[SOLVED] Install to USB flash

[Was_Just19]

Thanks Jan, for the info.

Yes the partitions are most likely as a result of the installer creating partitions when you elected to use the 'complete disk'.
When you wish to use one partition only, or indeed a specific partition, then you would prepares the disk beforehand, using PCC, and in the installer elect to install to existing partitions.

From the fdisk output posted, you have two Primary partitions -----  one of them being an Extended Partition sdc2 (containing one Logical Partition sdc5), which is  a wrapper into which many partitions can be placed. This is used primarily to overcome the limit of 4 only primary partitions which can be created on a disk. So you have sdc1 Primary partition; sdc2 Extended partition, which contains sdc5 a Logical partition.
In the case of the flash disk there is no need for an extended partition, but it is there because that is the default of the installer.

I would leave those for the moment, and try installing to that flash disk from a liveCD.
Trying that will ensure that the installation should not be of greater size than the flash stick, whereas an existing updated install with added applications etc just may be too large ....  although I doubt it unless it has greatly been added to.

So trying an install from a liveCD should overcome any possibility that this is what is preventing the install from finalising.

If you want clarification of any of the above please post back.

regards.

[Ditzian]

Thanks Jan, for the info.

Yes the partitions are most likely as a result of the installer creating partitions when you elected to use the 'complete disk'.
When you wish to use one partition only, or indeed a specific partition, then you would prepares the disk beforehand, using PCC, and in the installer elect to install to existing partitions.

From the fdisk output posted, you have two Primary partitions -----  one of them being an Extended Partition sdc2 (containing one Logical Partition sdc5), which is  a wrapper into which many partitions can be placed. This is used primarily to overcome the limit of 4 only primary partitions which can be created on a disk. So you have sdc1 Primary partition; sdc2 Extended partition, which contains sdc5 a Logical partition.
In the case of the flash disk there is no need for an extended partition, but it is there because that is the default of the installer.

I would leave those for the moment, and try installing to that flash disk from a liveCD.
Trying that will ensure that the installation should not be of greater size than the flash stick, whereas an existing updated install with added applications etc just may be too large ....  although I doubt it unless it has greatly been added to.

So trying an install from a liveCD should overcome any possibility that this is what is preventing the install from finalising.

If you want clarification of any of the above please post back.

regards.

Johnboy,

This is a near-real-time response; I am writing it as the installation takes place.

• I moved the flash stick back to the other computer, put the LiveCD iso in a CD drive, and rebooted.
• I clicked the Install PCLinuxOS icon and the installation began.
• I selected the unnamed small drive, the installer shows it to be 7.8 GB, rather than the WD 60 GB drive, and told I it to use existing partitions.
• At the next screen, and this may have been a major stumbling point earlier, it said to select mount points, and it offered some.  The two it showed were on sda, and one was much larger than the flash drive.  If I remember correctly, preciously I left these alone, and this may be my other problem.
• I decided to open PCLinuxOS Control Center, as well, and saw that the two mount points the installer offered were on the large drive, the drive from which I had carefully navigated away in the prior screen.
• I went back to he install program, added a mount at / on the small drive, and removed the other two mount points on the large drive.  Then I went on to the next step, and, as I type this, the computer is formatting a partition somewhere.
• The LiveCD is installing PCLinuxOS.  I see that the CD drive light is flashing, the flash drive light is flashing, and the hard drive light is not flashing, a good sign.
• The install continued to the point where it asked be about the bootloader options.  I have been here, and understand my previous mistake, so this time I just clicked "next," I did not add a password, and I did not change from the graphical Grub.  I also left the menu items on the next screen alone.
• The install ended.  I closed pclos, removed the CD, removed the flash, and then rebooted.  I am going to the netbook to try the flash drive.
• I have booted the netbook to PCLinuxOS.  It is a first-time-login menu.
• I have logged into PCLinuxOS on the netbbook.
• I opened Synaptic, and, after some problems, realized that the wireless connection did not start automatically.  I started it and reloaded Synaptic.  I am now waiting for the upgrades to be applied.  This should be a definitive test of whether I have a persistent install.  If the upgrade holds, then the install is persisitent.

This may take a while (202 packages), so I will post this to let you know what is happening.

To summarize my lessons thus far: Don't believe all error messages, check the status of the flash drive yourself; note carefully which mount points are to be installed.

Thanks,
Jan

[Was_Just19]

Yes you now have a FULL install on the flash drive ......  BUT ........  you need to be careful about the size of the install.

Remember this is NOT a live CD with persistence, this is a normal install of the OS on the flash drive so the OS files have been extracted to the flash drive and are no longer compressed.

Other than that you appear to have it set correctly.

