Intrepid portability question

[tomcloyd]

I'm running my install from a 160GB USB HD. I want to take it traveling with me, so I can plug it into other people's computers and have my own environment (and data) to work with. I've never done this, and it seems entirely reasonable. But...will there be a problem with hardware - screen drivers, etc. (BTW, this is all about a PC environment) Seems like this certainy could happen, esp. if I plug into a laptop.

I'd the thoughts of anyone more knowledgeable than I about this portability question. Seems like it'd come up all the time with those flash drive thingies people are now using.

[Detonate]

Re: Intrepid portability question

If you follow the steps in the how to make a bootable usb flash drive it will work.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3089474.0

You can make the partitions a lot larger on the HD than you would on a flash drive.

Use the instructions to create a "persistent" drive, one that will remember all of your settings.

I would suggest reading the entire thread before beginning. Also you might do a google search on creating a bootable Kubuntu flash drive, because I think I read somewhere that someone has written a program to automate this, but I could be wrong.

[tomcloyd]

Re: Intrepid portability question

I'm confused. I read through much of the material you pointed me at. It's all about building a bootable flash drive. Well, what I already have is a bootable HD - my 160gb USB drive. It's not just extra storage, adjunct to my main HD. It IS my main HD, and the internal HD I have is now the adjunct.

My BIOS boot priority sequence is CD > USB > HD. So, with this baby plugged in, when I boot, it all comes from there. The internal HD I also have appears as part of the file system (in Dolphin, magically, somehow, 'cause it isn't otherwise mounted, and Konquerer therefore cannot see it).

I don't see the difference between this and a bootable flash drive, except its a HD and its huge, in comparison. Seems like I could simply take this to another computer and boot up. What's to prevent me from doing this?

Can someone point out what I'm missing, please, if anything?

Thanks!

t.

[Qqmike]

Re: Intrepid portability question

Good question.

You are correct -- your external HD is identical to a USB flash drive wrt the issues we are discussing here.

There's two ways to put Kubuntu on a USB drive (external HDD or flash drive):
(1) As a permanent Kubuntu install, a regular install;
(2) As a"Live" Kubuntu instance (whether persistent or not);

It would seem to me that (1) will depend on your hardware, whereas (2) will dynamically adjust to whatever hardware you run it on (since it runs in RAM only). That is, with (1), all your settings and configurations would seem to be a function of the hardware/environment of the permanent installation.

So, that's the question, the issue, for the real experts here!

Your question is a good one, of course, as you know

[toad]

Re: Intrepid portability question

This is really Qqmike's forte, but in his absence here my thoughts:

If you have a functioning Kubuntu install on a removable disk with GRUB installed on that disk chances of being able to boot on any computer are pretty good.

As for whether it actually functions after booting up - well, 8.10 problems are well documented and bemoaned on this forum. Personally I reckon you'd be better off with an 8.04 system on your drive. After all, 160GB is massive, no reason not to have 10 systems on it

So, to be on the safe side, install 8.04 on there as well. If 8.10 fails on a new host, 8.04 will see you right.

[toad]

Re: Intrepid portability question

Ha, got in there before me

[Detonate]

Re: Intrepid portability question

If you want it to work on any computer, then you need to make it a clone of the live CD. The way you have it now, it is set up for the hardware on your computer. The live CD will run on any computer. What you are doing is making a clone of the live CD, that will boot and run on any computer, but by making it persistent you will be able to save you files and settings. Every time you use it on a different computer, you will have to go to the bios to make sure that computer is set to boot from USB. If you took what you have now and plugged it into a different computer, you would have hardware issues unless it is a computer identical to yours.

[Qqmike]

Re: Intrepid portability question

toad, I thought YOU were the expert on this, not me.
Turns out that Detonate is the expert, but he did confirm my suspicion I conjectured above.
Now all four of us are the experts on this subject, thsx to Detonate.

[dibl]

Re: Intrepid portability question

The live CD will run on any computer.

Now there's a bold claim!




But seriously, in "Live CD" mode as recommended, you'll have the option to use "Safe Graphics" mode and also the F6 button to use to add boot options, so with those caveats, it should indeed work on any computer.

