Installing linux to a flash drive, from a flash drive?

[zahc]

I'm setting up a htpc box just so I can play videos that are stored on my main system in another room, over the network.

I don't have a HDD or want one for noise and heat reasons. It seems like I could install Ubuntu onto a flash drive so that it just boots, and mounts the ~/video directory of my main box using sshfs or something. What would you do?

I'm thinking I could just use unetbootin to create a bootable flash drive, and boot from that, and plug in another flash drive and use that as my install directory? What file system should I use? Do I need to do anything special compared to if I was installing to a hard drive?

[sanglant]

if the budget allows one of these would be much faster, and i bet easier to setup.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=SSD

is basically a flash drive set up to look like a hard drive to the system.

[Vodka7]

Puppy Linux. It's a really sweet system, and just about perfect for what you want. I always keep it on my USB thumbdrive, along with System Rescue, Knoppix, and Ubuntu.

"You don't have to save data to hard drive to work with Puppy. You can save data to USB flash or even to Internet storage (like www.drop.io ). When installed to USB flash, Puppy consumes only a little over 100 MB, or about 256 MB with OpenOffice. You can use the same USB flash (where Puppy is installed) for saving data. "

Keep the file system FAT or FAT32 for portability.

[zxcvbob]

I like the idea of using Puppy Linux to bootstrap the system because I think Puppy can run from a RAM disk.  I would use JFS instead of FAT32 to get journaling (error recovery.)

[zahc]

Well, in the meantime I used unetbootin to put the Ubuntu alternate CD onto a flash drive, and then installed it on a 2GB lexar flash drive. It worked but for some reason it's sloooowwww. 2GB isn't enough for a normal install so I did a server install, then installed xserver-xorg, xinit, and fluxbox. Installing firefox added 200MB! Anyway it works now and I can view pictures and play video but I need to install the Nvidia driver somehow. I usually used the Ubuntu restricted hardware manager thing.

[mtnbkr]

Flash drives tend to be slow IME.  That might be the problem.

Chris

[Vodka7]

I like the idea of using Puppy Linux to bootstrap the system because I think Puppy can run from a RAM disk.  I would use JFS instead of FAT32 to get journaling (error recovery.)

Puppy is small enough to run off of ram in any modern system (I think it can go as low as 128 depending on what you're willing to drop.)  So even on a decade old computer, you can boot Puppy off of CD or USB, and then remove the boot media.  Awesome for other people's systems you're trying to fix, e.g. when they only have one CD drive but you really need to boot into linux and THEN burn something from the same drive you've booted from.

You can save the state of anything you customize to the same flash drive you booted from, so zahc would only need one thumbdrive instead of two.  It also keeps everything in memory while you're working in order to minimize writes--important in USB drives since they have a fixed number of write cycles before the drive goes bad.  It also has community-provided nVidia drivers.

DSL or Slax are good alternatives, but I like Puppy better.

[zahc]

It sounds like I should have tried Puppy. Right now I have an Ubuntu server install, Xserver, and the programs I need. I installed the latest Nvidia driver (bless them for providing good drivers and linux installer scripts) and now my video plays in full screen and glxgears went from 600 to 6000 fps, so I think the driver is working, but the h.264 video I was testing with hesitates every few seconds and doesn't play smoothly. I'm not sure how to fix it. Also, apparently Ubuntu server installs don't come with working sound (actually in my experience the desktop versions don't come with working sound either but that's not on purpose). I'm not sure if I should just apt-get install also or what.

[KD5NRH]

I don't have a HDD or want one for noise and heat reasons. It seems like I could install Ubuntu onto a flash drive so that it just boots, and mounts the ~/video directory of my main box using sshfs or something. What would you do?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10309
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14278

Throw on one of the small distros like damnsmall or slax that can load itself into RAM, and you should be fine.  Boot will still be slow, but once it's up, no problems.

[sanglant]

just something to think about, would need an mount adapter but it doesn't get very hot make much noise and much more space that's 20 times more space

edit: 5 bucks more