Just a couple of points .....  1.  When reading I was not certain if you had ensured that Grub was to be written to the MBR of the flash drive and not to the MBR of the internal HDD.
2.  Yes it was asking for the location of the root and home mounts of the installing OS .....  which needed to be on the flash drive as you selected, and not on the internal HDD.

Looks like you have your FULL install on the flash drive   

regards.

[Ditzian]

Time for the acid test.

Shutdown completed by itself.

I unplugged and reinserted the flash drive.

Press the start button and it boots to PCLinuxOS from the flash drive.  It knows me as a user and logs in correctly.  I clicked on Synaptic, clicked reload, there are no package upgrades.

So, as you say, I now have a full install on the flash drive, and it is bootable.  I should be able to upgrade browsers, or make other changes, and they will be permanent.

Thank you for the assistance, JohnBoy.  Is there some place that I should document the stuff I learned?  Earlier in this thread, I made note of some of the errors that I made previously that I corrected.  I am going to go ahead and look at all of it and see if I can write, at least for myself, a full procedure for doing this again, starting with PCLinuxOS 2010.1 iso.  If I get really motivated, at some future date, I may try the whole thing again, just to see if I can do it completely.

Take care.

Jan

[Ditzian]

JohnBoy,

Upon reflecting on your last comments, I realize that the PCLinuxOS 2010.1 install is pretty big.  There are many installed programs that I am very unlikely to need on a netbook, and one or two that I must add.  Will the installation decrease in size if I remove programs? 

For example, I decided to remove choqok, a microblogging program, since I have never blogged, do not intend to blog, and seldom subject myself to blogs.  I am also going to remove Kmymoney.  On the big machine, with 2 GB of RAM, 1TB drive, and 1/2 TB external drive, I did not bother cleaning up, but here, I thought it would be a good idea, if it actually reduces space (an possibly time) required for the install.

Jan

[Old-Polack]

JohnBoy,

Upon reflecting on your last comments, I realize that the PCLinuxOS 2010.1 install is pretty big.  There are many installed programs that I am very unlikely to need on a netbook, and one or two that I must add.  Will the installation decrease in size if I remove programs? 

For example, I decided to remove choqok, a microblogging program, since I have never blogged, do not intend to blog, and seldom subject myself to blogs.  I am also going to remove Kmymoney.  On the big machine, with 2 GB of RAM, 1TB drive, and 1/2 TB external drive, I did not bother cleaning up, but here, I thought it would be a good idea, if it actually reduces space (an possibly time) required for the install.

Jan

Sounds like a good reason to install MiniMe instead. Rather than hunt down and remove applications you don't need, install the base KDE desktop with a minimum of applications, then add only the ones you will need and use.

[Was_Just19]

As old polack says, it might be worth your while investigating Minime.
It has practically no applications at all installed, so you would need to ass just about everything you need.
Maybe when you are sure what you need you could make a note of the apps and try it.

Yes removing apps will save some space ......  overall possibly not as much as not installing them in the first place as some libs may not be removed. So Minime would be a smaller install.

Of course you may also consider running live from the flash stick - with persistence.
That would save a lot of space as the packages being used would be decompressed 'on the fly' and not decompressed and stored on the drive.

regards.

[Ditzian]

I removed one or two apps, then I added both FileZilla, VLC, and Open Office.  What remains is 2.7 GB free.  I have almost every other app I want.  I can live with this.  One reason I waited until I had an 8 GB drive was that I did not want to have space problems complicating all the other errors I knew I was going to make.

As for a persistent flash stick, I still don't know how to do one of those. 

This Crucial flash stick cost me $18 from Newegg, including shipping, and even a real cheapskate like me cannot gripe about an $18 portable, personal, OS.  Similar 8 GB drives are available at about this price.

Jan

[Was_Just19]

I removed one or two apps, then I added both FileZilla, VLC, and Open Office.  What remains is 2.7 GB free.  I have almost every other app I want.  I can live with this.  One reason I waited until I had an 8 GB drive was that I did not want to have space problems complicating all the other errors I knew I was going to make.

As for a persistent flash stick, I still don't know how to do one of those. 

This Crucial flash stick cost me $18 from Newegg, including shipping, and even a real cheapskate like me cannot gripe about an $18 portable, personal, OS.  Similar 8 GB drives are available at about this price.

Jan

Persistence is available when using the 2010.1 ISO only.

Other than that there should be no problems ......  but is likely a subject for another thread

[ourasi]

Persistence is available when using the 2010.1 ISO only.

How should I use persistence? I have just loaded new pclinuxos-gnome-2010.01.iso.

[Was_Just19]

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,74878.msg615092.html#msg615092

[ourasi]

Thank you.
It seems to work with Unetbootin & syslinux.cfg - after I found a way to correct yesterdays error with nVidia driver (with vmalloc=256M option).