compiling kernel / booting from usb

[Oliver Fromme]

walt wrote:
 > Haidut wrote:
 > > I've had no trouble installing Dfly directly on a 512MB USB memory
 > > stick just as I would on a normal HDD and it booted fine.
 > 
 > Excellent work.  I think a feat like that should be explained in
 > the DragonFly wiki.  I know I would like to try it :o)

There's absolutely nothing special about it; I've done it
before, too.  It's not different from installing on a hard
disk.

There's only two things to keep in mind:

1. Obviously, the BIOS of your machine must support booting
   from USB devices.

2. If the USB stick is very small, a base installation may
   not fit.  In that case it requires a bit of manual
   fiddling.  I've installed BSD systems on flash cards
   as small as 32 MB without difficulty, and even smaller
   sizes are certainly possible with a little more effort.

 > 
 > I'm curious about things like:  did you use the DFly Installer, or
 > just copy an existing installation to a mounted USB stick?  Did you
 > need to change any BIOS settings for changing boot devices or listing
 > alternative boot devices?  Did you re-format or make a new filesystem
 > on the USB stick before installing?  (If yes, how did you do it?)

It works just like a hard disk.  No difference.  See above.

 > How did you partition that tiny little 512MB,

Uhm, "tiny little"?  I used to run FreeBSD on an old laptop
with 120 MB hard disk. I would be tempted to try DragonFly
on it, but unfortunately the display died.  :-(

 > and did you make a swap partition?

It is generally _not_ a good idea to swap on any flash
device, unless you absolutely have to.

 > These are the little things that can use up hours of trial-and-error
 > even for people who have experience installing to normal hard disks,

No ...  If your BIOS supports booting from USB, then
setting up a bootable USB media is not different from
a normal hard disk.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme,  secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing
Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd

Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.