Nuno: "Don't! Nothing should be installed on a flash drive. A traditional install was meant for hard drives, not flash drives. Browser cache, /tmp, syslog and so on will damage the device."
Andrew: " I assume you are trying to avoid the damage caused by longterm heavy writing which "wears out" flash memory, right? " Me: Is the heavy writing that Andrew mentioned the only thing that would ruin it, or are there other concerns? And also, has anyone ever had a usb flash drive actually wear out? I'm somewhat skeptical that having your OS entirely on a flash-drive would really ruin it. Of course, I've never tried it. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention that their flash drive died on them. Thanks, - GM -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Sackville-West [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 1:35 PM To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Making a Debian Bootable USB Pen Drive On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 07:33:23AM -0700, Ottavio Caruso wrote: > Nuno Miguel dos Santos Baeta wrote: > > > Hi! > > > > I want to install Debian in a USB pen drive. > > Don't! Nothing should be installed on a flash drive. A traditional > install was meant for hard drives, not flash drives. Browser cache, > /tmp, syslog and so on will damage the device. I have only loosely been following this thread, but am curious about this sort of thing in general. so what if you mount /tmp on tmpfs (thus putting it in memory or swap dependingon memory loads) and I wonder, can you change where syslog puts its logs (like into tmp) and then build some script to save it off when you shutdown? I assume you are trying to avoid the damage caused by longterm heavy writing which "wears out" flash memory, right? Likewise, what about putting together a file on whatever harddrive exists (a la knoppix and dsl use of a swapfile) as a place to mount /var and /tmp while running the system and again, copy it off to the usb drive during shutdown so that the info is archived, but the writes to flash are minimized. > > If you want to run a distro from a usb device, like I do, use a so > called 'frugall install': partition your drive in two (you can use > loop files if you prefer), put a live iso in the first partition and > save you data onto the second partition when you are done. > Knoppix, live.debian.net or damn Small Linux will do the job. > I agree that this is a much better solution. just my .02 A -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.0.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.12/461 - Release Date: 10/2/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.0.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.12/461 - Release Date: 10/2/2006 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
