convert "testdrive" thumbdrive into "frugal" thumbdrive

[kevinfish]

Is there any easy way to convert a dcore iso thumbdrive to your frugal installation?   

I installed 143mb on a 16gb thumdrive with dd then I made a 2nd partition to take up the rest for my tce folder but I can't mount/format the 2nd one from inside dcore (says its in use and won't make a filesystem here). 

I booted another version of linux and formatted it and now I can't mount it under dcore.   

I don't really want to have to install across from one thumbdrive to another. I just want  to convert my "testddrive" thumbdrive into my frugal by using the rest of its available space as a place for my tce, home, opt, etc...

[Jason W]

I am working on the dCore-usbinstall package as well as the dCorePlus ISOs to make an easy way to use one usb to install dCore to from outside of dCore, then use that to install to frugal install to once booted.  Hopefully will have it today.

[theYinYeti]

Installing dCore to USB is much the same as installing Core to USB. See here how I do this:
http://yalis.fr/cms/index.php/post/2016/11/20/Bootable-flash-drive-for-both-Linux-and-Windows%3A-live-Linux

[Jason W]

I have adjusted the dCorePlus images to where when you burn a dCorePlus ISO to USB with dd, you can boot with that USB and then install dCore-usbinstall and run it on that same USB since the USB will have nothing mounted to it.  The standard dCore ISOs when dd'd to a USB already did not keep the USB mounted after boot.  So basically use dd to install an ISO to USB, in a root terminal do below if your USB is /dev/sdc and dCorePlus-xenial.iso is in the current directory.  The dCore*.iso port can be downloaded and ISO-to-USB installed from any modern Linux distribution:

Code: [Select]


dd if=dCorePlus-xenial.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M


Be very sure you are specifying the right device or the entire drive will be wiped.
A way to find what /dev/sd* devices are USB can be done with the below command:

Code: [Select]


file /dev/disk/by-id/* | grep usb


Reboot using the newly ISO installed USB.  Then import and load the package dCore-usbinstall from a non-root terminal:

Code: [Select]


sce-import dCore-usbinstall
sce-load dCore-usbinstall


Now run dCore-usbinstall from a root terminal.  It should show the USB that was used to boot with as a choice to install to as part of the dCore-usbinstall process.  Choose it, choose which dCore port you want to install to the USB, choose format with ext2.  If you needed dCorePlus for the networking with the ISO installed USB, you will need to choose a dCorePlus port as your final frugal install at least for the initial importing of needed packages after first frugal boot. 

If all went well, it should be that simple and now you can boot into the frugal installed USB.  The TCE directory will be at the base directory of the USB and after booted should be ready to start importing packages.  Best to use the RAM=TRUE option in /etc/sysconfig/sceconfg, or to use the -r option with sce-import as it will save wear on the USB.  I wrote this in simple how to format for new users that may want to try dCore without burning CDs or messing with their hard drive OS install.