[sf-lug] how to make a usb stick bootable

[jim]

   thanks vince. i don't have any windows machines.
i've googled this and can't find anything that 
satisfies me: directions are often insufficient 
(some step omitted or something, maybe just not 
okay for my system); also the purpose is not to 
have a bootable stick, it's to learn how to make 
a bootable stick at a low level (not just use 
some program that does it, but use standard, 
available linux tools to 
* partition the usb stick 
* put an MBR on it 
* put grub on it 
* put the kernel and /etc/ /lib/ /usr/ and other 
directories on it. 
* have it boot up and work as we expect a linux 
distro to work. 
* whatever else i don't know to do the basics. 



On Fri, 2009-08-14 at 18:14 -0700, vincent polite wrote:
> Here's a link to one site on how to do it.
> http://www.shivaranjan.com/2008/09/03/how-to-create-bootable-linux-usb-flashpen-drive-from-windows/ . If you google it, you'll find a ton of sites on how to do it.
> 
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> From: jim <jim at well.com>
> To: sf-lug <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 6:00:41 PM
> Subject: [sf-lug] how to make a usb stick bootable
> 
> 
>   we want to put linux on a usb stick. we want 
> the usb stick to be bootable. 
> 
>   we used fdisk to put on these partitions: 
> /dev/sdb1 bootable ext3 128MB 
> /dev/sdb2 ext3 4GB 
> /dev/sdb5 ext2 512MB 
> 
>   we've put no directory names on the partitions. 
> 
> # man grub-install 
> says we can put grub on a device name and also 
> use the --root-directory option to specify a 
> directory in which we list grub images. 
> 
>   we want to have the / namespace on /dev/sdb2 
> and we want the /dev/sdb1 partition to be mounted 
> on the /boot mount point (specified in the root 
> directory on the /dev/sdb2 partitioned. 
> 
>   we've successfully mounted the thing on /zzb1 
> and /zzb2 and /zzb5 mount point directories on our 
> working box. 
> 
>   we've not put any files on the usb stick, we've 
> not used any installer to put any linux or other 
> os on the usb stick. 
> 
> 
> 
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