Debian Installation :: Usb Stick Instead Of HDD?
Jul 17, 2010
I have a computer missing a HDD and I would like to be able to use it until I have bought a new HDD. I have seen it is possible to install the contents of a LiveCD to a usb stick, but is it possible to install a normal debian system to a usb stick and make it bootable? Example: can I make BIOS find my usb stick and make it the master HDD and then install debian on it by booting with an installation CD?
The advantages would be the possibility to modify the operating system and storing files, which is impossible when using a liveCD.
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May 21, 2015
I tried to build a bootable USB stick using Code: Select alldd if=~/Desktop/linux/debian-8.0.0-i386-xfce-CD-1.img of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m as mentioned here: URL... but this does not work on my MacBook 3.1, late 2007 model (yes, I am using rEFIt and my CD drive is dead). The error message upon trying to boot from the USB stick using rEFIt says something like 'unable to load bootia32.efi'.
The workaround: I took the "bootX64.efi" from here:URL... on the USB drive and renamed it as "boot.efi".I copied the "debian-8.0.0-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso" to "/efi/boot" on the USB drive and renamed it as "boot.iso".So now my USB stick has 2 files only: "/efi/boot/boot.efi" and "/efi/boot/boot.iso" and nothing else.Now I was able to boot from the USB stick get into a GRUB prompt.
Code: Select allloopback loop (hd0,1)/efi/boot/boot.iso
grubconfig (loop)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
The installer starts fine and I choose my locale, keyboard etc. until it starts to scan for the CD drive and I face...The error message says that a CD was not found (as expected).I fired up the shell offered by the installer and mounted the USB stick to "/mnt/usb" like this:
Code: Select allmount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/usb
It works and I can see my ISO file in "/mnt/usb/efi/boot/boot.iso".I tried to mount the ISO image to "/dev/cdrom":
Code: Select allmount -o loop -t iso9660 /mnt/usb/efi/boot/boot.iso /dev/cdrom
waited for a while and killed (control + c) the process and found that my "/dev" folder has been flooded with files named like the string "loop" followed by some digits (loop1245, loop8766 etc.).Can the Debian installer be somehow tricked into believing that the ISO file on the USB stick is the mounted CD?
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Jun 7, 2015
I cannot get an install past looking for CD on any of the iso's I've tried. I have burned many iso's of other distributions onto a USB Stick and installed them so easily. Yet when it comes to Debian it is always a no go with me.
I think that Debian being up with the times would or should know most people that burn iso's just use an USB Stick it is easier and convenient. Therefore, they'd write the scripts to use them too without the "iso" thinking it is an CD/DVD that it is needing CD / DVD drivers to finish an install else abort.
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Mar 12, 2010
I'm using a computer with XP ishued to me by my company so I can not just install Linux on it.
How would I procede to install Debian on a 16Gb usb stick?
What file system would be prefered and how to get the boat loared and everything needed on it?
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May 31, 2011
What I have done so far with Debian: I used dd in Ubuntu Lucid to put the Debian live GDE version onto a USB stick, and I successfully booted my Toshiba Mini with it in under a minute! That even blows Easy Peasy away! I love the simplicity of the DE. For now I want to get the GDE version of Debain installed to a USB stick. (That is, I will use the live USB that I created to direct the installation to a USB stick that is plugged into the computer).
What I think that I know: I was successful to use a live Ubuntu Lucid USB to install Ubuntu Lucid to both a USB stick and an SDHC card, and that is what I am running right now. I have encountered issues with this process, such as apparently the /dev/sdx that was recognized during install being different when I try to boot the new stick, and I only happen to eventually mysteriously boot after, say, trying a different USB port. My main concern is a functional internet connection, otherwise I will be helpless when I try to confront any other kind of Debian problem, and of course I will soon want to begin installing packages. In Ubuntu Lucid my wireless card was nonfunctional, and I spent two weeks working on finding a "solution", which was something I believe called a Personal Package Archive, my first and only use of such a thing.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lexical/hwe-wireless
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install rtl8192ce-dkms
As far as I understand the first command, as with much of what I do with GNU/Linux, I must simply trust the benevolence of the package provider that their code will not ruin my hardware. The firmware issue does disburb me a bit, and it seems that Toshiba and Realtek or whoever is responsible would like to require me to use Windows in order to configure my wireless card. (That seems like it should be illegal.) Thank god I did manage to find a completely GNU solution, and thank the community for always being there trying to provide solutions like this.
