Full Installer to USB flash drives

Under development: PCMCIA, wireless, etc.
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bigpup
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#41 Post by bigpup »

starhawk wrote: Flash media such as USB flash drives and SD cards are what are called "unmanaged" media. The controllers in those do not have the sophisticated wear-leveling (etc) algorithms that an SSD has.
I am not sure this is true anymore.
I did a search on some of the major USB flash drive manufacturers web sites.
Some state that their flash drives do have some form of wear-leveling built into the flash drives controller.
Also, that it is getting to be the norm.

Example:
From Sandisk web site forums
http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/All-SanDis ... d-p/339714
i would like to inform you that all the flash drives have the wear levelling algorithm inside that prevents the data to be written to the same blocks all the time.
Which kind of wear leveling do Corsair
drives use?
Corsair’s flash drives typically use dynamic wear-
leveling. The reason for this is that dynamic wear-
leveling is less complicated to implement, and
provides endurance that is more than adequate for
consumer flash drive applications.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

starhawk
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#42 Post by starhawk »

Well, yes, but it's not to the same abilities and sophistication as an SSD. My local Linux guru friend has explained this to me numerous times. He runs the town's tech shop, and tinkers besides, so I think he knows what he's doing.

Also worth noting, if you manage to install Windows (7, Vista, or earlier) to a flash drive or SD card, the tendency is that it will run very slowly for less than a month and then the drive goes poof.

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bigpup
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#43 Post by bigpup »

You ever heard the consumer product design no. 1 rule?

Never design something, so it will never break.
You will only sell it one time. :shock: :evil: :twisted: :roll:
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

starhawk
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#44 Post by starhawk »

starhawk wrote:@april -- I don't know what you mean by "fairy chaser", but I'll gladly listen if you'll explain.
~24hrs later: no response?

starhawk
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#45 Post by starhawk »

Still no response. OK, so you were probably trolling me. Noted.

Although, if you want to actually be understood -- you'll have to try to English a little better than that.

gcmartin

HDDs and SSDs have marked advantages in operations with PCs

#46 Post by gcmartin »

@April, your findings mirror some findings I reported last year. HDD, even an old 10GB IDE (ATA) is doubly faster than the USB2 and USB3 sticks I have.

Thanks for your assessment. Lots of emphasis has been on USB for portability with little emphasis on the speed. The USB with Full installs I have had are NOT portable. Frugals "are", if you remember to F2 for pristine boot when you plug the USB into a different PC. LiveDVD use, is both identifiable as well as portable as F2 is an apparent option to bypass save sessions.

I had often wondered if, with knowledge of the speed drawback, that more emphasis should be paid on HDD/SSD partition "creation and use" for a given PUP, would garner more attention in community use.

USB booting (in fact any LIVE media booting) remands the running OS into a RAM filesystem. Thus once the system is up, the system's operation in NOT based upon the permanent physical filesystem. In this case, whether one used CD/DVD/SD/USB to boot a PUP LIVE has NO advantage once the system reaches desktop.

Thus, the system's permanent media is the fastest boot, followed by one's choice of other boot media Blu/USB/DVD/SD/CD/etc. It is my "opinion" that BluRay is currently the faster of the boot media in the streaming operation it offers for getting its contents into the booting system. I also have had experiences where some PUP DVDs boot as fast and faster than USBs have.

Lastly, one cannot tell by looking if a USB stick if "what version" or "what class" of the USB architecture.

USBs do have there place in providing portable storage and are easily useful in newer laptop PCs which do not have DVD/Blu drives built in (DVDs were a standard device since 2000 on almost every PC-laptop since then). But, today, excepting for BarryK and a few netbooks/tablets floating around, most users do not have one of the new laptops or convertibles, yet. They will come assuming industry continues on its current path and USBs are present to meet that need.

Hope others have similar comparisons in their use of media in their PUPPY use. And hope others find your post helpful.

starhawk
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#47 Post by starhawk »

Picking up a little here, where the old thread left off.

I've received a replacement client -- not the one off eBay, though; that one's still in USPS purgatory. A kind fellow who saw my woes on the openchrome bugtracker contacted me off-list and said, oh hey I'll send you one on my dime. I expected nothing but forked over my address anyways -- and received a rather nicely packed, er, package yesterday morning as a direct result.

