USB - Confused

Forum: USB booting
Topic: USB - Confused
started by: damianiw

Posted by damianiw on July 10 2005,21:39

Hi,

I'm running dsl 1.2.1

First of all I made a USB-Zip install using the menu in DSL, worked fine but windows would not let me mount the 2nd partition - not good on a 1GB key so I tried a USB-HDD install.

This works, I've even got the floppy to work for an old laptop to boot the usb key.

I've got a few questions, I don't seem to be able to write to sda1 when I've booted from it, have I done something wrong ?

Is this what would be known as a frugal install - if not what's the difference.

Finally how do I remaster this to include some wireless drivers I've got the files for.

Ps Thanks DSL really rocks

Posted by cbagger01 on July 11 2005,16:16

Try going to the menu and choose:

Emelfm as Super User

Then copy files to sda1. sda1 is already mounted and is located at the /cdrom mountpoint.

Posted by damianiw on July 11 2005,19:18

Thanks, I've just worked that one out, is there anyway to enable the dsl user to do this ?

I've tried resetting permissions in emelfm but no luck.

I'm guessing for general saving I should use the home dir as this is backed up to the memory key when I choose or shutdown.

Posted by cbagger01 on July 12 2005,03:29

You may be able to adjust the mount permissions in your /etc/fstab and then remount the drive so that user DSL can write to it, but I doubt that you can do it on-the-fly, unless you boot up with the

dsl toram frugal

boot command.

Posted by damianiw on July 13 2005,13:09

Thanks I'll give it a go, now for some more silly questions !

What does issuing the frugal command do, I get confused with frugal

I've got a nice USB stick working but another laptop I use won't boot from USB so I've made a CD remaster with some optional extensions etc - it's nice as I simply issue dsl restore=sda1 to get my settings

However I've noticed that some machines (notably laptops again) my mouse doesn't work unless I do a donotrestore or similar, is there anyway to get it to scan for the mouse at startup as sometimes it's USB, or PS2 which seems to be causing the problem.

I'd also like to include some themes, can I do this without remastering again ?

If I did have to remaster where should I put them in the root of the remaster folder ?

I also had some wireless drivers to put in but it's not worked, I'm looking at this on another thread, is it possible to make a hd install then remaster this to CD as it has the drivers in place

The normal remastering doesnt rebuild the knoppix file which I think is the problem for the driver.

Posted by cbagger01 on July 13 2005,16:26

The frugal command does two things. It allows the superuser (user account called "root") to read and write to the boot device. It also gets rid of the "Please remove the cd, close the drawer and press ENTER" message that appears during the shutdown process. It may also do some other things, too. I don't know.

If you want to boot up with ignored xwindows settings, try booting with:

dsl frugal xsetup

and you will be prompted to set your configuration including mouse type.

When running a frugal install or a remaster, you should put your *.dsl or *.tar.gz or *.uci files inside the root directory of your storage device or cd-r disk. If you want to optionally load them, you can create a new directory called /optional inside your boot device and then store the files in this location.

Posted by damianiw on July 15 2005,20:45

Thanks,

I'm going to try 1.3 anyway but if I do a usb install, there's an error message when shutting down about unable to mount CD Rom (which I'm guessing is the knoppix virtual image ??) does it successfully save my settings

re frugal, could i in theory run a frugal usb key, change some stuff and then remaster a cd from the usb key ??

it would be useful to be able to use a boot cdrom for the usb, can I do this by entering some commands at the dsl boot prompt ? so I've got a cd if I forget my key but boot from key otherwise ?

thanks

Posted by cbagger01 on July 15 2005,22:17

In theory you could use a USB drive for remastering. Search for RAM remastering in the forums, it would be a similar approach.

RE: Cdrom to boot up the USB stick:

Try booting with

dsl fromhd=/dev/sda1

and see if it works.

The command is something like that, if I remember correctly.

Posted by damianiw on July 16 2005,21:28

it worked thanks