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Booting Knoppix from USB 2.0 Pendrives?

Posted by Cliff on from the better-than-floppies dept.

David Eliasson asks: "Ive been trying to make Knoppix boot on my Pendrive without success. Booting from USB hard drives seems to work, however, so I guess this drive could do the trick, but it doesn't support USB 2.0, making it rather slow. Does anyone have a better experience with this? I would like to use the local harddrive as a huge AFS-cache. Imagine carrying around your whole OS, and necessary data on an encrypted pendrive! If users have problems, then you just plug in the drive and reimage it. Isnt this a great idea!?"

28 comments

  1. mobile OS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A Knoppix-CD + SSH to your home box and you already have that way of access. Or, use a notebook :)

  2. yeah, really cool by cybermace5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Imagine carrying around your whole OS, and necessary data on an encrypted pendrive!

    More likely:

    Imagine carrying around your whole OS and data you've been working on, and then pulling your keys out of your pocket and the drive falls into a storm drain!

    I'm really not too excited about ultra-tiny storage formats. A CD is about the right size to keep track of, a floppy in a hardcase is still OK. But...CompactFlash cards? Memory Stick? USB pendrives? Enough people lose their keys, socks, and wedding rings.

    A USB watch drive would be a nice solution. It's always there. Just make the watch reasonably easy to take on and off, and you've got a winner. Adding USB storage to cell phones would be nice as well.

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    1. Re:yeah, really cool by fliplap · · Score: 1

      I dunno about you, but I tend to have my keys on me more than I have my watch. I like the idea of having a drive on my keychain.

    2. Re:yeah, really cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A USB watch drive would be a nice solution.

      No it wouldn't, who wants to hook up a cable to it? A bluetooth one on the other hand... Have they figured out how to boot from bluetooth devices yet?

    3. Re:yeah, really cool by uradu · · Score: 5, Funny

      > I'm really not too excited about ultra-tiny storage formats.

      If it's too tiny for you, permanently attach it to a brick or a 2x4 or anything else you consider a handy size. Don't hobble everyone else with bulky formats just because you're prone to losing your keys. Given small things it's easy to make them larger, but it's much harder to make large things smaller.

    4. Re:yeah, really cool by BenTheDewpendent · · Score: 1

      Timex has a watch that has flash, it tells time, it plays mp3s. But its also go room for a AAA battery . So its kinda large.

    5. Re:yeah, really cool by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      I'm really not too excited about ultra-tiny storage formats. A CD is about the right size to keep track of, a floppy in a hardcase is still OK. But...CompactFlash cards? Memory Stick? USB pendrives? Enough people lose their keys, socks, and wedding rings.

      How about a subcutaneous solution? I've found limbs to be much more difficult to lose than car keys.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    6. Re:yeah, really cool by Zoarre · · Score: 1

      How about a subcutaneous solution? I've found limbs to be much more difficult to lose than car keys.

      what about a suppository shape? that way, you always have at least one pocket to stuff it in.

      --
      "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." -The Buddha
    7. Re:yeah, really cool by cybermace5 · · Score: 2

      Ok, the next time you're frantically hunting for your 20GB "iNoseStud", I'll be laughing at you with a large red brick hanging off my PDA.

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    8. Re:yeah, really cool by cybermace5 · · Score: 2

      No, they haven't figured out how, and I don't want them to. It would be like the old days of two-floppy computers, except you would be trying to boot a modern, huge, OS.

      See, with the watch drive, the beauty of it is the band is the cable. One end of the band is permanently connected to the watch. The other end is a standard USB connector, with the exception of a spring-loaded catch you have to squeeze before you can unplug it from the watch. So, all you do is squeeze the connector on both sides, where it is held in the watch, the connector is already in your fingers now and ready to plug in a nearby USB port. The band will be sold in several sizes, with spring tension on one end to pick up any slack.

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    9. Re:yeah, really cool by uradu · · Score: 2

      > I'll be laughing at you with a large red brick hanging off my PDA.

      Even with me looking for my data you'd hardly be the one laughing in that pose :-)

    10. Re:yeah, really cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's easy to make large things smaller, the hard part is retaining the designed functionality. I mean, I can make a hard drive pretty small using my trusty friend Mr. Sledgehammer, but it doesn't work so good afterwards... ;-)

    11. Re:yeah, really cool by compwizrd · · Score: 1

      I've thought about getting their pager watch, but unfortunately the coverage in canada is limited to where you're close to the border :D

    12. Re:yeah, really cool by pwarf · · Score: 1

      Why not?

      A temporary tatoo of a 2D barcode? What a great idea for temporary storage. As long as you don't mind looking weird and don't plan on washing your hands/arms/[wherever you plan on putting it] before you use it. :)

      Then again, I suppose there is no tecnical reason you couldn't implant memory storage that communicated via 802.11 or another wireless solution. You could power it by inductance in the same way that battery powered toothbrushes are charged.

