Finally, I managed to get this to work. Please note I am *not* taking credit for any of the info below. Much of what's written is taken from the DSL forum. Give credit where it's due: to John Andrews at the DSL organization! Ok, I whole the problem was my drive wasn't formatted right: The key thing to get this to work: 32 sectors/track is a MUST on your USB key. If it's not formatted like this you could spend tons of time trying to figure out what the problem is. Get... ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/frugal_usb.tar.gz I have a 64MB stick. I've read the stuff about making sure my drive is formatted properly. It must have 32 sectors/track to work. Try " sfdisk -S 32 /dev/sda " That will bring up the sfdisk app, and change the geometry. Then it will ask you for partition size data. Make sure that your first partition is not over 1024 cylinders if you want to boot from it. For larger USB sticks: I made my primary 1 partition 75 MB in size, just to hold DSL and the bootfiles. This also makes it SO EASY to upgrade whan another version comes out so for the first line .. 1: 0 75 2: skip >enter> 3: skip >enter> 4: skip save/write/exit ==== If you had a large stick, you'd probably want to do that. However, this time I had a 64MB stick, and a `fdisk /dev/sde` shows this: Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sde: 65 MB, 65536000 bytes 16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 250 cylinders Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sde1 * 1 249 63728 6 FAT16 Command (m for help): After this, I'd make sure the stick is *not* mounted, make sure I've run `modprobe ehci-hcd` and can see via lsmod that I've got the following: - usb-storage - ehci-hcd - usb-uhci - usbcore ...loaded up. Then, I go into the menu's and right click on the desktop then Apps > Tools > Install to USB Pendrive. Everything seems to work and there's no errors. If I mount the drive when done I can see these files: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 110 Mar 23 13:39 boot.msg* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 1592 Mar 23 13:39 f2* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 1675 Mar 23 13:39 f3* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 256 Mar 23 13:39 german.kbd* dr-xr-xr-x 2 root users 2048 Mar 23 13:39 knoppix/ -r-xr-xr-x 1 root users 7836 Mar 23 13:39 ldlinux.sys* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 994807 Mar 23 13:39 linux24* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 7367 Mar 23 13:39 logo.16* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 248090 Mar 23 13:39 minirt24.gz* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root users 2045 Mar 23 13:39 syslinux.cfg* When done, bring the stick to a computer and try booting. In fact, if you've done a bunch of customization to DSL and want to remaster it, what you need to run is /usr/sbin/mkmydsl. To do this though, you have to have booted DSL "toram" and then need a partition to dump the iso you're going to make for burning to CD later. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE REST IS ALL OLD INFO AND STUFF WRITTEN ON THE DSL FORMS FROM OTHERS! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ First we need a USB Stick. I use a 128 MB stick from Kingston. You can use a 64 MB Stick too, but if you want some software like Firefox as webbrowser or Abiword as wordprosessor its better to have a littlebit more space then only for the main system. Then we need some DSL files: 1. The current DSL image download it from here: 2. The current frugal_usb.tar.gz download it from here: 3. The current USB bootimage download it from here: Save 2. and 3. on on floppy disk, a second USB Stick or your main hard drive. 2. Starting installation 2.1 Burning the image First burn the DSL image on a CD. When you have a RW because after our USB Stick installation we dont longer need the CD. 2.2 Booting the system After that boot from the CD. You will find a full working DSL. In the most cases DSL detects the right Hardware, but sometimes like in my laptop DSL forgets some drivers but more later. 2.3 Loading missing modules Now go to XTerminal and double klick on it. The console appears. Now type "lsmod". Check if you have the following modules: - usb-storage - ehci-hcd - usb-uhci - usbcore If one of them are not in the list you have to load them by hand. For example in my laptop everytime after a CD boot was the module ehci-hcd missing and i was not able to mount my USB Stick. Type "insmod ehci-hcd" to load this missing module. If another module is missing replace ehci-hcd with the missing module. When you are finished and all the four modules are loaded try first if you are able to load your USB Stick. 