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Author: Holger Beetz
Date:  
To: dynebolic
Subject: [dyne:bolic] Automated/guided install from dyne DVD to CF / USB ?
Hi list,

if this has already been implemented or is on the feature list then
simply ignore this posting.

If not then I would be happy to hear what others think.

dynebolic is somewhat aimed to run of a CD/DVD drive. This is nice for
many PCs but there are some issues for me with that:
1) A DVD-ROM drive is much more expensive than a nice USB stick (here
in Germany we talk about ~12€ for a DVD-ROM versus 4€ for a four
Gigabyte USB stick.
2) DVD-ROMs tend to make noise when the optical media is accessed
3) I have no prove on this but I could imagine that using a live DVD
as operating system makes the DVD-ROM wear out much faster than with
every day use (e.g. just copy a few files now and then)

The folks over at Kanotix have some nice wiki entry on how to set up a
CF (= compact flash) in order to boot the Kanotix ISO from the card.

Just as sidenote for those who are not aware of CF cards:
There are several options to use a CF card as IDE / SATA drive. You
can either grab a SATA/IDE-to-CF adapter (e.g.
http://www.addonics.com/products/adsahdcf.php) or use a CF module
which directly plugs into your IDE port on the mainboard (e.g.
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=16).

Here is the wiki entry:
http://www.kanotix.com/index.php?module=pnWikka&tag=KanotixVonCF

Unfortunately it is written in German but the main steps are:
1) Generate partition on CF
2) Format CF partition with FAT32
3) Install grub to CF card
4) Copy kernel to CF card
5) Copy ISO of Kanotix live DVD to CF card
6) Generate grub config file with kernel option fromiso=x.iso (where
x.iso is of course the one from step 5)

They also provide a script which generates a USB stick with a
persistent installation of Kanotix (= settings are saved):
http://kanotix.com/files/fix/create-syslinux-usb-drive-persistent.sh

Do you think it makes sense to provide such a functionality with one
of the upcoming versions of dyne:bolic ?

TIA,
Holger