[syslinux] Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server on a USB Flash Drive

[Timothy Way]

Peter,

Thank you for the reply. I'm still going to tinker with this but I ended up
finding out that my problem revolved around my machine was ancient and was
booting as USB-FDD not USB-HDD. Using just 1 partition and GRUB running the
normal Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS install I was able to get it all up and
running without anymore issues.

I'd like to eventually learn how to support some of these older BIOS modes
(USB-FDD and USB-ZIP) so I could create a more universal bootable flash
drive but my immediate need is now resolved.

Thank you,

Tim

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 4:21 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:

> On 07/26/2011 10:30 AM, Timothy Way wrote:
> > I'm trying to get Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server to install and run (boot) on a
> USB
> > Flash Drive.
> >
> > The actual install process works without a problem and will complete
> without
> > an error. It by default wants to install grub and place it on the MBR.
> Doing
> > this completes the installation but my BIOS will not boot the USB disk.
> My
> > partition table at this point looks like:
> >
> > /dev/sda1 - 8 GB - EXT4 (Ubuntu)
> >
> > I'm hoping to use Syslinux and install GRUB to the partition instead of
> the
> > MBR. I'm thinking one of you can tell me if that will work or if there
> would
> > be a better way to do this. I'm envisioning my partition table would look
> > like this:
> >
>
> Why not simply use Syslinux as the boot loader to run Ubuntu?
>
> > /dev/sda1 - 512 MB - FAT (Syslinux)
> > /dev/sda2 - 7.5 GB - EXT4 (Ubuntu)
> >
> > They why is generated mostly around the fact I have USB drives coming out
> of
> > everywhere and I lack spare hard drives. The end usage of this particular
> > machine will be a simple firewall. The idea came from VMWare running ESXi
> on
> > SD cards in servers as of late instead of using more expensive local
> disks
> > for the operating system or PXE boot.
> >
>
> That should work, if you really need to go via Grub.
>
>        -hpa
>
>