So, appologizing for that overly elaborate introduction: Are there any pitfalls that I should avoid in the process of installing from the live GDE Debian USB to another USB stick on my Toshiba Mini, or if this is even possible in Debian? Is there a more appropriate solution to get my wireless card to work (instead of using the PPA mentioned above)? For instance, the wireless light never changes from amber to green (which I guess is what should indicate that the card is connected or not?), even though I am obviously connected to the interent (here I am). How do I force the installation to recognize my USB more primitively/reliably than as a /dev/sdx file (which seems to be quite dynamicly allocated from one boot to the next)?
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Mar 14, 2015
I have downloaded the "debian-7.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso" from the official website. I then used dd to create a bootable usb stick. The usb stick is detected by the HP Proliant server but it does not boot from it, even if no other OS is present (so boot order is not the problem, and even if it was, i checked the bios). I tried the original iso in a Virtualbox environment and it worked without a problem.
I then tried creating the usb stick in Windows using "Unetbootin" and "LinuxLive Creator". When I insert the stick into the HP this time it boots from it and all is good. I can not use this approach though, because I want to automate the installation until I can SSH onto the server. But somehow unetbootin and linuxlivecreator overwrite my modified debian isos preseed file (which also works perfectly on a Virtualmachine).I also used dd to create a Ubuntu usb stick and that works without a problem on the HP Proliant.
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Aug 13, 2015
I burned a live dvdrw with the hybrid live cd of debian 8.1 gnome and installed Debian onto the 32gb usb stick like this
8gb for /
22 for /home
2gb for swap
after chrooting into the usb stick with the live dvd-rw and installing grub2 there again cause the installation couldn't do it without chrooting first.. I wasn't able to boot from the laptop I installed Debian with but I could on my Desktop PC.
I wondered if you needed a copy of my grub.conf? so here is the pastebinnet of /boot/grub/grug.conf
[URL] ...
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Aug 27, 2015
I have been trying for close to 7 hours now to create a working encrypted bootable usb key for debian now.
I start by running the debian installation dvd (1 of 3. I downloaded and burnt all three ISO's that I found here: [URL] .... (2015-06-06 17:33) to disk), and when I get to the partitioning part, I cannot get an encrypted volume that will hold the root filesystem.
Here is what I have tried:
I have tried the Guided partitioning option to use the entire disk and set up encrypted LVM, to no avail.
I am left with a primary boot partition of 254.8 MB, at ext2 with /boot mountpoint on it, and a logical partition of 15.8 GB, with crypto as it's file system that says it's "not active". This bit here seems to be a running theme as I keep coming back to this set up, (give or take some space arrangement). From what I've read and seen, I should be seeing an Encrypted Volume container similar to LVM, but called an "Encrypted Container" that I can create additional partitions in like / and /home, and what have you.
And I can't "activate" the partition either. I have tried both the Configure Logical Volume Manager, which changed the partition to an LVM partition that dosn't encrypt anything inherently (and I have checked), and I have tried the Configure encrypted volumes option, which leads to the same results basically.
I have tried manually creating the partitions, a 512 MB ext4 /boot partition and then partitioning the rest of the space as "physical volume for encryption" with aes encryption, 256 key size, xts-plain64, Passphrase encryption key, erase data flag, bootable flag off.
Same result, 1 primary boot partition, 1 logical (I later tried making it a primary partition to, with the same results) crypto volume that is "not active".
I also tried setting up the a logical volume manager, which created a container to create additional partitions in which I could encrypt, but it was either a partition dedicated to something (i.e. root (/) or /home, or /swap, etc) or it could be encrypted, but not both. I even tried creating a root partion, and then selecting Configure encrypted volumes, and then selecting the root partition, and here is where I thought I was getting somewhere, because then it comes up giving me all the same options above, but it also specifies mount point under encryption. Which is /, which is what I'm after. So I accept that, and it goes back to being crypto, "not active" and when I check the partition again, the mount point option is gone.
Last thing I tried was going back to having a 512 MB /boot partition, and an encrypted partition set up with Configure encrypted volumes option, and then specifying the encrypted partiton with the Logical Volume Manager as the place to create logical groups and volumes, to little avail. I can create more volumes that are either encrypted, or a useful non encrypted volumes like / (root), /home, /swap, and the like, but not both at the same time.
Following this guide: [URL] ....
This leads me to a useable system, but the system wasn't encrypted. When I booted, I wasn't asked for a passphrase, and I checked the stick with my old linux mint dristro, and I was able to mount the logical volume and look at the contents, /etc, /home, /var by activating the partition in GParted and mounting it.
A number of users seem to mark an encrypted partition as lvm and then create more logical volumes within that that either actually become encrypted, or they don't check. I'm not sure which after my testing.
[URL] .....
I have also read this: [URL] .... and this [URL] .....
