Difference between revisions of "Install linux on a USB disk"

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Modern computers can boot from [[USB]] storage like disks and sticks. This article shows how to [[install]] Linux on a USB disk so that you can boot from it. It lists the following approaches:
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Modern computers can boot from [[USB]] storage like disks and sticks. But how to [[install Linux]] there to have a USB disc or stick bootable? Here are some approaches:
  
 
{| class="wikitable sortable" border=1
 
{| class="wikitable sortable" border=1
! approach !! time to succeed !! remarks
+
! approach !! OS of your computer must be !! distro of bootdisk will be !! time to succeed
 
|-
 
|-
| Unetbootin || ? || works with all distributions supported by unetbootin
+
| [[install Linux on a USB disk with Unetbootin]] || Linux or Windows || any || 1 hour, depends on your choices
 
|-
 
|-
| Knoppix    || 10 min    || only works with Knoppix
+
| [[install Linux on a USB disk with Knoppix]]   || any || Knoppix || 30 min, depends on disk speed and size
 
|-
 
|-
| SUSE Studio || 1 hour || only works with SUSE distros
+
| [[install Linux on a USB disk with SUSE Studio]] || Linux or Windows || SUSE || 1 hour
 
|-
 
|-
| Cloning-approach || 2 hours || work with almost all distributions
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| [[install Linux on a USB disk by cloning your computer]] || any Linux || any || 2 hours
 
|}
 
|}
  
 
+
= See also =
= the unetbootin approach =
+
* [[install SUSE Linux on netbooks]]
Download unetbootin from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net. Start it and select which distribution you want to have installed on what disk.
 
 
 
= the knoppix approach =
 
Boot your system from [[knoppix]], then [[open a console]] and enter
 
flash-knoppix
 
Then select a harddisk or a USB Flash drive. This will be made boot Knoppix.
 
 
 
== additional information ==
 
Make sure you have a graphical display. This installer will give a lot more messages than the text-based installer.
 
 
 
== TroubleShooting ==
 
* Your USB Flash drive must be vfat-formatted. Otherwise, flash-knoppix will not work.
 
 
 
= the SUSE Studio approach =
 
Go to www.susestudio.com. Choose your favorite SUSE, add packages as you like. Tell the web site to build a USB stick from it. Download the image and put it onto your USB stick.
 
 
 
For example, if your USB stick is /dev/sdh, use something like
 
dd if=usbstick.i686-0.0.1.raw of=/dev/sdh
 
 
 
= the cloning approach =
 
The cloning approach is the manual approach where you clone your harddisk to a USB harddisk and then write a bootsector using [[grub]].
 
 
 
== Boot your favorite Linux ==
 
This has been tested with SUSE Linux 10.0 and Ubuntu 7.04.
 
 
 
== Connect the USB disk ==
 
Attach the USB disk and type <tt>[[dmesg]]</tt>. At the end of the messages, you will find something like "Attached SCSI device to /dev/sda". Then you know your USB disk's device name is /dev/sda. In this tutorial, we assume the device name is /dev/sda.
 
 
 
== Partition the USB disk ==
 
[[fdisk]] /dev/sda
 
In this tutorial, we will assume you create a partition /dev/sda1 for your root ( / ) directory.
 
 
 
== Format the USB disk ==
 
[[mkfs]] -t [[ext3]] /dev/sda1
 
 
 
== Clone your system ==
 
Copy over all files from / to your USB disk. See also [[Cloning]].
 
[[mkdir]] -p /mnt/sda1
 
[[mount]] /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
 
[[cd]] /
 
[[tar]] -c [[Bash_operators#.24.28.29|$(]][[ls]] -1 [[piping||]] [[grep]] -Ev "[[regex|proc|sys|tmp|media|mnt]]"[[Bash_operators#.24.28.29|)]] [[piping||]] (cd /mnt/sda1; tar -xv)
 
 
 
'''You should know''' that you will need the /dev folder to create the ramdisk later. You can also use tar -cl ('''l'''ocal filesystems only), but that might exclude your /boot partition.
 
