On Tue, Nov 29, 2005 at 03:20:59PM -0700, Mark wrote:
You mean, that the CD should only work as a bootstrap? For which purpose? In other words: Which advantages do you see in such a solution?
The purpose/advantage is to make portable USB hard drives and USB flash sticks even *more* portable - able to boot the systems lacking BIOS support.
Yes, I also searched a lot of hours for a solution. But there seems that there is no solution. I think that the limitation is still in the BIOS, no matter which tricks you try.
The CD should continue working as always (same old GRML), but with an added cheatcode to "pivot root" to an attached USB device. See for example http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Pivot_Root_Install
A lot of live-CDs are doing persistent home, compressed user desktop archives, etc. to imitate a real hard drive effect from CD-ROM. These tricks are great. But a USB hard drive is a real hard drive, so there's no need to imitate. The only remaining problem is how to boot from USB devices. Some machines can, some can't. But all can boot CDs. So, use the CD to help the USB boot for machines that need help.
This would be cool from a technical point of view. But I see no real world example where it would be helpful. USB sticks are used because they are small and you can carry them in your pocket. They are also useful for notebooks without CD-ROM. But when you have to use the CD for booting USB sticks, all advantages are gone. The only remaining advantage I see is that I can have my own customized OS on the stick. Is that your purpose?
greets Jimmy