Damn Small Linux on a bootable USB drive
February 6th, 2008I’ve tried a few times to create a bootable USB drive, usually from within Linux, and every time it’s failed. Lately I’ve started to put a bit more effort in as I think the need to have a portable sysadmin toolkit that I can run on any computer (if it will boot from USB) is invaluable.
How many times are you sitting in front of a friends computer trying to diagnose a problem wishing you had another computer available to use as an independent check. With a bootable USB containing a minimal Linux install this is exactly what you have.
Simply insert the stick, reboot and have all your favorite Linux tools available without touching the hard drive. And if you do need to access the hard drive you can, fixing a corrupted Windows MBR is one example that comes to mind.
Anyway the method that finally worked is documented here:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_to_a_USB_Flash_Drive#Method_I
It’s ironic that I needed to use Windows to get a Linux based USB drive to work, even using Linux tools in the process (syslinux). It’s a situation I’m not that happy about so I’ll keep trying other methods from within Linux.
But in the meantime I’m happy it worked and DSL seems fine, it boots pretty fast, even from USB, and is very snappy to use. My main gripe at first glance is lack of NTFS support.