[arch-general] Image my installed Arch into a USB pendrive
Hi, is possible to image my current Arch system into a USB pendrive and use it from there? Many thanks! Martín
2010/8/3 Martín Cigorraga <martosurf7600@gmail.com>
Hi,
is possible to image my current Arch system into a USB pendrive and use it from there? Many thanks!
Martín
It is possible you will have to reformat your pendrive to use filesystem other than fat, using the journaling filesystems will wearout the pen drive fast so ext2 or pisssibly ?nilfs2? are the ones to go whit. Also you shouldn't use any swap in usb sticks as it will also wear it out , I assume that you alredy know that ubs sticks are much slower than hds. But here is what have to do: 1. sudo mkfs -t ext2_or_some_other_fs /dev/sdx1 2. sudo mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt 3. sudo cp -a /{bin,boot.etc.home,lib,media,opt,root,sbin,srv,usr,var} /mnt/ 4. edit the /mnt/etc/fstab and /mnt/grub/menu.lst to use the new root partion /dev/sdx1 you SHOULD use uuids instead of the devise names 5. sudo grub-install /dev/sdx 6. sudo mkdir /mnt/{dev,sys,proc} 7. sudo mknod -m600 /mnt/dev/console c 5 1 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/null c 1 3 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/zero c 1 5 and now you should be redy to boot off
On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 10:43:03 +0300 jesse jaara <jesse.jaara@gmail.com> wrote:
2010/8/3 Martín Cigorraga <martosurf7600@gmail.com>
Hi,
is possible to image my current Arch system into a USB pendrive and use it from there? Many thanks!
Martín
It is possible you will have to reformat your pendrive to use filesystem other than fat, using the journaling filesystems will wearout the pen drive fast so ext2 or pisssibly ?nilfs2? are the ones to go whit. Also you shouldn't use any swap in usb sticks as it will also wear it out , I assume that you alredy know that ubs sticks are much slower than hds. But here is what have to do:
1. sudo mkfs -t ext2_or_some_other_fs /dev/sdx1 2. sudo mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt 3. sudo cp -a /{bin,boot.etc.home,lib,media,opt,root,sbin,srv,usr,var} /mnt/ 4. edit the /mnt/etc/fstab and /mnt/grub/menu.lst to use the new root partion /dev/sdx1 you SHOULD use uuids instead of the devise names 5. sudo grub-install /dev/sdx 6. sudo mkdir /mnt/{dev,sys,proc} 7. sudo mknod -m600 /mnt/dev/console c 5 1 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/null c 1 3 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/zero c 1 5
and now you should be redy to boot off
check out http://larch.berlios.de/, I think that tool is written for just this use case. Dieter
check out http://larch.berlios.de/, I think that tool is written for just this use case.
Dieter
Doesent larch just create a new arch linux install, if i understood Martín he wants to move his whole current system to usb.
2010/8/3 jesse jaara <jesse.jaara@gmail.com>:
check out http://larch.berlios.de/, I think that tool is written for just this use case.
Dieter
Doesent larch just create a new arch linux install, if i understood Martín he wants to move his whole current system to usb.
It depends what he wants. larch puts the system into squashfs + aufs, creating a 'live' system (it can also do this from an existing installation). This is compact and runs pretty quickly from USB stick, but making changes persistent is not as straightforward as with a 'normal' installation. If that's what he wants, fine, but it sounded like he might rather be looking for a plug-in 'normal' installation, in which case the other suggestions would be more relevant.
Am 03.08.2010 09:43, schrieb jesse jaara:
It is possible you will have to reformat your pendrive to use filesystem other than fat, using the journaling filesystems will wearout the pen drive fast so ext2 or pisssibly ?nilfs2? are the ones to go whit. Also you shouldn't use any swap in usb sticks as it will also wear it out , I assume that you alredy know that ubs sticks are much slower than hds.
The costs of USB drives are so low that wearing one out isn't a big problem. Still, if you really don't want a journal, create ext4 without a journal - ext2 is ancient and much slower than ext4.
But here is what have to do:
1. sudo mkfs -t ext2_or_some_other_fs /dev/sdx1 2. sudo mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt 3. sudo cp -a /{bin,boot.etc.home,lib,media,opt,root,sbin,srv,usr,var} /mnt/
cp -ax /* is shorter
4. edit the /mnt/etc/fstab and /mnt/grub/menu.lst to use the new root partion /dev/sdx1 you SHOULD use uuids instead of the devise names 5. sudo grub-install /dev/sdx
These things fail a lot with grub sadly, I recommend syslinux.
6. sudo mkdir /mnt/{dev,sys,proc} 7. sudo mknod -m600 /mnt/dev/console c 5 1 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/null c 1 3 sudo mknod -m644 /mnt/dev/zero c 1 5
and now you should be redy to boot off
You want to add usb support to mkinitcpio if you actually want to boot this.
participants (5)
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Dieter Plaetinck
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jesse jaara
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Martín Cigorraga
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Michael Towers
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Thomas Bächler