Creating A Bootable USB - Can It Be Done?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I searched for and read several articles on creating a bootable USB. I didn’t find anything that matched my problem. I am a newbie so be very explicit and gentle with me please. I have downloaded the 64 bit version iso file for 12.3. I have tried to create a bootable USB (32G) 2 different ways. First I used Linux Live Creator in Win7. On startup it says it doesn’t recognize 12.3 and would use 12.x as a guide (or something like that). It goes through the whole creation process and, right at the end, shows the error “variable used without being declared”. Tried that both with a fat formatted and unpartitioned USB. Then I went to linux and tried Imagewriter. It allowed me to find the iso file but would not let me see the USB stick. That field insisted on being blank (it has a copy button beside it).
In the threads I did read, I found several references to something called dd. I am not afraid of the terminal, but would like more documentation than I saw in the threads. Any ideas how to create a bootable USB on a BIOS laptop?

JC

2

There is very good documentation right here. Please ask if you get stuck. https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick

3

Leave ‘dd’ for now it’s dangerous.

I’m more interested in what distro you were using with Imagewriter? Where you actually using a installed system or running Live?

4

Welcome to openSuSE.

This is what I did to prepare a bootable USB drive of the 12.3 64-bit DVD iso file. It was done on a machine running 12.1 32-bit. It is based on a posting by saultdon at https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/478272-after-following-all-instructions-i-still-cannot-create-bootable-usb-stick-12-2-dvd.html

That USB drive then did a correct installation.

Note that the procedure below will erase the usb drive completely so backup any files if needed.

Do everything below as root:

su -

1.) Find which device your USB is assigned to.

fdisk -l

I’ll say mine is /dev/sdx

2.) Create a new partition table and a new partition on the usb drive:

fdisk /dev/sdx

press ‘o’ on your keyboard, this makes the new partition table
press ‘n’ on your keyboard and just keep pressing to accept the defaults, this makes the new partition.
press ‘w’ to make the changes final and it will exit fdisk.

3.) Use SUSE Studio Imagewriter to write the iso file to USB drive

4.) Check to make sure it is bootable, it should be:

Disk /dev/sdx: 16.0 GB, 16049504256 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15306 cylinders, total 31346688 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44e5d832

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdx1   *****           0     9119743     4559872   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS

Look for the asterisk in the Boot column

When you boot from the USB drive, select the “Installation” option, but before you enter it, place this into the boot parameter box near the bottom of the window.

namescheme=by-label

Best regards,
Howard

5

If you are referring to SUSE imagewriter then you need udisks,udisks2 doesn’t gel well with imagewriter

6

The first thing under Linux is something about YaST. Apparently that is not on my machine and I have never heard of it. And I’ve been playing with Linux off and on for several years. A search in Synaptic Package Manager and Ubuntu Software Center did not find anything.

JC

7

I was using Imagewriter in Ubuntu 12-4 which is dual booting with Win7.

JC

8

It seems I have another problem. Apparently I need to actually be root to do some of this stuff. I am using Ubuntu 12.04 for almost a year now and apparently there has been a root account created but I, of course, don’t remember doing it, so I have no idea what the password is. Any idea? Or should I go to their forums?

9

On a default installation. (your passcode = root passcode)

10

In Windows 7, follow the procedure in https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick#Windows_Instructions , using the DVD iso file rather than the LiveCD file it mentions.

Ignore the information about isohybrid. 12.3 works without it.

After you boot the USB drive, type “namescheme=by-label” into the boot options for “Installation” and start the installation; you should go straight to the installer without a hitch.

On one machine using a USB flash drive installation, the step “Searching for Linux partitions” took something like 15 minutes to complete. Other machines were much faster. You may need to be very patient with the search step.

Regards,
Howard

11

you will encounter YaST only when you use openSUSE ,SLES , SLED and their derivatives. YaST is the official “handy man” for openSUSE.

12

On 2013-03-27 02:06, JerryC58 wrote:
> It seems I have another problem. Apparently I need to actually be root
> to do some of this stuff. I am using Ubuntu 12.04 for almost a year now
> and apparently there has been a root account created but I, of course,
> don’t remember doing it, so I have no idea what the password is. Any
> idea? Or should I go to their forums?

Ubuntu? You simply do “sudo whatever command” and it will ask for your
user password, that’s all.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

13

Neither “root passcode” nor “rootpasscode” work, but thanks for trying.

JC

14

I did use the iso file.

I think I forgot to mention that I intend to use this USB drive as a “live” tryout thing. There is no installation intended for some time. I hope that it will have some “retention” (may not be the correct word) so that I may make changes that don’t get lost.

JC

15

What i really meant was whatever passcode you entered when creating the default user on your system is the same as user’s passcode.

16

Note the bold text in the above quote.

JC

17

imagewriter for all platform available through https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick

18

While it is true that imagewriter is available for all platforms, it is also true that imagewriter does NOT work, at least for me, on either Win7 or Ubuntu. I now believe that if the developers of openSUSE want to spread their distribution to the masses, they will have to make it a whole lot easier to make a trial version on a USB stick. I guess I will have to try and make a live DVD, but what good will that do? Show me that it runs well slowly?

JC

19

Imagewriter works for me in Ubuntu

I have not encountered any trouble making bootable USB’s of openSUSE releases

I don’t believe the devs are at fault here

20

On 2013-03-27 17:06, JerryC58 wrote:
> vazhavandan;2541552 Wrote:
>> > imagewriter for all platform available through
>> > https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick
> While it is true that imagewriter is available for all platforms, it is
> also true that imagewriter does NOT work, at least for me, on either
> Win7 or Ubuntu

Why doesn’t it work, do you get errors?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)