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I've recently created LiveUSB sticks from the Gentoo LiveDVD |
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and LiveCD. (I'm trying to put Gentoo on an OQO.) It was |
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pretty easy -- I was able to use ext3 even -- and I thought |
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I'd share how I did that with everyone. |
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The three steps are: |
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. Format the stick. |
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. Put the Gentoo stuff on there. |
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. Slap on the boot loader and configure it. |
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Prepare The Stick |
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----------------- |
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For the DVD, you need a big stick -- for the CD, not so much. |
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Let's say the stick is at `/dev/sda`. Using fdisk, create one |
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partition on it, marking it bootable. (That part is explained |
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all over the place.) When that is over, run |
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mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1 |
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and then put the master boot record on the device: |
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cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin > /dev/sda |
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Copy The Gentoo Material |
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Mount the ISO of your choice -- say it's at `/media/iso` -- |
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along with `/dev/sda1` at `/media/usb`. All you have to do is: |
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cp -pPR /media/iso/* /media/usb |
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Setup The Bootloader |
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-------------------- |
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This is where my process differs from the tutorials for |
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Gentoo. I lifted the idea from the Pentoo distribution (now |
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defunct). You install the `extlinux` loader _to the directory_ |
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where the bootable stuff -- so it's okay to leave it all in |
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isolinux. |
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cd /media |
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cp usb/isolinux/isolinux.cfg usb/isolinux/extlinux.conf |
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extlinux -i usb/isolinux |
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There will be a `extlinux.sys` file in there along side the |
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configuration file after you install. |
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That's it. I wanted to go with ext3 so I could have links and |
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a large filesystem -- FAT16 won't take more than 2GB -- and |
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I'm glad this was so easy with Gentoo 2007.0! It's too bad |
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the tutorials out there don't make it clear the progress that |
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has been made in the last year. USB booting is great -- I will |
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likely exploit the ease of 'remastering' my image to good |
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effect when installing on my OQO -- and I hope this email |
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helps others out there who are interested in the topic. |
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-- |
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_jsn |
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-- |
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