Patch requiring review
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Hi there,
I've written a section about how to install Debian Live to a partition
on a USB stick and using GRUB to boot it. I didn't find another way to
do it, but is it the "right" way ?
Best regards
Maximilian Weigand
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diff --git a/xml/chapters/basics.xml b/xml/chapters/basics.xml
index d4920c6..3c6e607 100644
--- a/xml/chapters/basics.xml
+++ b/xml/chapters/basics.xml
@@ -137,6 +137,155 @@ FIXME:
Describe installing Debian Live to a partition (e.g. /dev/sdc1) AND using a bootloader to boot this.
</para>
</section>
+
+<section>
+<title>Installing Debian Live to a Partition</title>
+<para>
+It is possible to install the created live system to a already existend partition on the USB stick. In this way you can later on install new versions without overwriting the partition table of the USB stick (and therefore deleting all data on the stick). The GRUB Bootloader will be used to boot the Debian Live system from a partition.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+The first step is to create a normal USB <filename>binary.img</filename> as described above. This file contains not only the Debian Live system made bootable on a partition, but also a whole new partition layout for the USB stick. Therefore, if this partition layout is written to the stick, all existing partitions will be lost. Therefore, we now extract only the content of the partition containing the live system and will then write it to an existing partition later on.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+You can skip the first two items in the following directives. They are only used to get the offset at which the partition 1 resides in the <filename>binary.img</filename>
+</para>
+
+<itemizedlist>
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Extract the MBR out of the <filename>binary.img</filename>
+</para>
+<screen>
+$ dd if=binary.img bs=512 count=10 of=mbr.img
+$ file mbr.img
+1.img: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 1, startsector 63, 3084417 sectors
+</screen>
+</listitem>
+
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Extract the boot sector of the partition 1 out of <filename>binary.img</filename>
+<screen>
+$ dd if=binary.img bs=512 count=12 skip=63 of=part.img
+$ file part.img
+part.img: x86 boot sector
+</screen>
+</para>
+</listitem>
+
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Copy partition 1 of <filename>binary.img</filename> to a seperate file (Could also directly write to usb stick).
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+dd if=binary.img bs=512 skip=63 of=binary_part1.img
+</screen>
+</listitem>
+
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Prepare USB stick: Create three partitions on the stick: The first one is the data partition, formated with FAT 32 to allow for data exchange with Windows. It has to be the first partition because often Windows can only read this one.
+
+The next partition is a small (100 MB) partition used to store the GRUB files, followed by the third partition which will contain the Debian Live system. You should choose the size of the first and third partition accordingly to your needs. The third partition has to be the size of the <filename>binary_part1.img</filename> at leat, but it doesn't matter if its bigger.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Set the BOOTABLE Flag for the second partition.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Format the first and second partitions to FAT32 respectively FAT 16:
+<screen>
+$ mkdosfs ${USBSTICK}1
+$ mkfs.vfat -F32 ${USBSTICK}2
+</screen>
+
+You don't have to format the third partition, it will be fully configured by copying the <filename>binary_part1.img</filename> to it later on.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+For example, below you find the possible partition layout of a 8 GB stick:
+<screen>
+(parted) print
+Model: SanDisk Cruzer Micro (scsi)
+Disk /dev/sdc: 8036MB
+Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
+Partition Table: msdos
+
+Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
+ 1 32,3kB 5001MB 5001MB primary fat32
+ 2 5001MB 5100MB 98,7MB primary fat16
+ 3 5100MB 8036MB 2936MB primary fat16 boot
+</screen>
+</para>
+
+</listitem>
+
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Prepare and install GRUB on the usb stick:
+</para>
+
+<para>
+First you have to make sure you have GRUB installed. The following directions only apply to GRUB-LEGACY (not GRUB 2). If you haven't installed it yet, do it now:
+<screen>
+$ sudo aptitude install grub
+</screen>
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Now mount the second partition of the USB stick (you don't have to use /mnt as a mount point, any other will do):
+<screen>
+$ mount ${USBSTICK}2 /mnt
+</screen>
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Create the necessary directories:
+<screen>
+$ mkdir -p /mnt/boot/grub
+</screen>
+Create <filename>device.map</filename>:
+<screen>
+$ cat >> /mnt/boot/grub/device.map << EOF
+(hd0) /dev/${USBSTICK}
+EOF
+</screen>
+Create <filename>menu.lst</filename>. This is the file where you configure the partitions to boot. Setting the timeout to zero results in GRUB directly booting the Debian Live partition.
+<screen>
+cat >> $mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst << EOF
+timeout 0
+
+title Debian Live
+rootnoverify (hd0,2)
+chainloader +1
+makeactive
+EOF
+</screen>
+</para>
+
+<para>Now install GRUB to the stick:
+<screen>
+$ grub-install --root-directory=/mnt ${USBSTICK}
+</screen>
+</para>
+</listitem>
+
+<listitem>
+Now copy over the <filename>binary_part1.img</filename> to the third partition of the USB stick:
+<screen>
+$ dd if=binary_part1.img of=${USBSTICK}3 bs=1M
+</screen>
+</listitem>
+</itemizedlist>
+
+<para>
+At this point you should have a bootable USB stick with a Debian Live system and a FAT32 data partition which you can use to exchange data with other operating systems.
+</para>
+</section>
</section>
<section>
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