      Somehow, though I think people will stick with external storage.

      Seriously, though, I agree that the current storage solutions for data need better carrying cases. I expect to see more products that are both wallets and flash card holders.

      Actually, a little secure slot for memory cards in the tongue of a tennis shoe would be good for school students. After all, how often have you lost your shoes in the past few years?

  3. BORING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    zzzzzzzzz

    at least throw in some good bogus claims in the question to make it interesting!

  4. My experience by Raleel · · Score: 4, Informative

    It depends on whether your machine will boot from USB or not. AFAIK, no Dells will currently. Some other brands will though.

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    -- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
  5. A variation on the idea by panker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have booted the knoppix cd, and it is cool and all, but I don't like having to set up the basics each time. Can you customize it so that it has your email settings, and net connection scripts, etc. on it? If you could, and you can get it on a usb key drive, then it would be kind of cool to walk up to any pc, plop in your keychain, reboot the thing and have your desktop up and running the way you like it.

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    move along, nothing to .sig here.
    1. Re:A variation on the idea by colonwq · · Score: 3, Informative

      if you are using the KDE desktop:
      KNOPPIX-> Configure-> Save KNOPPIX configuration

      The KNOPPIX site has more information on how to save and reload a configuration file from a floppy.

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      -- Phase 1: Collect under pants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit
  6. USB Hard Drive Link Is NOT A Hard Drive by Cy+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Booting from USB hard drives seems to work,

    That link is to a pen drive type device, note the size of the drive is "16MB to 128MB". There are USB hard drives that are bootable, but require USB boot support in the BIOS.

    How old is you PC, and what version is the BIOS? I would check with the BIOS manufacture and see if they claim USB booting is possible, you may need to flash your BIOS, or it may not be supported at all on your machine.

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    Work for Change & GET PAID!
  7. I use something like this.. by xchino · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have a 128 MB USB keydrive, and it's what I have my /boot partition on. Not incredibly useful, but pretty neat local security, cuz how are you going to boot without a /boot partition or access to the BIOS to change the boot sequence. It's a shame I never turn my computer off or it might have been something I could actually USE. Other than that I just carry around cool video clips and what not to show my friends.

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    Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
    1. Re:I use something like this.. by cybermace5 · · Score: 2

      Not incredibly useful, but pretty neat local security, cuz how are you going to boot without a /boot partition or access to the BIOS to change the boot sequence.

      1. Pop computer open and clear CMOS, if you need to.
      2. Place bootable rootfloppy or CDROM in computer.
      3. Wreak untold havoc on xchino's system.

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    2. Re:I use something like this.. by xchino · · Score: 1

      Well I could just take the cdrom and the floppy out. I never said it was an enterprise security solution DARPA should adopt. It's just kinda neat is all :)

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      Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
  8. A handier option by Gudlyf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not just get a small pack of blank business card sized CDRs and throw whatever bootable OS you want on it. Carry the OS and whatever other files you want in your wallet. Works for me, and most current BIOS's will at least boot via CD.

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    Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
    1. Re:A handier option by tzanger · · Score: 2

      Why not just get a small pack of blank business card sized CDRs [cardiscs.com] and throw whatever bootable OS you want on it. Carry the OS and whatever other files you want in your wallet. Works for me, and most current BIOS's will at least boot via CD

      Yeah, and get it lost in the tray-style CD-ROM drives because it happened to have stopped spinning in just the right direction. :-(

  9. Why do you need to BOOT from USB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    .. instead, just customise your knoppix cd to load /home/knoppix from USB pendrive. That way all your data is stored on the thumbdrive but not knoppix.

    How are you going to fit 700MB on a thumb drive anyway?

  10. Keys vs Watch by Glonoinha · · Score: 1

    Bah! At $3800 a pop, I haven't lost too many watches (Stainless Submariner.) As for keys, I am way too anal about them too.

    For me, it is Cross pens. The black one with gold accents is my weakness, and I buy (and lose) about 4 of them each year. Damn things are expensive enough to cry over when I lose them, but not valuable enough to warrant a drive across Austin (+/- 80 miles round trip) to recover one that gets found.

    Just my luck, all the new rage is the 'Pen Drive - perfectly sized for Glonoinha to lose about 4 times a year.'

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    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  11. Floppy by Student_Tech · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What about using a floppy (or floppy image on CD el Toro I beleive) that has enough kernel support to start booting the usb device, if you use modules you can just keep a bare basics kernel on the floppy.

    I did something like this one to boot a linux install I did to a scsi zip drive hooked up to a non-bios-bootable scsi card. Kinda slow but that was the zip drive/disk fault.