 
 
== Make your USB disk bootable ==
 
Here are two possibilities for making the disk bootable, it is not unusual that one fails. Try the uppermost first. We assume your USB disk is drive ''/dev/sdx'' mounted to ''/mnt/sdx''.
 
 
 
=== Possibility (1) ===
 
$ [[cp -pr]] ''/dev/sdx*'' ''/mnt/sdx1''/dev
 
$ [[cd]] ''/mnt/sdx1''
 
$ [[chroot]] .
 
Now make sure you can access all devices from /boot/grub/device.map.
 
$ mount /proc
 
$ grub-install ''/dev/sdx''
 
$ exit
 
 
 
=== Possibility (2) ===
 
$ grub-install --recheck --root-directory=''/mnt/sdx1'' ''/dev/sdx''
 
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
 
Installation finished. No error reported.
 
This is the contents of the device map /mnt/sda1/boot/grub/device.map.
 
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
 
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.
 
 
(fd0)  /dev/fd0
 
(hd0)  /dev/hda
 
(hd1)  /dev/hdb
 
(hd2)  ''/dev/sdx''
 
 
 
=== TroubleShooting ===
 
==== The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly ====
 
* '''Symptome''' is that grub-install fails with the message
 
The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
 
 
 
* '''Reason''' can be that your partition type is incorrect, e.g. like this:
 
$ fdisk -l
 
 
Disk ''/dev/sdx'': 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
 
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
 
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
 
 
    Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System
 
''/dev/sdx1''  *          1      19456  156280288+  '''c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)'''
 
 
* '''Solution''' can be to correct your partition type to 83 (Linux) using [[fdisk]].
 
 
 
== Edit your initial ramdisk ==
 
The initial ramdisk ([[initrd]]) must contain the modules needed to load usb storage. We will use [[mkinitrd]] to rebuild your initial ramdisk. First, change to your system on the USB disk:
 
cd ''/mnt/sdx1''
 
chroot .
 
mount /proc
 
Now have a look at the drivers that are loaded by the initial ramdisk.
 
 
 
=== SUSE ===
 
For [[SUSE]], your drivers file is /etc/sysconfig/kernel.
 
You will find a line starting with INITRD_MODULES= in /etc/sysconfig/kernel. It should look like this:
 
INITRD_MODULES="jbd reiserfs ext3 usbcore usb_storage scsi_mod sd_mod uhci_hcd ehci-hcd sbp2 sr_mod"
 
it can also contain more modules. Verify this line exists, then, create the initial ramdisk:
 
mkinitrd
 
 
 
=== Ubuntu ===
 
For [[Ubuntu]], your drivers file is /etc/modules. It should look at least like this (it can also contain more modules):
 
<pre>
 
# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
 
#
 
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
 
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
 
 
 
fuse
 
lp
 
usb_storage
 
uhci_hcd
 
usbcore
 
usbhid
 
sr_mod
 
sd_mod
 
scsi_mod
 
</pre>
 
After you verified the file exists, create your [[initrd]] with the command:
 
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initrd.img
 
 
 
== Use a unique device name ==
 
If you now boot from your USB disk, it might be that it appears under another name than /dev/sda. To circumvent this problem, we will now use the disk's unique ID instead of /dev/sda. Try
 
[[hwinfo]] --[[partition]]
 
You will get a line similar to the following:
 
  Device Files: ''/dev/sda1'', /dev/disk/by-id/usb-CompanyXXXXXX,_Inc._USB_Mass_Stor
 
age_Device_100-part1, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:3:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:
 
0-part1, ''/dev/disk/by-uuid/84ff6790-9b69-4401-9ba2-43d044af1d30'', /dev/disk/by-la
 
bel/Whatever
 
Now you know your partition is not only accessible via ''/dev/sda1'', but also via ''/dev/disk/by-uuid/84ff6790-9b69-4401-9ba2-43d044af1d30''.
 
