RE: USB watches [Currently a work in progress, but mostly working]
> > Andrew Pritchard wrote:
> > I was given a rather funky Xmas present - a USB flashdrive/watch
> > (http://www.memixdirect.com) which says it's bootable. It also claims to
be
> > Linux 2.4 compatible, though I've not yet tried connecting it to a Linux
> > box.
>
> At 256 mb, that's big enough to include a full debian installation on
> the watch. You should be able to fit debian and maybe X and some
> personal files (gpg key?) on there.
Unfortunately it's only the 128mb version. Still far larger than I will
probably need. Would have been nice to have the USB 2.0 interface though.
> Another option is that debian's next-generation installation system can
> use such a USB drive as install media instead of a CDROM. You can then
> boot many computers from your watch, and do a debian install on them.
> This would eat about 128 MB and could be made to cooexist with other
> uses of the watch with some work; see
> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ for details.
I don't need to install debian, just access the files on the watch whilst on
a machine who's only OS doesn't support USB - let alone USB flash drives.
> > I'd also like to create a bootdisk, which has a Linux kernel on it as my
NT
> > box at work won't talk to anything USB (gaahh we hateessss NT! *sorry -
been
> > watching too much LotR*). Specifically so it can talk to the NTFS
partition
> > on my machine at work. Alternatively I'll repartition the machine and
create
> > a FAT partition so Linux can talk to that. The machine at work isn't new
> > enough to be able to boot from a USB device :(
> >
> > Has anyone tried either/both of these? Can anyone give me some pointers
> > about where to start with either of these projects?
>
> Joey Hess said:
>
> The debian-installer project includes a boot floppy which has the
> necessary USB drivers. You boot from the floppy, and it will find a USB
> device with an initrd.gz on it, then mount the initrd and chroot into
> it, and run its init. While this is intended to boot d-i in
> circumstances like you describe, there's no reason you could not build
> your own initrd.gz with anything you like in it and boot it this way.
Thanks Joey - I was dreading trying to create a disk.
I've mangled the floppy-image's initrd.gz so that it now starts the
rudimentry shell (ash I think), and mounts the usb partition on /usb.
How can I get the system to default to a UK keyboard when I'm booting like
this?
How can I get bash into the initrd.gz?
How can I get it to support NTFS natively, so I don't have to have a 128mb
partition on my work machine? (I know NTFS read/write is a bit dodge, but
it's not going to be doing anything to the system volume, and I can loose
what's on the drive without too much worry)
And in the process learnt some more things about Linux, at a lower level
than before. Which is definitely a good thing. The new installer looks
really cool - keep up the good work guys and gals.
> > Hoping you all had a Merry Christmas, and going to have a happy new
year!
>
> No toys that fun (and I don't like wearing a watch).. Hope you have fun
> with it!
Certainly intend to. Means I can now carry albums of mp3's into work. And I
can access my college work from my usb watch, at work.
Cheers,
Andrew
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