usb installation hdd
Hello all ! After i download any scientific Linux distro from the internet, i have to burn it to a DVD, CD or a number of CDs to install it. That CD or DVD is generally used only once after which it lies unused , and worse, almost every Linux distro comes up with a new release every 6 months.i have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of my drawer where they get scratches. What a wastage of CDs! i want to make a usb harddisk(linux bootable) that contain all the scientific linux versions so that i can install any linux on any system by just changing the boot order from cdrom to usb . It will make me to add any new versions on the installation harddisk and make my work easier. i want to get rid of using cds and dvds. Can anyone help me in making that kind of linux bootable installation hdd. Regards from -- Vivek Chalotra GRID Project Associate, High Energy Physics Group, Department of Physics & Electronics, University of Jammu, Jammu 180006, INDIA.
Re: usb installation hdd
Hi, If you've got a network connection would it not be better to install the large images on a network accessible hard drive, front ended by, say, apache/NFS. Then just put the generally much smaller installer images on the USB device, or even use PXE? Faye vivek chal wrote: Hello all ! After i download any scientific Linux distro from the internet, i have to burn it to a DVD, CD or a number of CDs to install it. That CD or DVD is generally used only once after which it lies unused , and worse, almost every Linux distro comes up with a new release every 6 months.i have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of my drawer where they get scratches. What a wastage of CDs! i want to make a usb harddisk(linux bootable) that contain all the scientific linux versions so that i can install any linux on any system by just changing the boot order from cdrom to usb . It will make me to add any new versions on the installation harddisk and make my work easier. i want to get rid of using cds and dvds. Can anyone help me in making that kind of linux bootable installation hdd. Regards from -- Vivek Chalotra -- Please sign my petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/alcohol-buying/ - Faye Gibbins, Computing Officer (Infrastructure Services) GeoS KB; Linux, Unix, Security and Networks. Beekeeper - The Apiary Project, KB - www.bees.ed.ac.uk - I grabbed at spannungsbogen before I knew I wanted it. (x(x_(X_x(O_o)x_x)_X)x) The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Re: usb installation hdd
vivek chal wrote: Hello all ! After i download any scientific Linux distro from the internet, i have to burn it to a DVD, CD or a number of CDs to install it. That CD or DVD is generally used only once after which it lies unused , and worse, almost every Linux distro comes up with a new release every 6 months.i have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of my drawer where they get scratches. What a wastage of CDs! i want to make a usb harddisk(linux bootable) that contain all the scientific linux versions so that i can install any linux on any system by just changing the boot order from cdrom to usb . It will make me to add any new versions on the installation harddisk and make my work easier. i want to get rid of using cds and dvds. Can anyone help me in making that kind of linux bootable installation hdd. I was able to do just what you said by using unetbootin. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ I first downloaded the Scientific Linux DVD, and use unetbootin to install the first DVD. This get's the USB stick bootable, and you can use it for that DVD. But, you can then load other releases onto the USB stick, into their own directory, and then change the configuration file so they come up as an option. I have since wiped the USB stick and put other things on it, so I don't have all the details. But it was pretty handy. Anyway, unetbootin is a good place to start to do that. Troy p.s. Oh ... actually doing the DVD install, as opposed to the network install, required some extra tweeking because the installer was looking for ISO images, but I just put the iso images into their own directory, and everything was fine. -- __ Troy Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] (630)840-6468 Fermilab ComputingDivision/LCSI/CSI DSS Group __
ftp server functional?
Is ftp.scientificlinux.org working for anyone right now (13:25 EST)? -- Pann McCuaig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>212-854-8689 Systems Coordinator, Economics Department, Columbia University Department Computing Resources: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/economics/computing/
Re: ftp server functional?
Pann McCuaig wrote: Is ftp.scientificlinux.org working for anyone right now (13:25 EST)? Works fine here. Cheers, Mark -- Mr. Mark V. Stodola Digital Systems Engineer National Electrostatics Corp. P.O. Box 620310 Middleton, WI 53562-0310 USA Phone: (608) 831-7600 Fax: (608) 831-9591
Re: ftp server functional?
