Saving myDSL packages to pen drive
Forum: DSL Embedded
Topic: Saving myDSL packages to pen drive
started by: tawalker
Posted by tawalker on Jan. 20 2005,20:56
I'm running the embedded/bootable DSL 0.9.2 on my 256Mb flash drive, and only really have one problem: despite all my best efforts, and scouring these forums and the DSL docs, I can't work out how to ensure that myDSL apps will always be stored to the pen drive, to be installed and ready when I reboot.I've heard they should be saved either into /opt, or into the root directory. Tried that - the apps were gone next time around. I added the whole /opt directory to filetool.lst, and tried again - no luck.
From one quarter, I heard that I might need to partition my pen drive and add a second partition for saving myDSL apps onto, so they are persistent. Has anyone tried this, and if so, how did they set up the partition and mount it for use?
Alternatively, can I have myDSL apps backed up to the pseudo-harddrive (along with my other settings - themes, Firefox stuff, etc.), so I will always have aMSN, xpenguins and my other favourites waiting for me at next reboot?
Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here, but I really have tried hard to find this out for myself, and nothing I've attempted so far seems to have worked. Thanks for any help/advice you can give - I really like having Linux on a pen drive, and the DSL team have done a great job with it!
All the best,
Tim.
Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 20 2005,23:14
I don't know anything about dsl embedded, but I might be able to help a little...The "/opt" and "root" to which you are referring is most likely not what you think. My impression is that you are attempting to save extensions into /opt and failing...this is because the writeable /opt exists only in ram. Once you reboot, it's gone.
I'm guessing the directory would instead be "optional", which is added by the user to the root of the disk rather than the root of the DSL filesystem.
Posted by Hasbro35 on Jan. 24 2005,21:12
Here's a link to another forum topic that may help you out. It explains how to set up the virtual hard drive and to store DSL apps to it.< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....&t=4166 >
Posted by tawalker on Feb. 07 2005,13:27
Sorry it took me a while to reply - all sorts of other things keeping me busy 
Thanks for your help with the myDSL question. It turned out that the explanation in the "Getting Started" page in Dillo was actually quite a good one, once I got my head around what it was talking about... if that makes sense. Basically:
- Put MyDSL packages in the root directory of your pen drive (not the root directory of the DSL filesystem), to make them install upon booting
- For MyDSL packages which you don't want to install every time, put them in a directory called /optional, again off the root of the pen drive - they can then be installed by selecting them from "MyDSL >> Install Optional Extensions! in the DSL menu
- Enter "dsl mydsl=sdb1" (or whatever your pen drive device name is) at the boot prompt, to tell the system where the MyDSL packages are
So that's working... at least for booting straight from the pen drive. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for "embedded" DSL (i.e. within Windows/QEMU), as it doesn't find the MyDSL apps, even if I enter "mydsl=[sda1, sdb1, etc.]". Do I need to modify the BAT/script files to tell the system where to find the MyDSL packages?
Many thanks,
Tim
Posted by roberts on Feb. 08 2005,17:21
To have your mydsl extension collection work for both pendrive BIOS boot and Qemu you can put your collection on the pseudo harddisk, hdb. Then use mydsl=hdb
Posted by tawalker on Feb. 09 2005,13:10
Hi roberts - I hadn't thought of that solution (no surprise there ), so I'll give it a try.BTW, I re-read my last post above, and can now see how it could be interpreted as something like, "I couldn't understand how to do this because the documentation was lacking". That isn't how I meant it to come over - I apologise if anyone took it that way and was offended, as if anything it was my understanding which was lacking (this was what I actually meant to say).
Thanks again for your help - DSL is a great project, and I appreciate the efforts of all of you who work on it, help on the forum, and sometimes even both together
Tim