Boot Debian from an USB device
Posted by sebas on Mon 9 Oct 2006 at 12:49
Here is a very short (but in my opinion very useful) how-to for creating an USB boot device, which enables you to boot Debian from your memory stick.
We are assuming that your USB device is indicated by /dev/sda, and that you are interested in Debian stable (other distributions are untested, but should work).
First unmount your memory stick.
sudo umount /dev/sda
Now download the boot.img.gz, which is necessary to make your USB device bootable:
cd ~ wget ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-i386/current/images/hd-media/boot.img.gz
Extract this image and write it to your USB device:
sudo zcat ~/boot.img.gz > /dev/sda
Now mount the volume to /mnt:
sudo mount /dev/sda /mnt
In this case a Debian Stable net-install image is used. You may also use a business card iso. Nevertheless, you should be sure to use the same version of the ISO-image as the image.tar.gz that was used before.
Download the ISO to the USB device:
cd /mnt/ sudo wget http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r3/i386/iso-cd/debian-31r3-i386-netinst.iso
Now you can unmount the volume:
cd ~ sudo umount /dev/sda
You can remove the USB device, and plug it in your new system. Of course you should tell your BIOS to boot from USB.
There is a copy of this how-to on the website of our company VirtualConcepts
Will only work if your user has write access to /dev/sda. You probably want to do
sudo sh -c 'zcat ~/boot.img.gz > /dev/sda'
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zcat ~/boot.img.gz | sudo tee /dev/sda > /dev/nullIn general, this also has the advantage of not running the command generating the output as root.
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Nice write-up, yo.
Depending on the contents of your /etc/fstab, the mount command might need to look something like this: mount -t msdos /dev/sda /mnt
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I have a 4Gb USB stick, I was wondering if it is possible to have a full debian system on it and boot on it, any idea ?
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From live cd one can install to usb device, later booting from usb with linux dirconf=configuration_name it's posible to use many persistent configurations.
It's kde based and catalan localized but in fact wit more than 3 Gb free ( 700 MB FAT16 + ext2 2300 MB ) you can install a lot of locales ;-)
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http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=usb#grml2usb
But 4GB is enough for complete grml plus your own apps
http://grml.org/grml2hd/
In this case, tweak /etc/fstab to minimize flash writes, so: tmpfs for /tmp, /var/run, /var/lock, /var/log, etc. (not /var/tmp, which must persist).
Also consider the exceptionally shock-resistant WD Passport (under 100 bucks) following advice from
http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/02/22/2221258.shtml
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Any tips on making it larger and still be bootable?
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Does this image officially support install over network, because i really cant get it to work. "ethernet card not found" hauts me!
-Alf :)
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http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/instal ling-debian-etch-with-usb-pen-ethernet-card-not-found-651024/
Alf :)
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But here is one MAJOR problem. Its very easy to over write first 240MB of your harddrive if you are using scsi or sata harddrive. So make sure that your usb-stick is /dev/sda before you copy -> paste from this site.
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duh, try this http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ :-P
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it stops after searching ISO on media
although iso is on my pendrive and -o loop mounted to /cdrom
red screen saying that nothign is seen. :(
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Dig shows that ftp.debian.org and cdimage.debian.org are different servers, so the boot.img.gz file and the iso file doesn't always add up (different GCC or something). Happened to me once too. Just remember to download from the same ftp server and you should be good to go.
These are my sources:
Lenny i386
boot.img.gz - netinst.iso
Lenny amd64
boot.img.gz - netinst.iso
PS: I've used this guide so many times I can't even remember. It has only failed me twice.
One time when I downloaded the boot.img.gz from a different server, and the second it was some writing errors while copying to the USB stick.
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