On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 12:35, Mark Stodola wrote: > Pann McCuaig wrote: >> Is ftp.scientificlinux.org working for anyone right now (13:25 EST)? >> > Works fine here. Mark, Yup, it's working for me now as well . Thanks. Cheers, Pann -- Pann McCuaig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>212-854-8689 Systems Coordinator, Economics Department, Columbia University Department Computing Resources: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/economics/computing/
Re: ftp server functional?
Pann McCuaig wrote: Is ftp.scientificlinux.org working for anyone right now (13:25 EST)? The back end was rebooted for a emergency. So the machine was up, but you weren't able to get any files off it. We're sorry about that. Troy -- __ Troy Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] (630)840-6468 Fermilab ComputingDivision/LCSI/CSI DSS Group __
Re: sci-linux as a pseudo-embedded os,
Miles O'Neal wrote: Salvador Aguinaga said... |I've wondered if any of you have used scientific linux on a x86 hardware to |run a single application ( like an embedded OS ) and disable updates and |remove unneeded packages? Sure, at least a dozen times. |Or if you there is a better alternative to accomplish the same thing. That depends on what you are trying to do with it. For instance when I needed a bridging firewall a few years back, there was no east way to do that with SL (I tried for 2 day), so I gave up and used freesco. But, just for example, we've done this with DMZ systems, fileservers, and a handful of others. Very straightforward; just install what you need, remove the extras it installed anyway, and only turn on the minimum services necessary. Update manually as needed. Works fine. If SL does what you want, that's fine. For a smaller image, rpm supports omitting documentation, though I haven't seen a way of doing that via yum. It's something you might wish to explore. Debian has an rpmstrap script that's part of something else that can be used to create a (CentOS and so probably SL) image. That could be brutalised to do what you want. -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)
Re: sci-linux as a pseudo-embedded os, have any of you installed it in this fassion?
Ken Teh wrote: I recommend using a live CD distro. This may or may not apply to you but typically an embedded system is something you want to be able to switch off and on with a button. If your embedded SL mounts a hard disk partition as /, especially if it is mounted read-write, you really should use 'shutdown' to shut the system off. Otherwise you run the risk of disk integrity problems. It's happened to me before and when it happens you will need to build the system again. A live CD distro runs entirely out of RAM so it's CD image remains pristine through reboots. SL ought power down in an orderly fashion when the power button is pressed. /usr can be (standards require it) be mounted ro. / should be able to be mounted ro without too much fuss (tmpfs everywhere that must be written, consider /var/tmp whose contents are (I think) normally required to survive reboots. /tmp can be discarded, /var/lock and /var/run almost certainly, but ordinarily /var as a whole is writable and not volatile. I see problems with any standard livecd: 1. Too much junk 2. Generally it's intended to demonstrate a desktop environment, not to run a server. It might not comprehend the idea of retaining data over boots. 3. If you want database software such as postgresql it's probably not configured to run. Creating your own bootCD that has all your required software installed and ready to run is a fine idea, but maybe not better than and ro filesystem (which could be nfs from another server and so easy to maintain should the need arise). There are several standard possibilities, maybe the easiest way to discover them is to build a custom kernel and see what's offered when you choose filesystems. -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)
Re: ext3 file system on sdc rather than sdc1???
