Setting up a pendrive for installation of TCL with core2usb

[Juanito]

One more item to consider is that if you install the windows driver for linux filesystems at http://www.ext2fsd.com/ you don't need to have any windows partitions on your usb stick.

You will only be able to read/write in windows to the first partition on the usb stick, but this has worked for me without problems for years.

[caveat - and you can probably safely ignore this - the above is true for bios boot usb sticks, if you use efi boot usb sticks, the first (efi) partition must be a windows filesystem]

Amazing, but perhaps not surprising, that after all this time windows still cannot access more than one partition on a usb stick, even if all the partitions are windows file systems...

[Mike7]

Hi.

Make it easy.

Nothing is easy, Béla. <grin>.

1) Create a 64MByte FAT partition on the USB stick with WINDOWS
2) Install Core or TC on WINDOWS with core2usb

It will leave intack partitions, just copies files and installs a bootloader (syslinux). It is safe. Forget CorePlus. To be honest I have never used, most people do not need it.

Now your stick is ready to use. Just boot your PC from the newly created stick. Partitioning of remaining part of the stick can be done native with fdisk and you can create /tce on a new Linux partition. Reboot and start using it.

Worth a try, although I still have doubts about making new partitions once TCL is installed.

I'm sure some nice person here will explain to me later how to install and set up wireless on Core, right?

Mike

[Juanito]

I'm sure some nice person here will explain to me later how to install and set up wireless on Core, right?

Getting off-topic, but if you're lucky you just need to install the wifi extension and things will work.

Unfortunately, due to many suppliers not supporting linux, more effort is usually needed and there are many threads in these forums on the subject.

[Misalf]

Hmm, is there a way to check if a flash drive is 'ext3/4 capable'?

--

What about just copying TinyCore files on the flash drive alongside puppeee, in a /tce folder, and using the already present bootloader? You might be able to just edit the bootloaders config file to boot Core Linux.
There surely is one installed already while Puppeee is currently booting from that stick.

Sorry, you'll have to excuse me, but I really have no idea what this means. I don't know what a bootloader is, to be perfectly frank, and I can't see how an OS could work in a separate partition.

If a drive is bootable, the computer executes code from the MBR, which is/starts the bootloader so we can choose to boot files from the disk (kernel).


It's not possible to edit the partition where the currently running OS is installed on. Well, it might be possible in cloud mode if the drive can be unmounted but there would be only one single chance.

Resizing partitions can cause problems, yes. But creating partitions in unformated free space, I think, is pretty much save.

[Mike7]

Hi, all. I'm still here but I have to deal with health issues for a few days. I'll get back to this thread as soon as I can.

Cheers!

Mike

[Mike7]

Hi, Gerald.

The CorePlus ISO is an isohybrid image. Puppy's MBR has nothing to do with it.  You don't copy an MBR to the thumb drive. You copy the CorePlus ISO image to the thumb drive. dd if=the-coreplus.iso of=/dev/sdx

Okay. I won' t mess with the MBR.

Previously, you wrote:

CorePlus is an installer image. You can use dd from puppy to copy the CorePlus ISO to a small ( 128M or larger ) Flash drive. You can then boot that flash drive and use it to do a regular install to another flash drive.

Can you explain for me what the difference is between a dd install of an iso and a regular install? In simple terms, if that's possible. It would help me understand what's going on.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Mike

[Mike7]

Hi, Juanito.

One more item to consider is that if you install the windows driver for linux filesystems at http://www.ext2fsd.com/ you don't need to have any windows partitions on your usb stick. You will only be able to read/write in windows to the first partition on the usb stick, but this has worked for me without problems for years.

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded the file and plan to install it and see how it works as soon as time permits.

Cheers!

Mike

[Mike7]

Hi, Misalf.

What about just copying TinyCore files on the flash drive alongside puppeee, in a /tce folder, and using the already present bootloader? You might be able to just edit the bootloaders config file to boot Core Linux.
There surely is one installed already while Puppeee is currently booting from that stick.

Interesting idea, but I don' t think I'm ready for it yet. Too complicated for me, and I'm afraid of doing something that might make the Puppeee drive unbootable. But I'm adding it to my list of possible pendrive installation methods, all of which I intend to try at some point.

If a drive is bootable, the computer executes code from the MBR, which is/starts the bootloader so we can choose to boot files from the disk (kernel

Thank you for this explanation. I really want to understand how it all works.

creating partitions in unformated free space, I think, is pretty much safe.

I hope so <grin>.

M.

[Mike7]

Hi, all.

I succeeded in installing CorePlus-5.1 to a pendrive and booting it. Kudos for me and everyone helping me here.

This is what I did:

I had an old 1G pendrive around, so I re-formatted it as one FAT32 partition using G-parted in PuppeeeLinux, and set the boot flag.

Then I went to the terminal and did

dd if=CorePlus-5.1.iso of=/dev/sdc

dd completed properly.

Then I shut down and replaced the Puppeee stick with the 1G stick, and pressed the escape key while booting up the computer. This brought up a boot choice window with the 1G pendrive recognized. I clicked on it, and CorePlus booted up. Hooray! This is the first time that a dd install of an iso has worked for me. Very satisying.

I ran through all the buttons on the wbar, just looking at everything and clicking on all the options to see what they were. The only action I took was to test the connection to my local wlan, which worked immediately, returning all expected stats. Very impressive.

I must also say that all the other stats views, like system stats, were equally impressive. It' s such a pleasure when everything on a system works simply and transparently. TCL is beautiful!

Now, just a few preliminary questions:

- The TCL boot didn't put any files onto my hard disk, did it? (I figure it didn't, but I'm the nervous type.)

- Is any sort of minimal web browser included in CorePlus-5.1?

- Should I stay with this 1G pendrive installation for a while until I get the hang of things, before re-installing to a larger drive? Any disadvantage to doing this? If I do stay with it for now, how do I set up a TCE directory?

- The boot screen gives me a lot of choices. Anything there I should try out?

- If I want to stay with the default boot choices, how do I configure the boot file(s) to go right into the desktop without giving me the boot choice screens?

Okay, that's plenty of questions for now.

This is all very exciting. I've waited a long time to get TCL running on my netbook, and I feel like Xmas has just arrived <grin>.

Cheers to all!

Mike

[gerald_clark]

CorePlus is not a live CD for general use.
It is designed to be an installer.
You use it to install Core on a writable hard drive or flash drive.
Core needs a writable filesystem to store installed applications, user settings, and the backup.
The CD image you wrote to the flash drive still thinks it is a CD. It contains a read-only ISO9660 filesystem.

[Mike7]

Hi, Gerald.

CorePlus is not a live CD for general use. It is designed to be an installer.
You use it to install Core on a writable hard drive or flash drive. Core needs a writable filesystem to store installed applications, user settings, and the backup. The CD image you wrote to the flash drive still thinks it is a CD. It contains a read-only ISO9660 filesystem.

Okay, I think I undertsand. I'll go ahead and try to install it to another, larger pendrive before doing anything else.

Cheers, and thanks!

Mike