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Quick and dirty Ubuntu on a thumb drive

Here is another page I had over on my Google Page, I thought it would be a good fit on my blog.

This is a quick hack for slapping ubuntu (or any other Live Linux distro based on Isolinux) onto a thumb drive using Windows XP.

Well, I've seen a lot of tutorials on the internet that show how to make a thumb drive bootable using Ubuntu but some of them were complicated or took too long just to make it work. This will work with about any Isolinux based distro, a few of the Slackware ones have been grumpy but can work with a little modification. Sabayon is one of my favorite distros but has problems with this hack as well, I had to use some loader files from a Gentoo live cd but it worked after that.

Anyway, here is the easiest way to get Ubuntu booting from a thumb drive using Windows XP. I haven't tried this on Vista but I'm sure it would poo-poo on trying to modify the MBR of the thumb drive. You should be able to right click on Command Prompt and say "open as Administrator" and this should work. Maybe, haven't tested it. Anyway, not pretty, just easy.

First, download a copy of Syslinux. Syslinux Very cool for making custom bootable thumb drives, lots of options only using one right now. (KISS- Keep It Simple Stupid). Unzip that sucker someplace you can remember. For example we will go with c:\syslinux so we can find it.

Extract the contents on the ISO or CD to the root of the thumb drive. This is the slowest part.

Once that is done, there should be an Isolinux folder (/isolinux) at the root of the thumbdrive. Copy the file isolinux.cfg that is in that folder to the root of the thumb drive. For our example I'll say e: is the drive. So copy e:\isolinux to e:\ and then rename it to syslinux.cfg.

Okay, go to a dos prompt and change to the folder we created for syslinux, our example was c:\syslinux. Go to a subfolder called WIN32 so we should be in DOS at c:\syslinux\win32. Run c:\syslinux\win32\syslinux.exe (thumb drive letter) (example: c:\syslinux\win32\syslinux.exe e:). This will install a MBR that points to e:\syslinux.cfg.

Reboot machine and choose thumb drive. It may throw a small syntax error up (remember- functional not pretty) but Ubuntu should boot right up. If it doesn't immediately work, you might have to use some different switches with syslinux something like syslinux.exe -sfma e:. Throws it into a more compatible, slower mode right at boot up but some older motherboards like it that way! If you want a little better boot menu, you can modify the syslinux.cfg with notepad.

This should work without damaging anything but you never know, be careful and backup data that is important before messing with the MBR stuff. Do not point at the hard drive with syslinux, you'll reboot and and it won't be pretty. Windows with a syslinux MBR would not be a happy camper.

Asus EEE

(Cruddy camera phone Pic of my Asus)

The Asus EEE, a small Mirco laptop with a seven inch screen, 4 gig SSD storage (now they have an 8 gig model), 512 Meg ram (I upgraded mine to 1 gig, helps a lot), Wifi, 3 USB ports, video out, web cam, stereo speakers, and SD slot. This little laptop is $399 and I know you are saying, uh, I could get a real laptop for about $100 more but the thing with the little Asus is it is very portable, very usable, and just overall cool. If you think about it, a good PDA would cost about the same but this little guy has a real keyboard, touch pad and even though it comes with Linux, you can load Asus approved XP on it, they even include a DVD that has all of the drivers and a reloader for the pre-installed Linux. The Linux that comes on it is pretty usable, I was able to access my WPA hidden network at home with no problem, and any thumb drive I plugged in it saw. It comes with "easy" mode by default with tabs at the top of the screen. You can browse the net, open Microsoft documents with Open Office, look at PDF files and some basic games along with Skype and the web cam made for a good OOTB experience. But if you are like me, you want some more meat and when I looked on the internet I found that there were a couple of ways to tweak the OS so you had a more full laptop. And one other nice thing is the ton of information on this little guy on the internet. People have been hacking on it like crazy since it came out. Everything from changing the OS to adding more hardware internally. Anyway, if you need a small laptop for anything or just a really cool gadget, this is it. It's great for traveling and the built Wifi seems to have a pretty good range. It can run for about 3 hours on a charge and video and sound playback are actually quite smooth. Right now I'm running eeeXubuntu, a special version of Xubuntu (based on Ubuntu) that has EEE drivers already built in. If you want to make a secuirty and penetration testing laptop, backtrack 3 beta has all of the drivers for the EEE built in as well, even the Compiz-3D stuff works with no problem. Anyway, here are some really good links on the Asus EEE, check them out.

Asus Site:http://usa.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=eee+pc

Got mine from Newegg, came in really quick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220261

News, Mods, hacks: http://asuseeehacks.blogspot.com/

Really good Wiki and forum on it: http://www.eeeuser.com/

Best instructions for Ubuntu install, definitely use the script pack at the end: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu

Very good details for installing Backtrack 3: http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/260/42/

Installing XP was easy but this site has very good instructions on it, my only problem was I stripped too much out with N-lite and couldn't get the webcam going so you might want to just follow the Asus install instructions in the book, it takes up a lot more space though but was more functional in the long run. http://www.i64x.com/eeexp.php

Good tips for making the EEE more usable: http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/tips/5-asus-eee-pc-customization-tips-youll-love.aspx?pid=6

And the current OS I have on mine, seems to be a good balance between space and goodies I need: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home

Good util for XP on the EEE, lets you control brightness and other stuff easily: http://www.cpp.in/dev/eeectl/

Is it plagiarism if you copy yourself?

Is it plagiarism if you copy yourself? I don't think it is so I'm going to copy a few tidbits from my Google page that I think would fit well here. Going to keep it more on the techy side with my blog.

Hey Hey!

Today I thought, hey, why not create a blog on Blogger.com.

Hopefully I'll be able to add something useful for other people. Or just crazy, incoherent ramblings.
Either way it should be fun!

Yeah!