USB to IDE mobo connection ??

[Was_Just19]

just one of those things  + like I said I can get the sticks real cheap 

I do have 4 usb connections on the puters but haven't been able to get them to boot from usb

I haven't had that problem in the last few years, but it is possible to start the boot with something else and then hand off to the USB ....  not sure how universal that solution might be.

It might be owrth looking into ....

yes... read something about the handover ... was thinking something like this, but in reverse
http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/usb20toidsea.html

Maybe that coupled with a PATA to SATA converter so that you had
motherboard -> PATA to SATA -> SATA to USB -> USB stick

I think I would be more inclined to use a floppy or something like that to hand over the boot to the USB stick if it is possible on that machine.

Are you certain that it cannot be booted from USB by changes in BIOS and then making a selection from a HDD list during POST?

Lots of fun things to try      

[vjeko]

i have the exact cable, two in fact, dont think it will work out of the box.

think logics how the wiring inside is done

regards

[scoundrel]

just one of those things  + like I said I can get the sticks real cheap 

I do have 4 usb connections on the puters but haven't been able to get them to boot from usb

I haven't had that problem in the last few years, but it is possible to start the boot with something else and then hand off to the USB ....  not sure how universal that solution might be.

It might be owrth looking into ....

yes... read something about the handover ... was thinking something like this, but in reverse
http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/usb20toidsea.html

Maybe that coupled with a PATA to SATA converter so that you had
motherboard -> PATA to SATA -> SATA to USB -> USB stick

I think I would be more inclined to use a floppy or something like that to hand over the boot to the USB stick if it is possible on that machine.

Are you certain that it cannot be booted from USB by changes in BIOS and then making a selection from a HDD list during POST?

Lots of fun things to try      

yep... though I do not have these boxes running.. need 1 more screen but do have a KVM switch for when I get it, just remembered that a friend has a 17" just collecting dust 

[scoundrel]

i have the exact cable, two in fact, dont think it will work out of the box.

think logics how the wiring inside is done

regards

how about hooking up the flat cable to the switch ??  well its just a thought right now

[vjeko]

test, but i dont think it ll work straight away

[Dragynn]

I've got an old laptop, around 9 years old I guess, and it boots from USB, don't know how old Scoundrel's boxes are. I have Slitaz installed on a one gig USB, and it works okay, just really really slow, but then again it didn't install like I expected, I need to try and re-do it manually, it actually unpacked and installed the file system to the stick, whereas I just wanted to transfer the iso, and boot it all in ram.

@5: Sony now has 512 gig USB sticks, saw a couple on E-bay, that's some crazy stuff, all that memory in such a tiny package.

To me this kind of thing definitely becomes an option with USB 3, it's way faster than IDE or even garden variety SATA, only problem is wear-leveling, not sure I like that idea, seems like it's basically a type of fragmentation, and would slow your effective seek times down, perhaps best way is to keep OS on a small stick, and have a conventional HD just to store files. Or maybe multiple sticks of USB? Run them like partitions?

Interesting experimentation, i'd definitely like to hear more about people's ideas and successes/failures with this.

IDE to flash memory adapters are pretty cheap and plentiful Scoundrel, how about an SD card instead of USB? Much faster throughput...

[Was_Just19]

I've got an old laptop, around 9 years old I guess, and it boots from USB, don't know how old Scoundrel's boxes are. I have Slitaz installed on a one gig USB, and it works okay, just really really slow, but then again it didn't install like I expected, I need to try and re-do it manually, it actually unpacked and installed the file system to the stick, whereas I just wanted to transfer the iso, and boot it all in ram.

Dunno about Slitaz but not having to unpack the ISO should help with speed not slow things down it would appear.
Likely the slowness is the USB 1.1 speed and the low power for the flash stick also ....

[Dragynn]

I've got an old laptop, around 9 years old I guess, and it boots from USB, don't know how old Scoundrel's boxes are. I have Slitaz installed on a one gig USB, and it works okay, just really really slow, but then again it didn't install like I expected, I need to try and re-do it manually, it actually unpacked and installed the file system to the stick, whereas I just wanted to transfer the iso, and boot it all in ram.

Dunno about Slitaz but not having to unpack the ISO should help with speed not slow things down it would appear.
Likely the slowness is the USB 1.1 speed and the low power for the flash stick also ....

Well that's just it, it is slow because the OS is physically on the stick, not in ram, it would take a little longer to boot, but after that, it would all be in ram and the stick would just be the source it came from, you could unplug the stick at that point and it wouldn't affect operation. As it stands now, the OS and all files are on the stick, so the system has to access the stick repeatedly to do any sort of operation, thus slowing the whole thing down to the level of the USB 1 connection.

[Was_Just19]

I've got an old laptop, around 9 years old I guess, and it boots from USB, don't know how old Scoundrel's boxes are. I have Slitaz installed on a one gig USB, and it works okay, just really really slow, but then again it didn't install like I expected, I need to try and re-do it manually, it actually unpacked and installed the file system to the stick, whereas I just wanted to transfer the iso, and boot it all in ram.

Dunno about Slitaz but not having to unpack the ISO should help with speed not slow things down it would appear.
Likely the slowness is the USB 1.1 speed and the low power for the flash stick also ....

