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JohnnyBoy
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Location: West Sussex, South-East England
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 Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:03 am Post subject: |
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What the hell. I'm so impressed with Ubuntu 9.10 that I'm still gonna see if I can install Linux onto a USB pendrive and boot from it when I don't need to use AutoCad.
At the moment I'm finding out about "persistent installs" to a pendrive (I want to save my work), and one article that I've found agrees with GhostDawg, Aquafire and Fox; PuppyLinux or Damn Small Linux might be a better route to follow (I only went with Ubuntu because I'm very inexperienced with Linux and I wanted a quick and easy way to get a desktop up and running). So I'll check those two out.
Some "How To" articles describe how to transfer Linux to a pendrive on a Windows machine... I can't help wondering if I could follow the same steps on a Mac. 
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JohnnyBoy
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 10:08 am Post subject: |
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I've been into a local computer store because they sell Kingston USB pendrives (I already have a 512MB Kingston DataTraveller and am very impressed with its transfer speed).
I asked the guy how big a drive I'd need for a Linux install; he said that 4GB should be enough, pointing out that the very first netbooks had a solid state HD that was only 4 gigs in size. But he also asked whether I knew how to make it bootable -- I admitted that I didn't, but thought that there were utilities that did that for you. Hmmm. Better check that out.
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Intel Mini 2.0GHz C2D (4GB/120GB/SuperDrive/10.5.8 ), 120GB WD Passport, Logitech ergo k/b
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ghostdawg
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Joined: 25 Aug 2007
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Location: STLMO (usa)
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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The pendrive linux should create it bootable as long as the computer will boot from it. You will have to check in the BIOS and change it to boot from, maybe its called, Boot Other Device, or something similar.
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G4 Mac Mini | 1.25ghz | 1gb | 40gb | OS X 10.4.11 | 37" Westinghouse HDTV
AAOne | 1.6ghz | 1gb | 160gb | Mageia 2 & Win XP |
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Fox
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Location: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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There is a program called unetbootin that can make usb drives bootable. It's an open source program; you can download and use it on any Debian/Ubuntu-based distro, probably any Linux distro, and perhaps it works on Windows as well?
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Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse |
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JohnnyBoy
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Location: West Sussex, South-East England
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:34 am Post subject: |
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| ghostdawg wrote: | | The pendrive linux should create it bootable as long as the computer will boot from it. You will have to check in the BIOS and change it to boot from, maybe its called, Boot Other Device, or something similar. |
Thanks Ghostdawg. I have changed the "Boot Device Priority" menu on the PC's BIOS, putting "USB" first, "CD-ROM" second and "HDD" third. However, I won't be able to test whether this has worked until I have a bootable pendrive with which to try it.
| Fox wrote: | | There is a program called unetbootin that can make usb drives bootable. It's an open source program; you can download and use it on any Debian/Ubuntu-based distro, probably any Linux distro, and perhaps it works on Windows as well? |
Fox, I've had a snoop around and discovered that I might be able to create the bootable drive on my Mac: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-an-ubuntu-installation-usb-on-the-mac/
The method seems to depend upon downloading a ".img" version of the installer, rather than a ".iso". But I'm having a heck of a job finding any of those ".img" files -- Ubuntu offers an "iso" download as does Mint.
[Edit: I've just found out that it's possible to convert the "iso" to an "img" on OS X using "hdiutil" -- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick ]
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Intel Mini 2.0GHz C2D (4GB/120GB/SuperDrive/10.5.8 ), 120GB WD Passport, Logitech ergo k/b
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Fox
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Location: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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JohnnyBoy, I think that everything you need can be found from here. (Might be similar to you found from the other source.)
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Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse |
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JohnnyBoy
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Location: West Sussex, South-East England
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you, Fox! 
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Voyager
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010
Posts: 128
Location: Somerset, UK.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| JohnnyBoy wrote: | I've been into a local computer store because they sell Kingston USB pendrives (I already have a 512MB Kingston DataTraveller and am very impressed with its transfer speed).
I asked the guy how big a drive I'd need for a Linux install; he said that 4GB should be enough, pointing out that the very first netbooks had a solid state HD that was only 4 gigs in size. But he also asked whether I knew how to make it bootable -- I admitted that I didn't, but thought that there were utilities that did that for you. Hmmm. Better check that out. |
Might be a bit late to this party - but as I was reading through I was thinking that you need to check out SD card IDE adapters....
And Autocad will run on Linux - but not on a particularly low spec machine I suspect. |
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JohnnyBoy
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Location: West Sussex, South-East England
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| Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Voyager wrote: | Might be a bit late to this party - but as I was reading through I was thinking that you need to check out SD card IDE adapters....
And Autocad will run on Linux - but not on a particularly low spec machine I suspect. |
Thank you, Voyager!
That AutoCad/Linux link was very interesting indeed. I'd love to try that, although I'm using 'LT' rather than 'Release 14'. However, even if 'Wine' didn't perform a good enough Windows impersonation for my version of AutoCad, there's always VirtualBox.
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Intel Mini 2.0GHz C2D (4GB/120GB/SuperDrive/10.5.8 ), 120GB WD Passport, Logitech ergo k/b
iPod Touch (32GB, 3rd gen), iPod Shuffle (512MB, 1st gen) |
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Aquafire
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Joined: 19 Sep 2007
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Location: AUS-USA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 7:08 am Post subject: |
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JB
So happy to see you spreading your Linux wings...
Mate for a bit of fun..
Give MacPup a go...
http://macpup.org/
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Cheers
Aqua
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