To follow up on my queries of a few days ago, here are my findings so far. Comments offline unless I've made egregious errors. I'm planning to put them on the wiki assuming no major issues.
I used 1GB USB keys or a 1GB SD card in a USB carrier. 1) Getting persistent live USB. I found the Ubunutu USB startup disk creator the easiest tool. In fact a tool called portable_linux did not work for me -- it would not show available USB keys. I found it best to have a FAT 32 formatted key. I used gparted. I also labelled my partition. I could then choose the distro (ISO) file and set the size of the capser-rw (persistence) file. 2) Getting the persistent live USB to work at all a) On Ubuntu Jaunty -- make a Jaunty (9.04) USB b) On Ubuntu Karmic -- make a Karmic (9.10) USB -- I made Linux Mint Helena version When I made a Mint USB on Jaunty, I could not get persistence. I suspect grub vs. grub2 woes. Didn't try Jaunty create on Karmic host, but suspect similar possibilities. 3) Setting up real users I booted by USB, then chose the appropriate Users & Groups. In Jaunty this is under System / Administration. On Mint it is in the Control Panel. I did NOT need to become superuser. I set up a User and Password. I set the user as "Administrator". Then opened Login Window. For Jaunty I turned off BOTH automatic and timed logins (under Security). Mint only offered automatic or login screen. I chose the latter. Rebooted. Jaunty USB displays login screen. Mint auto boots into "Mint". I have to logout, then I can login as the real User. This is annoying. If anyone knows a solution (there must be one!), contact me off-list, I'll check that I can get it working, then post solution. 4) Network I recommend starting with wired connection. Note that some machines e.g., Asus Eee 1005HA need Karmic or later to run even wired connection. A lot of machines use Broadcom wireless cards. I did System / Hardware drivers in Jaunty or Control Panel / Hardware drivers in Mint and activated these. (You need a network connection, and MUST reboot before the change is effective.) 5) Software etc. - in USB login as real user (who can be administrator) - sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment repositories as desired (I prefer them all) - in terminal do sudo apt-get install (your choices: I used mc joe leafpad gnome-commander) Thats about as far as I"ve got. I had some glitches with an SD card in a carrier with Buffer write errors on shutdown. May be misbehaving SD card or speed mismatch or .... Doesn't occur with USB keys. Comments or brickbats? John Nash _______________________________________________ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