Unfortunately, I haven't the inclination to set up the client (swap over RAM and SD/adapter and all), particularly because I'm rebuilding my mother's desktop right now. Also, I've got a six inch stack of papers to go through and shred, smack in front of that monitor because I've nowhere else to put them in the room. I'll get to setting it up in the next week or so. Probably.

starhawk
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#48 Post by starhawk »

Set up the client. Attempted boot. "Operating system not found."

Decided to eliminate the installer as a potential issue. Created new partition table in gparted, formatted the card ext4. Stuck on the boot flag. Downloaded latest installer that I could find (from page 2 of this thread) -- it spat a bunch of errors at me during install, towards the end. I have a complete log of Terminal messages from that...

Nevertheless, installed grub4dos, made my usual edits (eliminating useless text) within menu.lst -- the same stuff I do on all my computers, all of which OTHER than this one, boot fine.

Stuck the card back in its adapter in the client, plugged in, powered up. "Operating system not found."

Either grub4dos itself within X-Tahr 1b3 is very suddenly not working on my netbook -- which would make no sense, it was working fine before this problem -- or the card is faulty in some unspecified manner. For what (presumably little) it's worth, the card appears to read and retain data fine -- it just won't be booted from. It can't be the install script in this thread -- it never gets that far -- and it can be neither the client nor the adapter at this point, as I've replaced both.

Install log, copied out of Terminal, appears below this point...

Code: Select all

root# ./puppy_full_installer
I assume you have formatted the drive to ext(2,3,4)
I'm not babysitting so if it isn't do it now!
Is it? (y or n + [Enter/Return])
y
Assuming you are not stupid...
OK, remember.. I'm not responsible here...
Proceeding...

Insert your drive and mount it.
Then tell me the target drive partition (eg: sdc1, sdd1 etc)
GET IT RIGHT!
what is the drive partition?
sdc1
Seems sane..
Ok, /mnt/sdc1 exists. Good.

Now we need some source files
either mount a CD/DVD or an ISO file
THEN, tell me the mount point path
EXAMPLE: /mnt/sr0 or /mnt/+mnt+sda5+iso+tahr64-6.0.3.9.iso
An easy way to do that is enter the mounted folder and type 'pwd' in a terminal
Type the source mount point path.
/mnt/+mnt+sdb1+TEMP+X-tahr-1b3.iso 
Seems sane..

Install from /mnt/+mnt+sdb1+TEMP+X-tahr-1b3.iso to /mnt/sdc1
Press y + [Enter/Return] to continue
y
---------------------------------------------------------------

Decompressing: /mnt/+mnt+sdb1+TEMP+X-tahr-1b3.iso/puppy_tahr_6.0.2.sfs
To target: /mnt/sdc1

please have patience.

Parallel unsquashfs: Using 2 processors
20527 inodes (24780 blocks) to write

[===========================================================/] 24780/24780 100%
created 14790 files
created 1761 directories
created 5402 symlinks
created 335 devices
created 0 fifos

Decompressing: /mnt/+mnt+sdb1+TEMP+X-tahr-1b3.iso/zdrv_tahr_6.0.2.sfs
To target: /mnt/sdc1

please have patience.

Parallel unsquashfs: Using 2 processors
2918 inodes (3190 blocks) to write

[=============================================================\] 3190/3190 100%
created 2909 files
created 596 directories
created 9 symlinks
created 0 devices
created 0 fifos
Upgrading tahrpup to version 6.0.2...
Updating w.m. menus...
grep: /etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc: No such file or directory
Updating boot and shutdown system scripts...
Executing depmod, to update module files...
/bin/kmod
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.17.4: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
find: warning: you have specified the -noleaf option after a non-option argument -path, but options are not positional (-noleaf affects tests specified before it as well as those specified after it).  Please specify options before other arguments.

Updating /etc/networkmodules...
grep: /lib/modules/3.17.4/modules.dep: No such file or directory
cat: /lib/modules/3.17.4/modules.dep: No such file or directory
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
Files being translated:
 /etc/rc.d/functions4puppy4
 /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
 /etc/rc.d/rc.update
 /etc/rc.d/rc.country
 /usr/local/petget/0setup
Files being translated:
 /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
cp: cannot stat '/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin': No such file or directory
 /root/.jwmrc-tray
cp: cannot stat '/root/.jwmrc-tray': No such file or directory
+ '[' '!' /root ']'
+ '[' /root = / ']'
+ export HOME
+ '[' -f /root/.jwm/menuheights ']'
++ find /etc/profile.d -name '*.csh'
+ CSH=
+ '[' '' ']'
+ '[' en_US.UTF-8 = C ']'
++ echo -n en_US.UTF-8
++ cut -f 1 -d _
+ LANG1=en
++ ls -1 /etc/xdg/templates
++ tr '\n' ' '
+ TEMPLATES=
++ which variconlinks
+ '[' ']'
++ which tempicons
+ '[' ']'
++ which fbpanel_menu_refresh
+ '[' ']'
++ which lxpanel_menu_refresh
+ '[' ']'
++ which jwm2fluxbox
+ '[' ']'
++ which obmenu-refresh
+ '[' ']'
++ which jwm2pekwm
+ '[' ']'
++ which xfce4-panel
+ '[' /usr/bin/xfce4-panel ']'
+ xfce4-panel -r