[Detonate]

Re: Intrepid portability question

I've only done it once, but it worked.

[Qqmike]

Re: Intrepid portability question

and the Live CD mode WITH persistence should be handy enough for portability;

somewhere on the forum, someone did do a live persistent flash drive install on an external HD--might be in the Live Persistent How-To; but, anyway, the steps are the same;

Build a LIVE Kubuntu Flash Drive, How-To
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...089474.new#new

[toad]

Re: Intrepid portability question

This is obviously the holy grail of any computer user. A perfect install with all your data that works everywhere.

What about a persistent install on a USB device - would that not work on any computer? After all, every time you boot, the kernel looks at its surroundings, recognizes hardware around it and (hopefully) does its job. Taking that into account I am not sure whether a live CD is actually necessary...

Or rather, what is the difference between a live CD boot process and that of proper install? afaik it is the highly compressed squashfs. Hardware recognition remains the same (just hyphothesizing...).

Tom, is it not possible to take your USB drive to a mate's computer and try and boot it? A sort of dry run? In any case, I'd still go for the additional 8.04 install.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

[tomcloyd]

Re: Intrepid portability question

Wow! What a herd of heavy hitters have responded this morning. Very very helpful.

What I now understand is that my original sense of things was essentially correct: my USB drive will probably boot, but it will just as probably run into real problems due to it's coming alive (on another machine than that which gave it birth) with god-knows-what hardware. (I'm specifically hoping to boot up on a distant laptop, so we can imagine where THAT scenario is likely to go).

So, I need a LiveCD clone on my HD, yes?

But there's a prior question I must answer. It's one thing to have a range of OSs to select from when grub comes up. It's another to have one of those be a live CD clone. How do I set THAT up? I don't want to lose what I have now - normally, I'll want this HD to simply boot to 8.10 from Grub, as it now does. I just want to ADD the boot-anywhere LiveCD option. I hope I'm finally being clear.

Can anyone tell me the procedure for setting THAT up - or point to something to read?

Thanks - y'all've been really helpful to this point. I hope you can get me home, on this one!

t.

Ah...new stuff just posted...so:

"holy grail"? Oh yeah. Sure feels like it. But isn't that more or less what a flash-drive-OS about? (not immediately important question...)

"persistent install on a USB device" - I don't understand "persistent install".

re: trail run on another computer - yeah, I thought of that. I need that other computer, and don't immediately have access to one. I just tried it on a 4 year old+ laptop I have, but it won't boot from USB, so DOA.

"8.04 install" - seems to me that I'd still run into driver issues wouldn't I? But beyond that, how can I do this install and mess with the existing 8.10 install? Will the install process just take care of that for me? Would I just make a partition for the sys files (my \home stuff has its own partition), and finish the install?

t.

[dibl]

Re: Intrepid portability question

I don't want to lose what I have now - normally, I'll want this HD to simply boot to 8.10 from Grub, as it now does. I just want to ADD the boot-anywhere LiveCD option.

Wow, that's maybe a problem. Or maybe not -- perhaps depends on what you mean by "what I have now".

I guess you could partition that drive into several partitions -- let's say the first one is a small partition of 5G, and then besides that one you have a swap partition and the rest of it in a big partition.

So, in the first 5G partition, you could install a bootable Live CD installation, with persistence, following, for example, this:

http://klik.atekon.de/liveusb/

in conjunction with Qqmike's tutorial on the subject.

Once you have that installed and working, THEN you could install your "real" Kubuntu on the big partition, and using the swap partition appropriately, and you could let that be added to the Live CD boot menu as the second bootable OS. If I'm thinking about this correctly and not missing anything, that should result in a "Live CD" installation that comes up by default, throws up a boot menu, and lets you pick your "real" OS if you happen not to need the default Live CD version. Kinda tricky, but I think you could do it -- the key is to make sure you have persistence enabled on the Live CD version.

[Detonate]

Re: Intrepid portability question

Yes, you are going to learn a lot about Grub if you do this. One of the problems you will face is, you don't know how the computer you want to use this on is setup. If it's a Windows computer, then windows is "probably" in hd(0,0). but it could be in hd(0,1). Have fun.