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Nice external hard drive preloaded with linux

Posted:
Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:07 am
by Ice9
http://www.lacie.com/intl/products/prod ... ?pid=10670.
I find this very nice, and in fact I'm very interested in the fact that they provide you with a bootable mini cd in case your pc can't boot directly from USB.
I'm not too thrilled about working with Mandriva but if I could swap that for Debian and use the mini cd to boot from USB I would be all set and I would have an extremely portable desktop solution ....
I wonder what software is on that mini cd, gonna try to find out and get hold of one.

Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:34 am
by Jenda
That is beautiful. That's the way to go man...

Posted:
Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:32 pm
by Ice9
I'm getting one on friday this week
Can't wait to get my hands on that mini cd and look if it will make the drive boot with Debian as it does with Mandriva


Posted:
Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:03 pm
by Void Main
I just ordered a new digital camera and I noticed you can get SD cards for them up to 4GB now. I wonder if I can install and boot Linux from the SD card in my camera? :) I'm sure it would be very slow though.

Posted:
Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:10 pm
by Ice9
Void Main wrote:I wonder if I can install and boot Linux from the SD card in my camera
LOL, no doubt it would be slow


Posted:
Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:05 pm
by Tux
Ice9 wrote:Void Main wrote:I wonder if I can install and boot Linux from the SD card in my camera
LOL, no doubt it would be slow

I dunno, Corsair make
some cards that look pretty darn pimp.

Posted:
Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:48 pm
by Void Main
Wow, the 2GB SD card has a read speed of 21MB/s and write of 15.5MB/s. That hard drive is not a lot higher at 25-27MB/s. I ordered a 512MB card. I wonder if it can be partitioned so you could have a VFAT partition that the camera can use and a linux partition? Hmmm. :)

Posted:
Wed Dec 14, 2005 2:51 pm
by Jenda
Wow, the 2GB SD card has a read speed of 21MB/s and write of 15.5MB/s. That hard drive is not a lot higher at 25-27MB/s. I ordered a 512MB card. I wonder if it can be partitioned so you could have a VFAT partition that the camera can use and a linux partition? Hmmm.

That is some good stuff. Do you think I can get Ubuntu to work on my 1980 Minolta?

Posted:
Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:32 pm
by Void Main
I hate to cross post but it's related so here goes:
I'm typing this from firefox running off my 256MB Cruzer USB memory stick. I installed Damn Small Linux on it and it is just awesome! The great thing is it only uses 50MB on the pen drive and you still have 200MB free for other stuff. Quite amazing linux distro! It's extremely easy to install as it can be done right from the fluxbox menu. Download DSL, burn the 50MB image to a CD (I burned it to a DVDRW because I'm just going to erase it again). Boot the CD and on the fluxbox menu select Apps->Tools->InstallToUSBPenDrive. I selected "For USB-HDD Pendrive" and 2 minutes later I rebooted to the pendrive. I had to find it in the BIOS and move it before the real HD in the boot order on my Thinkpad R40.
Screen shot I just took.

Posted:
Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:27 pm
by Ice9
Just got the sample from Lacie and apparently the bootable cd is just a Mandriva specific one.
You boot it and you get a screen which lets you choose between "more options" and "boot mobile drive".
I'm seeing lots of files on there and have no idea which one triggers the boot from usb.
Gonna try to reboot on the cd now and try to figure this out.

Posted:
Fri Dec 16, 2005 2:00 pm
by Ice9
Writing this with firefox from the mandriva usb drive.
But not any wiser about what does what, and GOD a qwerty keyboard s***s when youre used to azerty and cannot change the layout because some tech guy already worked with this drive and I dont know the root password - exclamation mark which I cannot find


Posted:
Fri Dec 16, 2005 3:54 pm
by Void Main
Just boot into single user mode and change root's password. Either that or boot from alternate media, mount the root file system on the drive and delete the encrypted password from the /etc/shadow file.

Posted:
Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:19 am
by Calum
it's shift and 1 when you're using a US or UK qwerty keyboard.


Posted:
Sat Dec 17, 2005 12:28 pm
by X11
Operating System on a external USB drive?
Oh gawd, really sounds like PROFARMANCE!

Posted:
Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:54 pm
by Ice9
Performance is not really at stake here, I am investigating the possibilities of portability/mobility and this seemed like a cool solution.
Now if I could only define what files I have to modify to have the cd point at my usb drive and boot debian ....
I have overwritten the stock Mandriva that came with the drive with Sarge but now I can't boot to it anymore.