[Debian-eeepc-devel] Installing on SD card or USB stick

[Robert Epprecht]

Here is a very short recipee how to install on an SD card or an USB stick.
There will be a more elaborated version later...

Use at your own risk!

1)  Put the stick with the installer in the USB port on the left side.
2)  Press <esc> while booting and select the stick to boot from.
3)  Put the SD card or the stick.
    If you want to install on a stick, put it in the second USB port
    on the right side, the one that is closer to the display.
4)  Start installation until partitioning.
    Select manual partitioning.
5)  Spot the device you want to install to:
    The internal card reader is easy to find, the stick might show a brand
    label, size or something you can tell which stick is which one.
    If you have no clue, then assume the installer is on /dev/sdb1
    and the target stick on /dev/sdc1, if you did put it in the USB ports
    I told you.
    Write the device down. It's very likely to be /dev/sdc1.
6)  On a pristine stick or card you will see one fat partition, delete it.
7)  Select the free space and make a new (primary) partition.
8)  Default ext3 is fine. Select mount option noatime.
9)  I would set a volume label like eeeSDcard or eeeStick.
10) Set the bootable flag, select 'Done setting up partition' and
    'Finish partitioning and write changes to disk'.
11) The installer thinks you should have a swap partition, but you can
    continue without. (There will be more warnings about missing swap).
12) Continue install until it wants to write the GRUB bootloader.
    Do *not* install it in the mbr.
13) Install GRUB to the device (without partition number) you wrote down
    in step 5.  Probably it will be /dev/sdc (*NOT* /dev/sdc1).
    You can double check this by switching to vt2 and check the output
    of mount. It's the one where /target is mounted (without partition number)
    BTW: you install GRUB on a device like /dev/sdc but this will show up
         as /dev/sdb when the system get's booted. Don't get confused,
         it *is* confusing ;-)
14) Continue until the installer wants to reboot, but don't do that yet.
15) You have to change two files, either now or you can shut down and
    mount stick or card on another computer and do it there. I assume
    you want to do it now when the installer is still running:

    * change to vt2 by pressing <CTL> <ALT> <F2> and then <RETURN>.

    * edit /etc/fstab which will show here as /target/etc/fstab
      cp /target/etc/fstab /target/etc/fstab.INSTALLER
      nano /target/etc/fstab
         change the device from which / is mounted from /dev/sdc1 to /dev/sdb1
         (it might be /dev/sdb1 already). Save and exit        ^            ^

    * edit /target/boot/grub/menu.list
      cp /target/boot/grub/menu.list.INSTALLER
      nano /target/boot/grub/menu.list
      scroll down all the lines that are commented out until you see
      ## ## End Default Options ##
      after that you will see something like

      root            (hd1,0)
      change that to       
      root            (hd0,0)
                         ^
      and
      kernel          /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdc1 ro quiet
      change to
      kernel          /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet
                                                ^
      do the same to the next entries for your new installed system

      Further down you'll find entries for the system on the internal flash
      Change every (hd0,0) to (hd1,0) there, the device (if given) should
      be a partition on /dev/sda and will probably be right already.

16)   Now change back to vt1 by <CTR> <ALT> <F1> and let the installer reboot.

17)   Now you can boot by pressing <esc> after power on, or if you boot
      from SD card you can change hd priority in the bios, and boot directly
      from the card.

18)   While in your USB booted system NEVER EVER DO SUSPEND (by closing the
      lid or Fn+F1 or something) or you will corrupt your filesystem.
      Do shutdown instead. More on that later...
      After installing new kernels you will have to redo step 15


I hope that information is right, but cannot garantee anything. Hope I did
not forget anything... I will write a more elaborate version for the wiki
very soon. Please *do* let me know if something does not work.

Robert Epprecht