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Update for the Operating Systems page...maybe

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laughingman182
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Update for the Operating Systems page...maybe

I know that the apps being hosted here are normally configured from a paf.exe installer, but from very intensive experimenting with the installation CDs of Ubuntu 9.10, I found that if you boot from the install disk and go through the options until you get to the partitioner (when you click "Forward" a window pops up saying "Setting up the partitioner", and you have a USB flash drive plugged in, the partitioner doesn't complain about choosing the option to format the USB drive and install Ubuntu on it. Mind you, you might want a flash drive with at least 8 or more gigabytes, since the expanded size of the installation is about 4.4 gigabytes. Regardless, I've successfully loaded it from my BIOS, and could install updates to it without a problem. The only thing I suggest is to not try to install large amounts of software, or specific software that takes a lot of room, like NetBeans IDE or Eclipse IDE(the full application, nit the PortableApps.com version). However, you may need to have a SuperGRUB disc ready, since grub will try to install to the hard drive of your computer.

If you do accidentally install grub to your Windows-based hard drive, boot from the installation DVD, wait for it to load, and press R to access the Recovery Console. Wait for it to ask you for which hard drive you have Windows installed to(it should be number 1), type the number of your Windows installation, and hit Enter. Then type in your Administrator password, if you have one. If you don't have a password, don't worry, it won't ask for one. Now you should have a prompt that says C:\WINDOWS>
There, type(without quotations) "fixmbr", and press Enter. It will ask you to confirm that decision, so type(again, no quotations) "y", for yes, and hit Enter. Now, if nothing went wrong, it should tell you the master boot record (MBR) was successfully written. Now type(no quotes) "exit", hit Enter, and your computer will restart.

Now, I'm currently working on getting a working Windows XP on a flash drive, and I'll talk about that only when I succeed at doing it, and so far, I'm seeing good progress. By good progress,I mean that I installed Windows via the installation DVD by first formatting my flash drive to NTFS, then booting from the DVD and selecting the drive (it was drive G:\ for me) to install to. Originally, It would complain that it can't install to a USB device. If anyone is interested, or can provide me any info that might help me, feel free to comment and provide links. Thanks!

P.S. Please don't post links about BartPE. I know about that, it's just that I'm looking toward using a 16 or 8 gigabyte flash drive, where there's more room to work with, and therefore can install ALL of Windows. I will consider making an portable app to install BartPE on smaller drives as well, with instructions to boot from the drive and install plugins.

OliverK
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Joined: 2007-03-27 15:21
Fedora 12 (and earlier, down

Fedora 12 (and earlier, down to 10 at least) you can install persistent to a flash drive without screwing around with the boot member of the hard drive.

Also, you can use hak5's multipass (I was working on that the summer before, I SWEAR), and boot linux os's. But they won't be persistent. Sad

I'm actually working on packaging a image meant to be put on a flash drive with grub\grub2 for bootloading.

Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world

Vandrvekn
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Linux on flash drives.

This site has tons on info on running assorted linux distros from flash:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Their method for running Ubuntu from flash seems to take up less space. I haven't used it myself, Ubuntu 9.10 can't mount the hard drive on my netbook. I use Ultilex, a multiple boot system that includes Slax, Puppy, TinyCore, and a few others.

http://ultilex.linux-bg.org/

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