Installing Damn Small Linux to a USB Flash Drive from your Linux Desktop
Here the steps for doing that:
Minimum size for USB Drive: 128MB.
Save all of your data on your USB to another storage medium, such as a CD/DVD or hard drive.
- Begin by determining the location of your flash drive. It will be something like /dev/sda
fdisk -l
- Check your syslinux version and upgrade it if you want FAT32 support. (Syslinux 2.11 works for FAT16; Syslinux 3.35 works for FAT32). Compile & install the latest syslinux from here.
- If you need to wipe the MBR on the Flash Disk, do it with a command like below. This shouldn't be necessary unless there's another funky bootloader in the MBR (like, if you were experimenting with another bootable USB linux distro).
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512 count=1
( BE *VERY* CAREFUL NOT TO WIPE YOUR HARD DRIVE'S MBR HERE!!!)
Download ms-sys then install and put another MBR in its place:
ms-sys -s /dev/sdX
Another way to put MBR in its place is using 'mbr.bin' 512 bytes file from the Syslinux package:
locate mbr.bin
cat /somepath/share/syslinux/mbr.bin > /dev/sdX
- Run fdisk on /dev/sdX, so it looks like this:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdX1 * 1 1021 253177 b W95 FAT32
Use d to delete existing partitions until none remain.
Use n,p,1 to create a new primary partition. Use a to make it bootable.
Use t,b to make it W95 FAT32. Don't forget to hit a to make it bootable!
Use w to save the changes and exit
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdX1 ("-F 32" will do FAT32; "-F 16" will do FAT16) - Mount the pendrive & unzip the dsl-embedded.zip file onto this.
- Unmount the pendrive
- Type syslinux -s /dev/sdX1 to make it bootable.
- You can now boot via QEMU (from within Linux or windows), OR as native from the USB drive.
- You can also run DSL from a GRUB bootloader menu on your USB key. This is very useful if you're using DSL as part of a data/system rescue toolkit, as you can include multiple preset configurations of DSL as well as other utilities.
Note: syslinux needs the package "mcopy" included in the package "mtools".
Note: Unfortunately, this method does NOT give a 50MB Linux Distribution because qemu dir
and method is (comparatively) big. You will end up with a 110MB distribution.
Note: The iocharset=utf8 option when mounting the USB stick may result in
the "KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX" not being found upon booting.
Method I: Using GRUB as boot loader Note: This method has been reported not to work under certain conditions
- Download the current.iso dsl-cd image.
- Create an ext2 partition (=> 51MB) on pendrive. Mount it.
mke2fs -v -L "DSL" /dev/
mkdir -p /tmp/pendrive
mount /dev/ /tmp/pendrive/
where is the corresponding file which represents your USB storage device/partition.
Note: ext3 is ok too.
- Change to the directory where you mounted the ext2 partition, install GRUB boot loader:
cd /tmp/pendrive/
grub-install --no-floppy --root-directory=. /dev/
Note: Replace with the corresponding file which represents your USB storage device/partition.
Note 2: This method did not work for me, I used the manual method of running grub and
entered "root (hd1,1)" and "setup (hd1)" (your paths will probably vary).
- Copy the contents of the cd image to the usb drive.
mkdir /tmp/dsl-cd
mount [/path_to/]current.iso /tmp/dsl-cd/ -o loop
cp -vR /tmp/dsl-cd/* /tmp/pendrive/
- While in the same directory - where you mounted the ext2 filesystem - create a menu.lst file for grub in the directory ./boot/grub/menu.lst
cat > /tmp/pendrive/boot/grub/menu.lst << root="/dev/sda1" lang="us"> Note: You might have to change (hd0,0) to the correct partition for your USB drive. However,
the default should work on most systems.
- Unmount the filesystem.
- You can now boot from your USB storage device
Method II: Using GRUB as boot loader Someone found the above process doesn't work and has documented for others
this working process
The Situation:
- Running SLED 10 (Suse)
- The USB key is a 1GB and appears as /dev/sda
- Logged in as root
- The DSL ISO is downloaded to /root/Desktop/dsl-3.3.iso
- Two partitions, the first to use as general USB storage, the second for DSL
- The DSL partition wanted to be ext3 so that Windows doesn't mess it up
- The first partition needs to be the big storage one as Windows doesn't
like addressing the second partition on flash drives
Here is the procedure:
- fdisk /dev/sda
- d - Delete all partitions on the key
- n - Make a partition
- p - Primary partition for general storage
- 1 - First partition
- 1 - From the first block
- 948 - Most of the space, about 933MB
- n - Make a partition
- p - Primary partition for DSL
- 2 - Second partition
- 949 - Start from the next available sector
- 1012 - To the end of the disk. I give it 64MB
- a - Make the partition bootable
- 2 - Mark the DSL partition bootable
- t - Change the partition type
- 1 - Change partition 1
- b - Change it to Win95 FAT32
- w - Write the changes
- fdisk -l - Gives the following output:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 948 954131+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 * 949 1012 64416 83 Linux
Your flash drive should now look like this
- mkdir /mnt/iso
- mkdir /mnt/usb
- mount -o loop /root/Desktop/dsl-3.3.iso /mnt/iso
- mke2fs /dev/sda2
Note: If you want to have an ext3 filesystem, add the -j flag: mke2fs -j /dev/sda2
- mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/usb/
- cd /mnt/iso
- tar cvf - . | (cd /mnt/usb; tar xvf - )
- mkdir /mnt/usb/boot/grub
- cp /boot/grub/*stage* /mnt/usb/boot/grub/
- cat > /mnt/usb/boot/grub/menu.lst
title Damn Small Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/sda1 ro lang=us toram noeject frugal
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
boot
- cd /mnt/usb/
- grub-install --no-floppy --root-directory=. /dev/sda
- cd /root
- umount /mnt/usb
- umount /mnt/iso
- rm -r /mnt/iso
- rm -r /mnt/usb
Done! Your DamnSmallLinux on USB is ready. Reboot and try it!!
, is a minimal Linux livecd that is bootable and can be installed. It comes with a very basic GNOME desktop
without additional applications. It is designed for advanced users or for users who wish to learn how to customize their system with the applications and support files they want to use. 
(requires network connection). Add your own background, window decorations, web browser client, email client, music client and fully trick out your desktop the way you want it.