Well that's just it, it is slow because the OS is physically on the stick, not in ram, it would take a little longer to boot, but after that, it would all be in ram and the stick would just be the source it came from, you could unplug the stick at that point and it wouldn't affect operation. As it stands now, the OS and all files are on the stick, so the system has to access the stick repeatedly to do any sort of operation, thus slowing the whole thing down to the level of the USB 1 connection.

Does Slitaz have a Copy2RAM option for booting?

[Dragynn]

I've got an old laptop, around 9 years old I guess, and it boots from USB, don't know how old Scoundrel's boxes are. I have Slitaz installed on a one gig USB, and it works okay, just really really slow, but then again it didn't install like I expected, I need to try and re-do it manually, it actually unpacked and installed the file system to the stick, whereas I just wanted to transfer the iso, and boot it all in ram.

Dunno about Slitaz but not having to unpack the ISO should help with speed not slow things down it would appear.
Likely the slowness is the USB 1.1 speed and the low power for the flash stick also ....

Well that's just it, it is slow because the OS is physically on the stick, not in ram, it would take a little longer to boot, but after that, it would all be in ram and the stick would just be the source it came from, you could unplug the stick at that point and it wouldn't affect operation. As it stands now, the OS and all files are on the stick, so the system has to access the stick repeatedly to do any sort of operation, thus slowing the whole thing down to the level of the USB 1 connection.

Does Slitaz have a Copy2RAM option for booting?

It does so by default, it's built specifically to run in ram, though it does have a hard-drive installer built in, which I thought was a nice touch. I used the USB install utility that's also included, assuming it would just transfer the iso and use that the same way it uses a CD iso, loading it all into ram on boot, but that wasn't the case, it unpacked it and installed the same way it would do a hard-drive install.

[Was_Just19]

Does Slitaz have a Copy2RAM option for booting?

It does so by default, it's built specifically to run in ram, though it does have a hard-drive installer built in, which I thought was a nice touch. I used the USB install utility that's also included, assuming it would just transfer the iso and use that the same way it uses a CD iso, loading it all into ram on boot, but that wasn't the case, it unpacked it and installed the same way it would do a hard-drive install.
[/quote]

AH! Gotcha!  It did a 'full' install to the USB device and not a live install.
I had not got that part 

[Dragynn]

Does Slitaz have a Copy2RAM option for booting?

It does so by default, it's built specifically to run in ram, though it does have a hard-drive installer built in, which I thought was a nice touch. I used the USB install utility that's also included, assuming it would just transfer the iso and use that the same way it uses a CD iso, loading it all into ram on boot, but that wasn't the case, it unpacked it and installed the same way it would do a hard-drive install.

AH! Gotcha!  It did a 'full' install to the USB device and not a live install.
I had not got that part 
[/quote]

Exactly! Now I need to wipe it again and try just to drag-n-drop the iso file into the USB drive while it's connected to my other machine, that should probably work right? That's how I wanted to do it, have the stick with two partitions, the first being used to boot the machine, and the second for storing save files for any changes I make to the OS, and use the machines hard-drive just for file storage, mostly music files, this old lappy is just gonna be an e-mail reader when i'm out and about, and a portable jukebox for when we go camping.

[Was_Just19]

AH! Gotcha!  It did a 'full' install to the USB device and not a live install.
I had not got that part 

Exactly! Now I need to wipe it again and try just to drag-n-drop the iso file into the USB drive while it's connected to my other machine, that should probably work right? That's how I wanted to do it, have the stick with two partitions, the first being used to boot the machine, and the second for storing save files for any changes I make to the OS, and use the machines hard-drive just for file storage, mostly music files, this old lappy is just gonna be an e-mail reader when i'm out and about, and a portable jukebox for when we go camping.

I have no idea whether Slitaz is capable of being booted in that manner ........   suggest their forum to get that info.
The way files are laid out within the ISO is quite different for various distros, so different boot methods may need to be used.

regards.

[Dragynn]

AH! Gotcha!  It did a 'full' install to the USB device and not a live install.
I had not got that part 

Exactly! Now I need to wipe it again and try just to drag-n-drop the iso file into the USB drive while it's connected to my other machine, that should probably work right? That's how I wanted to do it, have the stick with two partitions, the first being used to boot the machine, and the second for storing save files for any changes I make to the OS, and use the machines hard-drive just for file storage, mostly music files, this old lappy is just gonna be an e-mail reader when i'm out and about, and a portable jukebox for when we go camping.

I have no idea whether Slitaz is capable of being booted in that manner ........   suggest their forum to get that info.
The way files are laid out within the ISO is quite different for various distros, so different boot methods may need to be used.

regards.

Well you're right of course, and I didn't mean to get into a Slitaz discussion on this forum, looking at the new Openbox Mini that Melodie's working on as a possibility to do the same kind of install and replace Slitaz anyway, trying to help beta-test it on that very machine.

If it wasn't so bloated and slow, I might try KDE. 
 

[Was_Just19]

 

Melodie's Mini is looking good.
I expect we will have an LXDE Mini also.
Maybe a KDE mni   

End of month should be a fun time