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! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20060627/1ced4e9e/attachment-0005.html>