Mark Stodola wrote: Michael, Odds are mkfs was run on sdc and not sdc1 initially. Your plan is good, backup the data and reconfigure the filesystem as you want, then restore the data. There aren't really any tricks to shuffling the data with dd. except the need to ensure target is big enough to receive data. I would probably use another disk so as to ensure I didn't stuff it up. I'd also consider dump/restore even though I've never used them. If you use dd, you need to fsck and resize before copying if the target's smaller, fsck and resize after if it's larger, and the odds of source and target being the same size are not good, unless you decide not to partition the target drive at all. If you use dd, you will have this apparent partition table after the event. I don't think it would cause problems, though you can never be sure. Cheers, Mark Michael Hannon wrote: Greetings. This is slightly off-topic, but I hope it's of sufficient interest to warrant posting here. We've got a computer here that's running Fedora 8, i386. The machine has two external drives, both mounted to an eSATA controller (Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 SATARaid Controller). The disks are 750GB and 500GB, respectively, in size. Everything seems to work as expected, except that the 750GB drive is somehow getting mounted on the device, rather than on a partition: /dev/sdc 688G 554G 100G 85% /local3 There IS a partition on the drive: # fdisk -l /dev/sdc Disk /dev/sdc: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x3e863a4f Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 91201 732572001 83 Linux But my attempt to mount the drive on sdc1 results in: # mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /local3 mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so I don't really understand what's going on here or how the system got into this peculiar configuration. I'm inclined to back up the data from the mounted /local3, then re-create the partition, then re-initialize the file system on sdc1, then restore the data. But I was wondering if there might be some way to short-circuit that process, maybe by using dd to copy some information from /dev/sdc to /dev/sdc1. Is this possible? If so, is it risky? Is there a better approach? Thanks. -- Mike -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)
Re: usb installation hdd
vivek chal wrote: Hello all ! After i download any scientific Linux distro from the internet, i have to burn it to a DVD, CD or a number of CDs to install it. That CD or DVD is generally used only once after which it lies unused , and worse, almost every Linux distro comes up with a new release every 6 months.i have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of my drawer where they get scratches. What a wastage of CDs! You can always use rewritable media. That way, procedures remain exactly the same. i want to make a usb harddisk(linux bootable) that contain all the scientific linux versions so that i can install any linux on any system by just changing the boot order from cdrom to usb . It will make me to add any new versions on the installation harddisk and make my work easier. i want to get rid of using cds and dvds. Can anyone help me in making that kind of linux bootable installation hdd. You will pay a premium for the USB drive over using optical media, rewritable or not, and there's no need to keep them when you've finished with them. If you do go USB, contemplate a notebook drive in a USB enclosure. The disks are faster and more capacious, and fit nicely into a shirt pocket from which you can drop them with great ease when bending over;-) -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)
Re: Handling daily emails from multiple servers
Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote: On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Michael Mansour wrote: A hundred emails or a single giant web page ? Not clear that one is much better than the other. IMHO the long web page is much better. Going through, say, 200 emails in a Webmail client (usually taking a 5-10 seconds to click the delete/trash button) typically takes anywhere from 45mins to an hour for me. I have to read many of the emails too so it doesn't take 5-10 seconds most of the time. Ah. I read my email with pine/alpine, which allows me to sort by subject then select successive emails by holding down a key on auto-repeat. Ditto, and I do it on a virtual console on framebuffer (160x64). If I want do delete lots of mail, I type xydd on another screen (ten or so Ds) then double-click so I can the return to PINE, alternatively licenced or not, and paste it and the have the screen scroll so I can see a few more. The subtle little differences can make a big difference to the usability I ndeed. The idea of webmail doesn't appeal to me at all. -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)
Re: ext3 file system on sdc rather than sdc1???
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 10:07:00AM +0900, John Summerfield wrote: > >>Everything seems to work as expected, except that the 750GB drive is > >>somehow getting mounted on the device, rather than on a partition: ... > ... > >>There IS a partition on the drive: > >>But my attempt to mount the drive on sdc1 results in: > >># mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /local3 > >>mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1, > >> missing codepage or helper program, or other error > >> In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try > >> dmesg | tail or so > >> > >>I don't really understand what's going on here or how the system got > >>into this peculiar configuration. Perhaps you understand the situation exactly: 1) the disk has a partition table 2) mkfs and mount was done on the "whole device" 3) mount of "whole device" works 4) mount of "partition" does not work (because mkfs was done on the whole disk). There is nothing especially wrong with using filesystems on "whole disk" devices and I would not go to great length to "fix" it. However, traditionally, hard disks are used with partitions and some tools and utilities may be confused by the "whole disk" layouts. But this is only a traditional convention, not a universal rule, for example /dev/md "software raid" devices are usually used without partitions. -- Konstantin Olchanski Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada
