Operation USB Drive Linux

[gxsaurav]

Well, these days my Computer is "Ram bharose". One of the RAM stick is not working properly & it is still time before I upgrade.

So, I have two options, either have my own Linux distro which boots from Pen Drive of 1 GB or portable apps in Windows environment. Now I already have my whole arsenal of Portable apps for Windows like Portable Firefox or Portable Pidgin etc, but also wanted to have a Linux distribution which I can boot anywhere & work on my apps.

The apps I need in such Portable Linux, which I guess should be helpful to others looking for similar config is

1) Pidgin

2) Firefox

3) A tool for opening RAR ZIP etc

4) A notepad application

5) A word application

6) VLC Media Player

7) A blue tooth application to send files to & from my K750i.

8 ) KDE UI

9) NTFS read Write Support

10) A password manager

11) M I missing something?

Now, I know I can install these software on any distribution, but I want a distribution which I can install & boot from using my pen drive of 1 GB, it has to be small. I tried DSL but I don't like XFCE. Anything else I can try? I first need an OS which I can boot like that, which is also slim in HD usage then I will install these applications.

 

[mediator]

Ur smiley option i.e 8 ,KDe cannot be fulfilled coz AFAIK KDE requires 300+ MB and u'll be needing disk space to store ur documents also. U can try fluxbox instead of XFce. U can improve Fluxbox to look better than Gnome and Kde.

U didn't specify how much RAm "working" u have! If u have 512 MB, then Knoppix is the way to go! It will support all ur requirements, but not sure about VLC.

For HD usage, I guess Gentoo wud be good. Coz I have read a lot that it gives performance compared to other Linux distros coz it compiles directly from the source on YOUR machine!!

On a second thought, do u have a graphics card installed? Coz I too thought that my RAM is a goner coz the windows used to reboot a lot. But then I found it was the graphic card that was heating the whole box. So I removed it and all went fine, back to normal!!

 

[infra_red_dude]

8 ) KDE UI

forget it! don't like xfce? well it is one of the most beautiful WMs out there. just needs customisation thats it.. and u can make it look jus like ur windows or mac os... or even beautiful.

i'd recommend gentoo too. completely customisable. since the installation will be wid limited resources full customisation is the key here.

 

[vish786]

its a little long procedure re,

try this
*www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/25/usb-x-ubuntu-610

after copying everything to usb, try to install the softwares u want... may be they will install coz usb is not restricted for any softwares installation like in CDs. Hope this method works.

it has gnome.

i was also thinking of burning on USB, if i succeed i will inform u. .... will do once i have time.

 

[gxsaurav]

Ur smiley option i.e 8 ,KDe cannot be fulfilled coz AFAIK KDE requires 300+ MB and u'll be needing disk space to store ur documents also. U can try fluxbox instead of XFce. U can improve Fluxbox to look better than Gnome and Kde.

Ok, i will try that after a while. I have 1 GB Pen drive & I will spare about 400 MB minimum for my files.

U didn't specify how much RAm "working" u have! If u have 512 MB, then Knoppix is the way to go! It will support all ur requirements, but not sure about VLC.

I forgot to mention, its not on my computer, I will use this to boot on cyber cafes etc which usually have 128 or 256 MB RAM

On a second thought, do u have a graphics card installed? Coz I too thought that my RAM is a goner coz the windows used to reboot a lot. But then I found it was the graphic card that was heating the whole box. So I removed it and all went fine, back to normal!!

[/QUOTE]

Graphics card is not a problem

i'd recommend gentoo too. completely customisable. since the installation will be wid limited resources full customisation is the key here

hmm...but it compiles. If I install it on my computer in pen drive, will it work if i take it to a cyber cafe of friends laptop?

Can't I slim KDE & install only whats needed.? I m downloading DSL, hope to make it look a bit better. Will tell here my requirements after I have installed it in first VMWare & then Pen drive.

 

[Pathik]

check out pendrivelinux.com and choose a distro.. I wd say knoppix or pclinuxos

 

[gxsaurav]

Vish

I am staying away from Ubuntu here, its toooo big.

Hey, I found one thing. I can run slax from pen drive too, right. But the slax modules are old. Can anyone tell me how to make Slax Modules. If I can make my own slax modules then it solves all problems.

I will be back after I have installed DSL & Slax both on VMWare, like some pen drive.

 

[mehulved]

3) A tool for opening RAR ZIP etc

unrar and unzip

4) A notepad application

Try nano, if you're not averse to CLI sometimes, it's quite easy. Or else try something like mousepad

5) A word application

abiword

7) A blue tooth application to send files to & from my K750i.

KDE or Gnome bluetooth framework

8) KDE UI

else try enlightenment 17. It has some nice looking themes and is quite light. I run it on a PC having 128MB of RAM.

Now, I know I can install these software on any distribution,

Slax is good enough.

 

[gxsaurav]

check out pendrivelinux.com and choose a distro.. I wd say knoppix or pclinuxos

Slax 6 RC4 download is on it way.

I also require proper NTFS read write support in this Linux Distribution.

I m looking to download PCLinuxOS MiniMe, but I guess it is now scrapped as I m unable to find any download links for it. It already has KDE which is a plus point. I was only able to find a VMWare Image of it. Is PClinux OS based on debian? or does it have synaptic like Ubuntu? That will solve lots of problems too.

2nd option is Slax which again already has KDE & Slax 6 RC4 is said to have NTFS-3g integrated. The thing I like about Slax is that applications are simply modules so I can update them easily in the pen drive itself. Later on when Slax 6 final releases I can simply install that in the pen drive, use my old configurations & settings, & application modules too.

