Making Opensuse 11.0 Live Usb From Windows

Introduction:

It is possible to make a live USB stick for opensuse 11.0 (tested with RC1) from windows.

Prerequisites:

1) A system that is capable of booting via USB drive
2) USB disk, 1gb or more to contain live cd images. Format as win95
3) Download latest live cd image from opensuse -http://software.opensuse.org/developer
4) syslinux.exe to make bootable USB -http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux
5) NLS modules (codepage and characterset) for fat32 filesystem on USB - tricky one as opensuse live CD did not have this on the boot CD image, as they dont need this to mount CDROM filesystem. Even worst, RC1 do not have fat/vfat modules !. - Try use the initrdud file i created (step 3).

Procedure:

Step 1) Get the USB disk bootable via syslinux. I downloaded syslinux latest version, 3.63. The command to make this drive bootable is, on the dos prompt, go the directory where you extracted the syslinux contents, and run the syslinux.exe under win32 directory with the drive letter of the USB under windows
eg: csyslinux-3.63\win32\syslinux.exe -ma e:

Step 2) Copy the opensuse live CD image contents to the USB drive. First, the ISO file of opensuse live CD image like openSUSE-11.0-Beta2-KDE4-LiveCD-i386.iso need to be extracted on the windows. Free utility 7-zip can extract the ISO image. Drag and drop the entire CD contents to the USB drive (eg: to e. (Note: We actullay need only 3 files, boot\i386\loader\linux, config.isoclient and openSUSE-11.0-read-only.i686-2.6.0 on the root, but safe to copy rest also)

Step 3) Get the initrdud (initrd Usb Drive) file from this ftp site - ftp.emc.com/incoming/suse . [ Can some one please copy this file to some well known free ftp servers and let me know?. - Here it will get deleted every week automatically ]

Step 4) We done all the home work, ready for action now.

Step 5) Insert the flash drive and boot your PC or laptop and press keys like F12 to go to boot menu. Choose USB flash drive and enter. It should try boot and fail as no syslinux.cfg config is created (you could put them on syslinux.cfg too to make just like cdrom).

/linux initrd=/initrdud kiwidebug=1 ramdisk_size=512000 ramdisk_blocksize=4096

That is all. It should boot. Since we enabled kiwidebug=1, if for any reason it fails, you can try to find out what is the reason. This is bit shorten post, followup from more detailed instuctions made for previous releases on this other post -http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=49726

I customized initrd to load USB instead of CD on this one.

Notes:

The live cd image can be modified to include NLS modules, adding routine to detect and mount the read-only-system via USB on the init scripts. I didnt contact opensuse as i dont know how. Again it is not such critical to bother them, i think.

If you want to make live USB disk from Linux, it is much easier. same procedure but no need to get the initrdv1 as initrd is enough. You can make ext3 filesystem on flash drive. install grub to boot (grub-install), and just do the "modprobe usb-stoage" followed by above mounts to get it working

Not sure, why i am not able to insert html link - may be permission issue !?

OK, this version was better. I had to type the /linux initrd=/initrdud ... command since the syslinux.cfg didn't work.

I load linux and initrdud, and get to the "Loading KIWI USB Boot-System" but it says:
Waiting for USB devices(s) to appear................
Failed to detect USB drive !
And I can't type anything at the resulting prompt ((none):/#).

Any ideas?

My bad. I was trying 11.0 beta 3 instead of RC1. When I switch back to RC1 it works. Interesting.

Introduction:

It is possible to make a live USB stick for opensuse 11.0 (tested with RC1) from windows.

Prerequisites:

1) A system that is capable of booting via USB drive
2) USB disk, 1gb or more to contain live cd images. Format as win95
3) Download latest live cd image from opensuse -http://software.opensuse.org/developer
4) syslinux.exe to make bootable USB -http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux
5) NLS modules (codepage and characterset) for fat32 filesystem on USB - tricky one as opensuse live CD did not have this on the boot CD image, as they dont need this to mount CDROM filesystem. Even worst, RC1 do not have fat/vfat modules !. - Try use the initrdud file i created (step 3).[/b]

Hi Manivas,

Many thanks for great tutorial. I've write a blog posthttp://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/05/31/making-opensuse-110-liveusb-the-easiest-and-fastest-way/ based on your tutorial.

It's awesome !

Manivas:

Does the initrdud have some scripts that can boot suse rc1 in fat filesystem usb disk automatically,

and if so, can i use it to boot rc1 from windows fat32 partition (via grub4dos) automatically? Later i will test it.


Meantime can you show us more details about the initrdud?

include NLS modules, adding routine to detect and mount the read-only-system via USB on the init scripts[/b]

http://www.fs2you.com/en/files/30f21...-0014221f4662/
I upload initrdub to this link, the more person download from here, the more healthy it will be.


BTW: I cannt insert url link too, bbs bug or something else?

Hi Manivas,

Many thanks for great tutorial. I've write a blog posthttp://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/05/31/making-opensuse-110-liveusb-the-easiest-and-fastest-way/ based on your tutorial.

It's awesome !
[/b]

Thats cool :-). Can you update the initrdud download link to the one provided by bartonexdu ?.

Manivas:

Does the initrdud have some scripts that can boot suse rc1 in fat filesystem usb disk automatically,

and if so, can i use it to boot rc1 from windows fat32 partition (via grub4dos) automatically? Later i will test it.
Meantime can you show us more details about the initrdud?
http://www.fs2you.com/en/files/30f21a99-2f...3-0014221f4662/
I upload initrdub to this link, the more person download from here, the more healthy it will be.
BTW: I cannt insert url link too, bbs bug or something else?
[/b]

Hi, thanks for uploading the file.

I am not understanding your question. The current script is already for win32 (vfat).

this file is same initrd - just added the following:

1) fs modules for fat, vfat, nls code pages, aufs
2) Modified the kiwi boot scripts to use USB instead of CD.

I am not understanding your question. The current script is already for win32 (vfat).

this file is same initrd - just added the following:

1) fs modules for fat, vfat, nls code pages, aufs
2) Modified the kiwi boot scripts to use USB instead of CD.[/b]

Sorry for my poor english

My purpose is that i want to boot opensuse from fat32 windows partition, enter livecd desktop environment to install opensuse. Burn image to cd is unnecessary yet. Following your tutorial, i succeed booting beta3.

When use initrdud to boot rc1, it prompt that "waiting for pluging usb device ...". I dont want to boot from usb disk . High speed usb disk can boot it quickly, booting the livecd image from harddisk is also quick. :lol: But for low or full speed usb disk it will take a long time to boot to livecd desktop environment.
For now i only want to use shell environment to input some commands just like what i did to boot beta3. Till in shell env, type some command (insmod modprobe ), it give me some error warnings !


But that is ok, i have installed beta3 to my harddisk, and i am dist-upgrading........ The speed is terrible. My location is china, it is too far away from repository server.



Best regards

Barton