2.4 Checking the USB Stick Plug-in the USB Stick and try "cdrecord --scanbus". Here you can see now your USB Stick and your CD drive. If not mail me we will found a solution. 2.5 Preparing the USB Stick Now we know that our USB Stick is known but the system. Now lets make a partion on the USB Stick with FAT16. The bootloader needs needs a FAT system. To do that type "cfdisk /dev/sda". If that fails try to use instead of sda, sdb or sdc. Be sure now that you backuped everything from the USB Stick because you will loose all your data. Look under FS Type if its FAT16 and look at Flags if there are Boot, if yes everything is good and you can leave cfdisk. Now for those of you were its not the case of having FS Type FAT16 and/or Flags Boot. We Start by changing the FS Type by going to the point Type in the menu and then hit . Here you find a list of possible FS Types. We need the number of FAT16 and thats the 6. So press any key (did you ever aks your self where the any key is? :] ). Now enter as filesystem type the 6 and hit . Now there must be FS Type FAT16. To change to Flag to Boot go to Bootable and hit enter. Now Flags is Boot. Now go to Write and hit say yes and Quit cfdisk. 2.6 USB Stick without partition In 1% of the cases it is possible that you don't have a partion and you have nothing in the cfdisk display. Then go to new and follow the instructions. Use all the default values to be sure. Then follow the instructions of 2.5. 3. Writing the USB Bootimage 3.1 Two ways There are two ways. The easyiest is to right click on your desktop then Apps > Tools > Install to USB Pendrive . But everytime was wanted to use this i got an error or the window appears and disappers in the same moment or i got a black window. But if its working you can switch directly to 3.3 3.2 Using frugal_usb.tar.gz Now mount the drive where you saved frugal and the bootusb. When you saved it on a floppy plug it in now and typ in a Xterminal "mount /mnt/floppy", when its a second USB Stick plug it in and type "sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/cdrom" or when its your main hard drive type "mount /mnt/hda1". Then type "tar xvfz ." . Now type sh frugal_usb.sh. 3.3 frugal_usb.sh Now its the same for both. Say yes you are ready (i hope so). Now you have to type in the device where you want DSL installed on. When your USB Stick is sda1 then type sda1, if its sdb1 then type sdb1 and so on. Now you have the last chance to exit, but you dont want that yo type "y". Now he (the script :]) is doing everything for you. After its finished your USB Stick is ready to use. 3.4 Shutdown and reboot Now shutdown your linux by right click and the desktop and then Powedown > Reboot and go into the bios. Try to add your USB Stick as boot option. Every bios is different so try to figger it out yourself or ask in the DSL forum if somebody has your bios and ask him how to setup it to make it bootable. Some bios's needs a -s option in the syslinux command. So if after setting up the bios well and its still not working that can be a possibility to try. Go back the step 3.2 and before you start frugal_usb.sh start an editor like scite and type "scite frugal_usb.sh". Change "./syslinux -o bootusb-0.8.img /dev/$USB" to "./syslinux -s -o bootusb-0.8.img /dev/$USB" thats in the line 58. Save and start frugal_usb.sh. Now cross your fingers and i hope for you that DSL is booting. 4. Personalize your DSL install 4.1 Restore/Backup Perhaps you have already recodnized that if you save something in your DSL linux and you reboot all your files are left. But DSL has a very nice system to save data and restore it. First you have to decide where you want to store your data. I store my data on the USB Stick to be able to use my stick in every computer. But you can store also your data on a floppy disk or if your harddrive is not NTFS you can also store the data on this drive. But lets first see wich files we have to edit to make a folder/file be restored after a restart. Our example is that we create a directory called saves in the home directory for word documents or pictures etc and we want all the other setting like thes from the windows manager be restored. For this we open Xterminal and type "mkdir saves". Then type "scite filetool.lst". This file contains every file or folder wich has to be restored after a restart. Add here the line "home/dsl/saves" and save the file. TIP: If you want you