Using a USB device to Install Linux
Novell Cool Solutions: Question & Answer
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Q:
DB Wrote: Hi, I am having serious trouble trying to install linux on my new USB 2.0 hard drive (Hitachi 5K100 parallel ATA). I can't work out whether the problem is related to the fact that it is a USB hard drive, or whether it is because it is a parallel ATA drive. This may sound like an obscure question but this arrangement is very convenient for laptop users who do not want to mess around with their internal hard drive to install Linux. Any ideas?
A:
At first glance this seems like a good idea, but further thought and a bit of research
I think that this is a bleeding edge tech head experiment for booting any operating system.
One major pitfall I can see is Advanced Power Management, which would shut down the USB drive, and you may not get it back again without a reboot.
I think that there are better ways to install secondary OSes on laptops. SUSE can re-partition your hard drive and allow you to dual boot. You won't need more than about 10GB even if you are going to do some compiling. 5GB is probably plenty for ordinary use.
If you don't want to install a boot loader to pick and choose which OS you boot to, you can always boot from a floppy or even the SUSE CD by giving it your partition parameter at boot up. You could even limit the amount of laptop hard drive space you use by putting the root directory on the laptop hard drive, and putting /opt, /usr, /home, and /var onto partitions on your USB drive. You just have to make sure the USB drive is plugged in before you start installing or using SUSE. Although you may still have problems with the laptop power management.
If you are really keen on using a USB device then there is much better support and knowledge out there for using RAM sticks pen drives or whatever they are called in your neck of the woods. A 1GB pen drive can work quite well for single CD distros.
To use this method you have to make sure your motherboard supports booting off a USB device. You might need to enable USB in the BIOS. Try all USB slots if one doesn't work.
I suggest you use the USB Hard drive for what it was intended. Extra storage space and backup, and try these alternative methods.
You know you can try out Linux with a selection of bootable no install CDs, some of which will make a savable user and settings area on a FAT 32 partition. I've been playing with Dyne:bolic as it has Open Mosix for loadsharing with other Open Mosix machines, making a supercomputer out of several old P3s and a laptop. KNOPPIX and derivatives, also allow user saving to the hard drive. If you like SUSE, they have a bootable CD no install, but you can't save the user settings to the hard drive.
Hope this steers you in a sensible direction. By the way, can you install MS on the USB drive instead? Then you could have Linux on the laptop!
Kind regards, Stomfi
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Reader Comments
- Quite pointless. The issue is not dealt with at all. If the responder was not sure how to go about things, he ought to just say so, it would be far more acceptable than having to read a page full of babble