Sunday, April 30, 2006
Mini Linux Distro on USB ThumbDrive
It is nice to have a bootable USB key with a self contained OS installed on it. The obvious choice is Linux. There are quite a few Mini USB Linux's such as Puppy, DSL, SLAX, STUX, etc. Each of the communities that supply utilities, support, documentation, etc. for each of the Mini Distributions is quite amazing. At the moment, 1 makes it the clear C.P.O.T.D. choice- SLAX, since it runs the 2.6 Kernel while all other mini distros run 2.4. Granted the 2.4 kernel is small and fast, but back porting utilities such as trucryptfs etc. become a problem. My simple philosophy is "Move forward, don't look back." There is another mini distro that is worth mentioning, STUX- a Linux distro based on Slackware Linux 10.2 and Knoppix 3.7 for kernel and modules with some very nice custom configuration tools. It is currently Kernel 2.4 but there is a 2.6 release due out hopefully soon.
The Cool Pick Of The Day is SLAX.
SLAX is small (185MB), fast and flexible mini Linux distribution based on Slackware which can fit on and run directly from small (3.14") and normal sized CD-ROM disc, usb drives.
SLAX has some very cool features. First it has modularity- you can customize the system to fit your specific needs and wants by loading additional software in the form of compressed modules. Many modules are available at the website. You can even create your own modules. SLAX is based on the 2.6 Linux Kernel which is unusual for mini distributions which are normally 2.4 based. It also features two very nice file systems: SquashFS and UnionFS which allows a single mount point (single logical filesystem) view of many filesystems and allows read-only filesystems to behave as a writable one by overlaying a writeable file system on top of read-only media (e.g. saving all changes to memory or a USB thumb drive, etc.)
There are 2 ways to create a Slax USB bootable key: The manual hard core way and the MySLAX Creator way. The MySLAX Creator method requires using MS Windows but it is a very easy and comprehensive tool that can do the following:
MySLAX Creator is a very easy configuration wizard that creates a SLAX image with just a few clicks of the mouse. It is very self explanatory to use and install.
The Cool Pick Of The Day is SLAX.
SLAX is small (185MB), fast and flexible mini Linux distribution based on Slackware which can fit on and run directly from small (3.14") and normal sized CD-ROM disc, usb drives.
SLAX has some very cool features. First it has modularity- you can customize the system to fit your specific needs and wants by loading additional software in the form of compressed modules. Many modules are available at the website. You can even create your own modules. SLAX is based on the 2.6 Linux Kernel which is unusual for mini distributions which are normally 2.4 based. It also features two very nice file systems: SquashFS and UnionFS which allows a single mount point (single logical filesystem) view of many filesystems and allows read-only filesystems to behave as a writable one by overlaying a writeable file system on top of read-only media (e.g. saving all changes to memory or a USB thumb drive, etc.)
There are 2 ways to create a Slax USB bootable key: The manual hard core way and the MySLAX Creator way. The MySLAX Creator method requires using MS Windows but it is a very easy and comprehensive tool that can do the following:
- Add Slax modules (.mo or .img) to the /modules or /optional directory
- Add general files to the /extra directory
- Remove modules from the original ISO image.
- Add some permanent boot options such as starting SLAX in GUI mode
- Create your own MySlax ISO images.
- Burn created ISO images.
- Prepare a bootable USB stick and copy all the Slax files to it.
MySLAX Creator is a very easy configuration wizard that creates a SLAX image with just a few clicks of the mouse. It is very self explanatory to use and install.
# posted by TheGuardian : 10:20 AM
