As I wrote previously, I am going to States for a business trip. It will be six weeks and I will have only my company laptop (which also doubles as developer's machine) with me. Since company policy is rather strict when it comes to non-work related software installed on it (especially games and communicators, both of which hurts me), I thought I would need a second system.
The most obvious choice would be some sort of Linux booted from USB pendrive, which is much more convenient then using some live distribution from a CD. My laptop is Toshiba Tecra M3 (with lots of goodies, including Nvidia FX 6x00 graphic chip and 2Gb of RAM) so I thought that being new hardware it would have no problems booting from a pendrive. I was wrong.
The most obvious choice would be some sort of Linux booted from USB pendrive, which is much more convenient then using some live distribution from a CD. My laptop is Toshiba Tecra M3 (with lots of goodies, including Nvidia FX 6x00 graphic chip and 2Gb of RAM) so I thought that being new hardware it would have no problems booting from a pendrive. I was wrong.
After going through huge number of webpages (I include the best ones at the end of this post) and experimenting with different approaches, I still couldn't make my laptop boot from USB stick. I tried HP Format Utility, I tried syslinux, I tried solutions from PendriveLinux, I tried different distros, I meddled with BIOS and boot menu... Nothing would work.
So finally I have sticked to a combination of two distributions and different modes of running them.
One is the embedded version of Damn Small Linux, run under QEMU directly from Windows. The downside is that there is no hardware acceleration (no Enemy Territory for me), it doesn't run too smooth and also it is physically located on the laptop's hard drive. Still, as I work a lot with coding under Linux, I can always claim it is there on purpose and nobody is going to look too closely. My web browsing will be a tad more secure and also as an additional bonus it will allow me easier use of PSPSDK (instead of using Cygwin, which, frankly, is getting on my nerves sometimes).
My desktop computer running embedded DSL.
The second option is Slax Linux, the so-called Kill Bill edition (including Wine and Dosbox, hence the name), which I installed on my USB and boot it using a dedicated Slax Boot CD that runs the distribution from the pendrive. Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but at least it is the one that works. It eliminates all the disadvantages of using Live distributions, allows installing of Nvidia drivers (Enemy Territory), as well as ensures higher security and confidentiality.
The third option that I have stumbled upon while searching for the information would be to buy a USB pendrive using U3 technology. It looks really great and I probably will be tempted to try it (I have even registered as a U3 developer to be able to toy with its SDK), but I already had bought my USB stick when I first heard about U3. It allows quite confidential use of your favourite programs, even if in a limited way. Still, too late for me.
As promised, below you will find pages I considered useful in the task of setting USB Linux (pity they didn't help finally, but apparently for some people it works, so...) :
- Run GNU/Linux from USB pen
- USB pendrives and Linux
- Forum thread on booting Slax from USB
- Quite illegal approach on USB Linux using Hiren's Boot CD
- HowTo on booting Quantian from a USB memory device
- Polish forum thread on running DSL from USB
- How to boot from USB flash drive
Of course, if you accidentally happen to know how to do it or would like to point out that I missed something, please let me know (even via anonymous comment, if you prefer). I would really be happy to post a HowTo on booting Linux directly from USB drive on Toshiba Tecra.
