful for newbies like me who wanna try it and see the linux world....

Im getting hungry now... gonna go chow
cya DSL ppl !
thanx again Roberts for having read and understood my query.

Posted by aazn on Mar. 07 2006,02:47

In BestBuy right now they are selling 512 MB Flash drives for the price of a 128 mb one.

I have 2 of them now :P

Shouldn't running the embedded one, then burning it to a differant flash drive work?

[Aazn]