[CentOS] Installing to USB Drive [TOO]

[Mike]

Phil Schaffner wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 17:31 -0700, Mike wrote:
>   
>> Greetings CentOS Fans.
>>
>> I'm working on an Inspiron 9400 Laptop.  It supports booting from USB
>> devices, so I'd like to install CentOS on a USB hard drive as an
>> alternative to XP.
>>
>> I tried booting to the 4.3 (disk 1) CD, but it doesn't see the USB
>> Drive when it gets to the stage of partitioning... any idea what's
>> involved in getting the USB drive recognized so I can install CentOS
>> onto it?
>>     
>
> OK - got my curiosity up.   Had wanted a USB stick install also.  Was
> unable to figure out how to get the installer to see the USB thumb
> drive, despite being able to modprobe ehci-hcd, scsi_mod, etc.  in the
> Ctrl-Alt-F2 virtual console.  (Anybody else able to manage this?  Would
> have allowed a direct install to USB if it had been possible to make it
> visible to the installer.)
>
> Here's a kludge for a (per Karanbir - unsupported) 2GB-USB-key-bootable
> CentOS 4.3 install:
>
> In a nutshell - do a minimal install to a hard disk partition (may be
> done on a different machine - that was my method); boot to it; insert,
> fdisk, mke2fs, and mount the USB stick; copy the installed system to the
> USB drive; edit /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf; make an appropriate
> initrd; grub-install; and away you go.  Used a procedure based on
> http://www.simonf.com/usb/ for FC3.
>
> In more detail (and omitting some trial/error):
>
> Installed minimal system to a 2GB partition (since my USB drive is 2GB)
> using custom install with disk-druid to install to a single partition
> (not using LVM), and ignoring warnings about no swap.
>
> Booted from the installed system, logged on as root, and inserted USB
> drive which was then recognized.  On my system the USB drive
> is /dev/sda.   Ran:
>
> # fdisk /dev/sda
> (Made primary partition 1, filling up the entire 2GB USB device, and
> made active.)
> # mke2fs -jL /el4 /dev/sda1
> # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
> # tar lcf - / | tar xf - -C /mnt
>
> Edited /mnt/etc/fstab to look like:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> LABEL=/el4        /                        ext3    defaults        1 1
> none                    /dev/pts             devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
> none                    /dev/shm           tmpfs   defaults        0 0
> none                    /proc                 proc    defaults        0
> 0
> none                    /sys                   sysfs   defaults        0
> 0
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Edited /mnt/boot/grub/grub.conf to look like:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> default=0
> timeout=5
> hiddenmenu
>
> title CentOS-4 i386 (2.6.9-34.EL)
> 	root (hd0,0)
> 	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-34.EL ro root=LABEL=/el4
> 	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-34.EL.img
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> [First guessed (hd1,0) but GRUB sees  the USB drive as (hd0,0) when it
> is selected as the boot device.]
>
> Ran:
>
> # chroot /mnt
> # mkinitrd -f --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod \
>  --preload=sd_mod /boot/initrd-2.6.9-34.EL.img 2.6.9-34.EL
>
> # grub-install /dev/sda
>
> Plugged the USB key into my laptop, booted and chose USB boot device.
> Let Kudzu remove/install new hardware.  Success!
>
> Logged on as root, ran:
>
> # yum update
> # mkinitrd -f --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod \
>  --preload=sd_mod /boot/initrd-2.6.9-34.0.1.EL.img 2.6.9-34.0.1.EL 
> # yum install emacs xorg-x11 system-config-display xterm
> # yum groupinstall "XFCE-4.2" "Graphical Internet"
>
> (Group "GNOME Desktop Environment" was too big for the stick.  Might be
> able to manage a GNOME or KDE environment by careful package selection.
> The updates and installs could have been done before the move to the USB
> drive.  Using a larger install partition and cleaning up install
> packages before the copy operation might have allowed more packages on
> the target USB device.)
>
> Rebooted to new kernel, ran:
>
> # system-config-display
>
> Added user with useradd.  Logged in as new user and ran:
>
> $ switchdesk XFCE
> $ startx
>
> Got a GUI environment.
>
> Not exactly pretty, and may be problematic when booting on other
> hardware, but did yield a reasonable CentOS 4.3 system on USB media.
> (I'd still recommend a dual-boot install of CentOS with XP on the laptop
> if you want to use it very much.  Knoppix Live-CD, or SuSE or Mandrake
> installers can be used to shrink an NTFS partition to make room.)
>
> Phil
>
>   
Now that sounds achievable.  If I can free some time up this week I'll 
be giving that a try.
Nice work!
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