So, first I m going to try to make Slax work for me, if someone finds PCLinux OS MiniMe then plz provide the link to download. I still am looking for some tutorial to make .mo from .deb

 

[infra_red_dude]

Is PClinux OS based on debian? or does it have synaptic like Ubuntu? That will solve lots of problems too.

pclinuxos is an rpm based distro. however it has synaptic as its package manager (wid apt under the hood) and is quite easy to install/remove software... downloadin and resolving dependencies is quite easy

 

[gxsaurav]

pclinuxos is an rpm based distro. however it has synaptic as its package manager (wid apt under the hood) and is quite easy to install/remove software... downloadin and resolving dependencies is quite easy

Good, dependency problem is solved, now give me a link to download PCLinuxOS .93a MiniMe CD, i am unable to find it.

Slax 6 RC4 is not booting from USB drive. Or may I m doing something wrong. I followed the directions given at Pendrivelinux.com for syslinux.exe, doesn't boot.

Still searching for PCLinuxOS MiniMe CD

 

[infra_red_dude]

Good, dependency problem is solved, now give me a link to download PCLinuxOS .93a MiniMe CD, i am unable to find it.

............Still searching for PCLinuxOS MiniMe CD

*linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/PCLinuxOS-MiniME-11665.shtml

*www.pendrivelinux.com/2006/09/19/all-in-one-usb-pclinuxos-minimezip

i'd recommend that u do all the customisations, make an iso and burn it to a cd. hafing it on a usb flash drive is not that good an idea. the frequent read/ writes will shorten the life of the usb stick. u may however, widout any problem install it on a portable hard disk.

 

[gxsaurav]

Change of plans

After infra_red_dude's advice, I have decided that I will not install Linux on my pen drive, it can really hamper the life of the USB Drive this way.

I have a 40 GB external HD which has one 25 GB FAT32 partition & one 13 GB FAT32 Partition. I have decided that I will install some sort of Linux in that 13 GB partition & leave the rest of 25 GB partition for file storage.

As said, I m right now downloading PCLinuxOS MiniMe CD, also I saw Zenwalk core Ultra for only 230 MB, it is even smaller then PClinuxOS, I guess I can install KDE on Zenwalk core which comes without anything.

I m inclining towards PCLinuxOS MiniMe cos it already has most of the things I need, there is Kopete so I won't need Pidgin too, also KDE is already there.

Hard disk space is not a concern anymore, but low RAM requirment is still a concern, I hope PCLinux is worthwhile

 

[ray|raven]

@gx_saurav
You speak of low RAM and KDE.
You should know these dont go together

For low RAM systems go for XFCE or E17.
E17 is really lightweight and got loads of eye candy.
I personally use zenwalk on a 128 meg system and it boots in less than 15 seconds.Zenwalk comes with XFCE but the zenwalk forums have packages of E17 if you want it.

Regards...
ray

 

[mehulved]

Hard disk space is not a concern anymore, but low RAM requirment is still a concern, I hope PCLinux is worthwhile

Go for elive, it's based on debian, has apt and runs enlightenment17 which is a lightweight window manager, but still has pretty nice looks and effects.

 

[vish786]

can anyone tell me which version of kernel is been used in latest damnsmalllinux version 3.4 ??

coz dsl version 3 is using 2.4 and thats pretty old one.

 

[mehulved]

No, 2.4 is still under development. Just that it doesn't add new features, just bug and security fixes. Though there maybe unofficial development patches for it.

 

[gxsaurav]

@gx_saurav
You speak of low RAM and KDE.
You should know these dont go together

Hmm....

Zenwalk comes with XFCE but the zenwalk forums have packages of E17 if you want it.

I see Zenwalk Standerd is 450 MB, well will it install & boot via USB Harddisk? How do I install applications in Zenwalk? Like in case of Ubuntu, to install Firefox I can either download a .deb file or synaptic, but what about Zenwalk? What is the size of Zenwalk Standerd after installation in harddisk.?

You should assume that the computers in cyber cafes on which I will use it will have maximum 256 MB RAM.

 

[ray|raven]

Zenwalk standard takes like a gig of install space i guess.
Dont remember exact value....

Well as for packages,Zenwalk uses tgz's like debian based distros use deb's.
Since zenwalk is based on slackware most slackware packages work well with it.Also Zenwalk itself has a good list of apps on its repository.
I barely had to compile any apps on my system.
To install packages you can either use xnetpkg the package management software of zenwalk or download tgz's ans run 'installpkg' as root.

In case you are free with synaptic you can install slapt-get & gslapt which are ports of apt-get and synaptic for slackware based distro's.

Regards...
ray

 

[gxsaurav]

Oh...k, so what if I want to do this

1) Install ZenWalk core

2) Install XFCE or Enlightment, whatever suits me a bit. I don't need eye candy, I just need good Window management & taskbar features. So, how do I install XFCE on the CLI system & start X.org?

3) Now since I have a GUI & Core system, I will install only what I need. The list is given above.

I found that Zenwalk Standard is 1.1 GB atleast, which includes many thing. So using the zenwalk core method I can save some HD space further. Those synaptic like systems are a must anyway.

Upon inquiry, PCLinuxOS MiniMe is 300 MB only, & it can install in the HD too. it only comes with basic KDE & not with any extra packages, so I can skip installation of KDE web browser etc in favor of firefox. (Example). 100 MB is left, lets see how slow it is.