 
 
=== /etc/fstab ===
 
You can now edit the [[fstab]] on your USB disk:
 
[http://userbase.kde.org/KWrite kwrite] /mnt/sda1/etc/fstab
 
there is one line for the mountpoint '''/''', maybe:   
 
''/dev/sda1''              /              ext2            defaults        1  1
 
In our example, you would change this line to
 
''/dev/disk/by-uuid/84ff6790-9b69-4401-9ba2-43d044af1d30''  /  ext2  defaults  1  1
 
 
 
=== /boot/grub/menu.lst ===
 
In /mnt/sda1/boot/grub/menu.lst, you will find some lines telling the kernel where to find the root (/) file system, maybe:
 
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=''/dev/sda1'' ro quiet splash
 
not to boot from the wrong partition, you can also replace them:
 
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=''84ff6790-9b69-4401-9ba2-43d044af1d30'' ro quiet splash
 
 
 
== Try booting from your disk ==
 
If there are problems, continue with TroubleShooting.
 
 
 
== TroubleShooting ==
 
=== GRUB - nothing else ===
 
* When booting from USB, I get a line saying
 
GRUB
 
nothing else.
 
: This can be a problem with your device map. Keep in mind that, when booting from USB, your USB disk corresponds to (hd0), the first harddisk. grub-install will tell you where its device map is - try correcting it.
 
 
 
=== Error 17 after boot menu ===
 
* After choosing an item from the [[grub]] menu, I get a line saying
 
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
 
: most probably, your device order has changed. For example, if you [[installed linux]] from CD and your IDE harddisk was device 0, it may now be device 1 after [[Booting from USB]]. In this case change
 
root (hd''1'',1)
 
to
 
root (hd''0'',1)
 
Please note that ''1'' is simply an example for a partition, it may also be any other number.
 
 
 
=== Error 17 before boot menu ===
 
* Instead of getting the [[grub]] menu, I get a line saying nothing else but
 
Error 17
 
: most probably, your device order has changed and grub searches its menu (stage) on the wrong disk. You will have to do grub-install again.
 
 
 
=== Error 21 before boot menu ===
 
* instead of getting the [[grub]] menu, I get a line saying
 
Error 21
 
: Solution was to correct ''/mnt/sda3''/boot/grub/device.map and ''/mnt/sda3''/boot/grub/menu.lst, the re-do a grub-install.
 
 
 
=== Waiting for /dev/sda to appear ===
 
* After selecting the boot entry in the [[grub]] menu, you get some lines of messages then the boot process stops with the message
 
Waiting for ''/dev/sda'' to appear
 
: your USB disk is recognized and supported by your [[BIOS]], but your initrd's drivers do not recognize it. You will have to edit your initial ramdisk to contain the correct drivers, as discussed under initrd.
 
 
 
=== No bootable partition in table ===
 
* After starting the computer, you get a line saying
 
No bootable partition in table
 
: you do not have a partition that is marked as bootable. Use [[fdisk]]'s "a" command to set the bootable flag of ''/dev/sda1''.
 
 
 
== What comes next ==
 
Now that you can boot from your USB disk, you should be aware that you cannot write very often to a specific sector, so you should make /tmp a [[ramdisk]] like this:
 
mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /tmp -o size=512M
 
 
 
 
 
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[[Category:Guides]]
 
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Latest revision as of 14:25, 1 November 2013

Modern computers can boot from USB storage like disks and sticks. But how to install Linux there to have a USB disc or stick bootable? Here are some approaches:

approach OS of your computer must be distro of bootdisk will be time to succeed
install Linux on a USB disk with Unetbootin Linux or Windows any 1 hour, depends on your choices
install Linux on a USB disk with Knoppix any Knoppix 30 min, depends on disk speed and size
install Linux on a USB disk with SUSE Studio Linux or Windows SUSE 1 hour
install Linux on a USB disk by cloning your computer any Linux any 2 hours

See also