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Re: Booting from an SD card?

On 5/30/2010 5:46 PM, Marc Shapiro wrote:

My wife has an early eeepc with a 4GB SSD running Xandros.  She would like to change the OS so that she can install other software easily.  I have a newer eeepc with a 160GB HD that came with the OS that must not be named and now also has Eeebuntu 3.0.

I wanted to install Debian on my eeepc.

On mine, I installed Lenny, then upgraded to Squeeze to get the 2.6.32 kernel so that all of the hardware would work properly.  So far, so good.  Then, after a dist-upgrade, the wireless started to have problems.  I could connect anywhere EXCEPT at home.  Unsecured, or not, I could connect when not at home.  My home wireless, with WEP security, would not connect.

I came across a site with with a Lenny installer but with the 2.6.32 kernel.  I created a 4 GB partition on my eeepc to simulate what the installation would be like on my wife's eeepc and how much space could be made available with only a 4 GB SSD.  I did the install, updated grub, installed Gnome and rebooted.  Everything worked fine, including connecting to my wireless network at home.  Life is good.  I expect to blow away the Squeeze install that will not connect to my wireless, and replace it with this Lenny install.  I can do a dist-upgrade when Squeeze goes stable.

Now, I have a 4 GB SD card that I want to install Lenny on, just like the installation to my hard drive.  That way, my wife can try it out on her eeepc WITHOUT MAKING ANY CHANGES TO HER HD.  I have gone through the install, but can not boot from it.  I am 99% certain that it is just a case of getting grub properly installed on the SD card.  From MY pc, how do I install grub on the SD card to that Lenny can boot directly from the SD card (on my box, or my wife's) without affecting the booting of my machine, or needing to change anything on my wife's machine?

I expect that I will need to make changes to /etc/grub/menu.lst on my box, then run 'grub-install' to install grub on the SD card, and restore the original /etc/grub/menu.lst for my box.  I also expect that I may need to make changes to /etc/grub/menu.lst on the SD card.  My problem is that I hafe used LILO since Debian Bo (and am by NO means a bootloader guru) and I do not know what changes need to be made to  /etc/grub/menu.lst on either my box, or the SD card, to make this work.

Can anyone help me with this?


  Marc Shapiro
mshapiro_42@yahoo.com
Off the top of my head, you will need a boot loader installed on the main drive that can see the SD card. My Eee PC can't boot off of the SD card. It may be that other models, possibly yours, can, but mine can't.
As long as you can boot off of a CD (for installation), and GRUB/Grub2 can see the SD card, I would guess you could make it work.
If I were doing it, I might look for an 8 GB or even 16 GB SD card. Look for a card with a higher speed class.
You might also consider a bootable USB flash drive. Much easier to boot off of USB than SD. 

MAA
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