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Re: is it possible to install a custom initramfs USB bootable system?



> I have a computer with 10 GB of RAM, but no hard disks. I want to
> install Debian to make it work this way:

>  1. Debian is installed in RAM (maybe from PXE netboot)
>  2. with some command a compressed squashfs image is created of the
>     current system, and saved on an USB flash stick
>  3. the next time the system needs to be booted, it is booted from this
>     USB flash stick, fetched and uncompressed totally into RAM, and then
>     this flash stick is removed (it should not be needed for this stick
>     to stay inserted while the system works, only for boot)
>  4. when (after) the system is upgraded (in live initramfs), a command
>     (from point 2.) is run again to update the compressed squashfs image
>     on the USB stick

It shouldn't be too hard to do, really.  The usual `initrd' file is
actually a gzipped cpio archive, so just saving the whole filesystem via
cpio+gzip should do it.


        Stefan



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