can also add one of the settings folders of your programmes. For example XMMS saves its setting in your home folder in .xmms so add also the line "home/dsl/.xmms" if you want the settings of XMMS saved. Have a look to the other setting diretorys. To do this open Xterminal and type "ls -a". Settings directorys are the directorys beginning with a dot. Now we have to enable the backup/restore function during the shutdown prozess. Type "scite /opt/powerdown.sh" and uncomment the linux with filetool.sh (uncomment means delete the #). Save the file. Now make a right click on the desktop and go to Desktop > Backup/Restore . Now you have to chose your backup device. For USB Stick "sda1" (or sdb1,sdc1 but in most cases sda1), for floppy "fd0" and for hard drive "hda1" or for the second partion "hda2". When you have more the one hard drive it is possible that its hdb or hdc. Then click an Backup. Now your first thing is backuped and on the backup device the file backup.tar.gz is created. There everything is saved what is to restore. 4.2 Reboot with saved settings Try now to reboot you DSL linux and type in the bootmanager command line "dsl restore=". Backup device is the same like you typed in linux before. When the window manager appears start Xterminal and type "ls". Now you see the direcotry saves. 5. Editing the bootmanager 5.1 DSL restore as default option I was boreded to type everytime in the bootmanagers command line "dsl restore=sda1" so i changed it that i can hit enter or wait. If you want this open in linux Xterminal and type "sudo scite /cdrom/syslinux.cfg". In the second line wich starts with APPEND add between lang and apm the command restore= in my example i added restore=sda1. Save it and now your default solution is with the restore command. Dont forgett to save and reboot. If you see the saves directory it works. 5.2 Changing the greeting message If you want to change the bootmanagers greeting message type "sudo scite /cdrom/boot.msg". Now edit it to what you want and save it. More informations about howto change colours or the pictures are in the well discribed manual from syslinux. Get it here: www.syslinux.org?!?!?!. 5.3 A broken MBR My MBR was broken after playing with more then one USB Stick distro. So i want to tell you how to repair it and make it usable for DSL.First boot your computer with the DSL CD image and get from syslinux.org the newest version of syslinux unpack it with "tar xvfz syslinux-.tar.gz". BE AWARE ALL YOUR DATA WILL BE LOST AFTER REPAIRING THE MBR!! If your USB Stick is sda1 go to the syslinux directory by typing "cd syslinux" and there type "cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda". Now you have to go back to the beginning. 2.6 is your frind now because also the partion table is deleted now. 6. Execute commands during the boot 6.1 The network If you are one of the lucky users where DSL detects the networkcard well you don't won to retype every reboot your ip adress so you can add it quite easy during the boot up. Also if DSL doesn't detects your networkcard and you have to reload it by hand you can add this command to be excute during the bootup. First lets test if the card is detected. Right click on the desktop System > Net Setup > netcardconfig. When you are now asked if you want to use a DHCP the card is well detected. If you have a Broadcom card like me you have to reload it. For other cards i can't really help you but try to have a look witch card it is and go to the DSL forum. Somebody has for sure a solution for you. So now start Xterminal and type "sudo scite /opt/bootlocal.sh". If you have a Broadcom card like me add the line "insmod b44". Then for give an ip add the following: ifconfig eth0 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast up route add default gw echo "nameserver " > /etc/resolv.conf and change everything from <...> to valid ip's in your network. Save the file and now you have after the reboot a working network. If you want to use it now follow the instructions from System > Net Setup > netcardconfig. 