(process:22787): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
	Using the fallback 'C' locale.
+ gtk-update-icon-cache -f -i /usr/share/icons/hicolor
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
+ touch --no-create /usr/share/applications/
---------------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully we're done ...

To make this install bootable you need to run grub4dosconfig to
install a bootloader to the USB drive. In Grub4dosconfig -choose
to install to the USB drive and choose selection: search only
within this device.

If your target is a USB drive then don't forget to add "rootwait"
in the Options textbox, it's the one that has the value "ro"
in it by default.

That would be in the grub4dosconfig window with title:

"Grub4DosConfig - List of detected operating systems"

This is essential for a successful boot.

Now proceed by running grub4dosconfig to complete the install
and making it bootable.
root# 

starhawk
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#49 Post by starhawk »

Correction to my last post made a few moments ago. I stuck the adapter in a known good drive tester ("USB to IDE SATA Adapter" in eBay-speak) and the SD card appeared in gparted as an unreadable volume with neither partition table nor partitions. Stuck the card into the SD card reader of my netbook, after removing the drive tester from it and pulling the card out of the adapter... and the card read fine.

The adapter is therefore faulty. I've messaged the seller... we'll see what happens. I'm outside of the fourteen-day return window, but sometimes sellers are helpful despite that. Sometimes. We'll see...

Scooby
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#50 Post by Scooby »

Code: Select all

depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.17.4: No such file or directory 
 depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory 
 find: warning: you have specified the -noleaf option after a non-option argument -path, but options are not positional (-noleaf affects tests specified before it as well as those specified after it).  Please specify options before other arguments. 

 Updating /etc/networkmodules... 
 grep: /lib/modules/3.17.4/modules.dep: No such file or directory 
 cat: /lib/modules/3.17.4/modules.dep: No such file or directory 
These ERROR's may be due to installing from OS with different kernel?

Which OS did you run it from ? Was the kernel 3.17.4 in the old one or new one?

Anyway you could try script withou legacy support to skip update step!?

starhawk
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#51 Post by starhawk »

I was installing X-Tahr 1b3 using X-Tahr 1b3. Kernel 3.14.20. It's based on TahrPup 6.0.2, so running with the legacy (pre-WoofCE?) option would possibly cause more headache than it would relieve.

Scooby
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#52 Post by Scooby »

starhawk wrote:I was installing X-Tahr 1b3 using X-Tahr 1b3. Kernel 3.14.20. It's based on TahrPup 6.0.2, so running with the legacy (pre-WoofCE?) option would possibly cause more headache than it would relieve.
Then where was the kernel 3.17.4 picked up as in

Code: Select all

depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.17.4: No such file or directory 
Is it possible that it is trying to update kernel as well?

anyway perhaps try script with --nolegacy or -n then

starhawk
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#53 Post by starhawk »

Local friend gave me his older SD-to-IDE adapter. System still won't boot... now, instead of grub4dos giving me a menu, I get a blinking cursor.

Well, at least the install didn't have any errors...!

EDIT: upgraded grub4dos on the netbook (which is the system I'm using to install to the card) -- reinstalled grub4dos only, not the rest of it -- no change in behavior. I still get the blinking cursor of not-booting. Oh well...

EDIT2: must be a grub4dos problem somehow, as unlikely as that is -- installed syslinux, with a little help from my local guru friend, and --despite some bitching about /etc/mtab-- it's booting now.

scsijon
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#54 Post by scsijon »

Can I take it it builds a single usb partition?

I have a number of driveless 64bit boxes (built that way in book size and not even a cd) with only a 10/100 lan, video, and four usb connectors, but the bios only allows a single partition on anything connected. Thus barry's install program doesn't work as it uses 2 partitions.

thanks

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