I found this which shows the container I believe I should be seeing if I do this right, but I can't get it : [URL] ....
I have also watched movies on youtube about it : [URL] ....
Could the issue be that I'm using a Lexar JumpDrive? 16 GM USB 3.0.
I've gotten debian to run off of it on it's own so I kind of doubt it.
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Jan 14, 2011
I am trying to create a bootable USB stick in Windows to install Debian on my laptop. I have looked at the guide on the [URL] website, but it seems to assume you already have access to a Linux machine with the use of zcat and other extractors. Is there anyway to create a bootable Debian USB stick in Windows? By the way, I'm trying to simply get the USB stick to become bootable and then install the OS through the internet on my laptop. My laptop does not have an optical drive, so I have to do it this way.
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Feb 21, 2011
I installed Squeeze with LXDE on my old 600MHz Celeron, 256MB ram computer. But, every time I boot, the screen resolution is wrong. I can set it right with a few clicks of the mouse, but next time I boot up it has reverted to the wrong setting. I found that this problem has been reported on the LXDE forum, but the official response seems to be that it is not their problem.
How do I get the correct setting to stick?
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Nov 18, 2014
I want to try Debian on my Asus Eee netbook and I'm trying to follow the instructions in URL... But just copying the ISO file to the USB drive then trying to boot from it doesn't seem to work. I just get "Missing operating system".
The Eee can use an external optical drive as well but that failed also. I'm sure I need to do more to prepare the USB drive or CD? Can I prepare the USB Drive or CD on my Windows system, and make it boot on the netbook (which has another Linux distro on it now)?
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Jan 8, 2011
I'm looking for a good tutorial to install minimal Debian with Gnome on USB Memory stick and make it bootable.
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May 27, 2011
I have tried: 1. zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sde and copy the image file debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso to the usb-stick. 2. and manual whit syslinux /dev/sde1And also various builds of testing and it can't load the image file. always i get the error message "Filed to copy file from cd-rom"And i cant ether install 6,01 Before the image debian stable 6,0 worked and several testing builds before the stable release 6.0.The boot process work flawless but installer can not find the iso according to error msgI have verified the iso file with md5sum and made sure to write out to de stick whit sync.And haven't changed my bios boot that worked before.
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Aug 20, 2010
is it save to install linux kernel 2.6.35.2 on Debian Lenny 5.0.5 or stick with automatic updates...
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Oct 1, 2010
i was writing a .img file to my usb stick with ImageWriter, but it didn't seem to do anything so i clicked the close gtk button and pulled the stick out of my pc. now my pc gives my an when i try to open the stick. is there any way to fix this. I can use win xp pro, win xp media center, win 7 starter, ubuntu 9.10 and ubuntu 10.04
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Sep 1, 2011
I'm about to ditch Freenas as my NAS software and make it an Ubuntu server box. The mainboard is an Asus AT3ION-T dual core Atom board. Freenas runs happily from USB stick. I have no optical device to install Ubuntu from and would like to install Ubuntu Server to a USB stick.
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Mar 22, 2011
I have an very old computer who I want to have som a server. The OS who is installed now i Windows 95.
Hardware:
- MMX 200 Mhz
- 160 Mb Ram
- 2113 MB HDD (bad shape)
- Network card 10/100
- 2 USB 1.0
- CD
- Floppy
I wonder if I can install debian on it with a CD, who install it on a 16 GB USB-stick 2.0.
I wonder to if i can make so Debian takes like 20 MB in Ram or less? I will run it textbased.
I'd seen here that Debian must have at least 64 MB in Ram http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i ... n#id321935
But it's that true? I want a Debian who take ram like Damn Small linux.
The computer shall have ONE function. Run a tiny python script. It will read over 200 pages every 30:e second textbased. Thats what the python program will do. I must have internet connections.
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Mar 4, 2015
I just now down loaded firmware-brcm80211, I want to put it on a usb stick, so that when I am installing debian, and it asks to insert the "medium" that has the driver, I have it on a usb stick.
My question, do I just copy the package to the device(usb stick), or do I need to extract it onto the stick ?
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Jan 19, 2011
Debian GNU/Linux Kernel 2.4.33.7-rt13.2 My PC does not beep when I plug in the USB stick. The stick is formated to vfat. The mount point is established in the fstab. The reply is: "/dev/sda1 is not a valid block device"
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May 4, 2010
I just installed Shotwell and I copied some photos from a usb stick. I set the permissions to read/write but it won't save as read/write and Shotwell won't except photos, says its unsupported.
I get this error:Error interpreting JPEG image file (Improper call to JPEG library in state 200) now I think the file was corrupted, because other files on the usb stick open OK.I deleted the file. who knows what caused the corruption.