6.2 The wireless network I am still by searching a solution for me. So please wait for an update. ++++ More instructions to try: http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=17;t=4309 Date: 2005/1/20 OS: windows 2000 FreeBSD4.7 Stable Flash Disk: Transcend JetFlash 256M HardWare: DELL Latitude D600 notebook Software: 3 files WinIma70.exe bootusb-0.8.img dsl-0.9.2.iso http://www.winimage.com ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/ 1. on FreeBSD4.7 get 3 files: dsl-0.9.2.iso size 51240960 bootusb-0.8.img size 1474560 winima70.exe size 96709 fetch ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-0.9.2.iso fetch ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/bootusb-0.8.img fetch ftp://ftp.winimage.com/winimage/winima70.exe 2. convert iso into directory vnconfig -c /dev/vn0c dsl-0.9.2.iso mount -t cd9660 /dev/vn0c /mnt mkdir ~/dsl92 cd ~/dsl92 (cd /mnt; tar cfv - .) | tar xfv - I think an alternative to all this would be to just use Windoze and winimage to do this step all while booted into one OS. 3. switch to window 2000 system ftp 2 files (bootusb-0.8.img winima70.exe) and one directory (dsl92) from FreeBSD4.7 format flash disk as FAT (not FAT32) install winimage 70 run winimage --> File --> Open --> bootusb-0.8.img --> Disk --> Use removable Disk F: --> Disk --> Write Disk --> yes --> File --> Exit 4. Copy file system into flash disk run window file manager --> goto dsl92 directory , boot , isolinux --> copy all files here to your flash disk / --> go back to dsl92 directory --> copy all directory here to your flash disk / 5. umount your flash disk and reboot using your flash disk now you should be able to boot using flash disk. ++++ Posted: Feb. 24 2005,23:45 QUOTE Quote (Guest @ Feb. 17 2005,02:11) a translation of this for OS X: 0) insert your usb drive. it will mount automatically. 1) download current bootusb-x.x.x.img and dsl-x.x.x.iso 2) open DiskUtility and get all the info on your drive 2a) erase it and reformat it as "MS-DOS File System" 2b) make sure that you note the "Disk Identifier" in the info screen 2c) unmount the partition on the usb drive. 3) open a terminal 3) cd to the directory where you saved the images 3b) type "sudo if=bootusb-x.x.x.img of=/dev/diskX bs=512 count=1" where diskX is the "Disk Identifier" from step 2. Maybe "disk2"? 4) disconnect and reconect the usb drive. 5) double click the iso file to mount it 5a) drag the KNOPPIX folder to your usb drive. 6) Double click the bootusb-x.x.x.img to mount it 6a) select all the files and drag them to the usb disk. 7) eject the usb drive and have fun! command should be "sudo dd..." also, i think you need to unmount the disk in disk utility before running command +++++ Short Version If you want the usb install script to work, do this (from a running DSL system): Note: Make sure the usb drive is NOT mounted. 1. Open a terminal. 2. Load modules as in previous post. Go to XTerminal and double click on it. The console appears. Now type "lsmod". Check if you have the following modules: - usb-storage - ehci-hcd - usb-uhci - usbcore 3. Insert the usb drive. 4. 'dmesg | grep SCSI' this should show you the device name (sda, sdb) or use the cdrecord -scanbus 5. 'cd /home/dsl' 6. 'sudo dsl-usbinstall' This will: 1. Download the frugal_usb.tar.gz 2. Download the bootusb-xxx.img. 3. Run the frugal_usb.sh script. # # # Format the Drive hopefully correctly: # Use sfdisk to change your drive geometry.. Try " sfdisk -S 32 /dev/sda " That will bring up the sfdisk app, and change the geometry. Then it will ask you for partition size data. Make sure that your first partition is not over 1024 cylinders if you want to boot from it. I made my primary 1 partition 75 MB in size, just to hold DSL and the bootfiles. This also makes it SO EASY to upgrade whan another version comes out so for the first line .. 1: 0 75 2: skip >enter> 3: skip >enter> 4: skip save/write/exit The rest of your keyspace can go into other partitions, at another time. We're just trying to get the USB boot working for now. now, reboot your computer, as suggested, so the drive table can be reread by the autoconfig.. After rebooting, run "cfdisk /dev/sda" to check your drive geometry again. You should see a 75 MB LINUX type 83 partition on the drive with 32 sectors per track. If so, good deal, if not, you didn't successfully write to the USBkey from sfdisk Now, while in cfdisk, use "type" option to change the type 83 partition to a type 6 " FAT16 " , again write to the drive and exit and reboot to reread disk Now, use the instructions found in roberts thread about using frugal_usb, or if your running from 0.8.1 or better, use the Apps>Tools>Installto USB drive I have seen several USBkeys boot just fine WITHOUT the dos boot flag . YMMV Here is mine... boots just fine ! Disk /dev/sda: 519 MB, 519569408 bytes 16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1982 cylinders Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 267 68336 6 FAT16 /dev/sda2 268 1982 439040 b Win95 FAT32 HP windows tool: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++