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May 1, 2011
I Installed Debian on my laptop using a USB-stick. After the installation, everything seemed ok, though it didn't boot anything, it was just waiting with a flashing marker. I put in the USB-stick and rebooted the system and it worked for some reason, GRUB started this time. Now i've had the system like this for a couple of weeks, I have to put in my USB-stick in order to be able to get GRUB to start, but can remove the USB-stick when the OS has started.
The only thing I could think of, was that GRUB was installed into the USB-stick. So I removed the USB-stick when Debian was started and and reinstalled GRUB using aptitude. Still didn't work. What could be wrong?
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Jun 13, 2011
When I plug in my USB stick (with fat32 filesystem, labeled flash8p1) and then try to mount it from the Places menu, I get an error box that pops up: Unable to mount flash8p1 Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 1: helper failed with: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so
I don't understand what the dmesg is telling me, but here it is for those who may understand:
$ dmesg|tail
[14076.617192] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[14076.619599] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[14076.619620] sdc: sdc1
[14076.623348] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[Code]....
I just got my Gnome-flavored Squeeze running this morning, and I'm still working out the configuration. I have disabled automounting and autobrowsing of removable media, but anyway this problem was occuring when I had automounting enabled. I have the OS installed to a 4-GB microSDHC card plugged in to the front of the computer. The computer is a Toshiba Mini NB505.
edit: And now, I just plugged the flash8p1 into a different USB port, and it mounted from the places menu. I wonder, though, if this is related to the fact that I had first mounted it from the command line.
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Aug 8, 2011
I am running a Gnome desktop but do not have the gnome metapackage installed. Recently I have noticed updates wanting to install Gnome 3 versions of some of my applications including gnome-terminal and gnome-system-monitor. I want to stick with the Gnome 2 versions and Gnome 2 in general. Is there a way of doing this without reverting to Stable?
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Mar 8, 2011
I want to get a running Squeeze onto a bootable USB-stick to test it, to make desirable adaptions and adoptions and only when I feel, that everything is okay, install that over my existing Deb-installation.
The DVD however offers only an "install" over an existing Linux-system, destroying that. Really hours and hours of Google aso. brought no solution to a - in my opinion - simple task.
I want to transfer the content of the DVD onto the USB-stick, make that stick bootable and THEN enable me to act like the system on the stick were my real OS, including of course making changes to the configurations. Only when I'm satisfied with the result, I then want to overwrite my existing system.
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Feb 16, 2011
How to make an image of bootable USB stick and setup on other USB sticks? I have 2 partitions on this USB stick and one it's bootable.
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Jun 30, 2010
I've been trying to work out how to get a "full" debian installer (ie, not a netinst installer but as much as you'd find on say, the first CD) onto a bootable USB stick.Most of the tutorials I've seen work with the netboot installers only.The installer works until the "Detect and mount CD-ROM" step where it wants to mount a CD drive. Won't accept /dev/sdb or whatever device the USB stick is.
Using live-magic with the option to include the installer.The installer works until the "Detect and mount CD-ROM" step where it wants to mount a CD drive, as above. This confuses me, since why would live-magic include this capability if it didn't work for a USB stick?
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Oct 19, 2010
I am trying to encrypt partitions on a usb stick using squeeze. I will be installing Arch on that stick, but as I am using Debian as the OS to do the encrypting I thought here was the best place to ask. I've not had any dealings with encryption before so i'm a little lost. It's not working as I would expect basically - here is the error mssge :
spoovy@peony ~ $ sudo cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain -y -s 512 luksFormat /dev/sdb5
WARNING!
This will overwrite data on /dev/sdb5 irrevocably.
Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes): YES
Enter LUKS passphrase:
Verify passphrase:
device-mapper: reload ioctl failed: Invalid argument
Failed to setup dm-crypt key mapping for device /dev/sdb5.
[Code]...
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Nov 30, 2010
I've observed that if I copy a directory containing some files to an USB stick, files whose names are all upper-case are copied with all lowercase names. Is this expected behavior? The USB stick is shared with a Windows box.
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Jun 30, 2015
I use dd command to write dvd 2 and 3 on 2 usb sticks, synaptic only have "add cd-rom" command, so ... which uri I can use to specified the usb as a repository to install from synaptic and apt-get ....
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Sep 2, 2015
My usb stick with Debian only loads from the usb hub it's crazy. I just tried putting the usb stick onto a usb3 port in my desktop and also on a usb2 port even the one where the usb hub is connected to and it wont' load!. Same initramfs prompt happens as when connected on the laptop usb ports.
the usb hub has usb2 speeds so is not that the stick is under usb1.1 emulation.
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