Help with Live USB Stick?

Hey everyone,
I'm trying to write a live USB stick with OpenSUSE 11.4 but I can't get it to work.

I've been following this:
SDB:Live USB stick - openSUSE
And have only gotten as far as downloading the iso and the ImageWriter program. That's where the problem is. My next step is to write the iso to the USB stick. Never done this before. Does it simply mean copy the ISO to the USB?

Also, when I try using image writer it will only look for .raw files. My iso is obviously a .iso so how am I supposed to get it to find that?

 

Ehh nevermind... I just went to bestbuy and got a ton of DVD-R's so I'll just do a live CD.

 

Is Unetbookin available for your distro? it's the shizznet for this stuff.

 

Yes, UNetbootin (Universal Netboot Installer) is always the preferred alternative.

 

No don't do that. I ran a live cd for the longest time. It's really slow, and puts a lot of wear and tear on your optical drive.
If you're willing to try ubuntu, it has a "startup disk creator" that helps you to copy an iso to usb. Since I've been doing that I wont go back to optical. It's MUCH faster, quiet, and no wear and tear on your optical drive. I highly recommend it!

 

Ok, I think I'll try that again this week. I just need to find out how to get Mint 11 and openSUSE 11.4 kde to work on USBs.

 

I'd recommend getting a flash drive with a write-protect switch, that way it's just like a cd.
I use the 2GB Imation Clip and it works great.

 

Mint 11 works with Unetbootin, as I can personally attest.

 

I like this program it has a tutorial on the site: http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/home

 

that's the one i always use. works great.

 

Sweet! Thanks guys! Time to play with some OS's!

 

Turns out my computer doesn't have an option in the bios to boot form usb first so I actually can't do it that way... Luckily the LiLi program also has a virtual box option so I can still run my OS.

 

Even if there is no bios option, give it a try booting from the usb stick. I've heard some laptops will boot from it even if no option.

 

Ubuntu's start up disk creator is pretty damn slick these days.

Another helpful site:

Boot and run Linux from a USB flash memory stick | USB Pen Drive Linux

 

How do I boot form the USB without having that option?

 

Really? My MX6920 is 2005/2006 vintage and it had 3 (USB HDD, USB removable HDD, USB Stick) USB options...oh well. Have you updated the bios to the latest available for that computer as the manufacturer could have added that option in the later bios.
**EDIT--I find it puzzling that you can't boot from a USB as your ASUS UL-50VT came out in 2010. Are you sure you looking in the right place in bios?

 

Maybe not... How would you go about booting form a USB?

 

Well I tried to upgrade my bios and I have the latest version available. (12-27-2010 or something). No USB boot available. It does have a floppy drive option. Odd because there is no floppy drive on the laptop...
So nope, USB live stick is out of the question unless using virtualbox to "virtualize this drive" but that is having issues with mint 11 and opensuse kde 11.4. It just says it doesn't support that version of linux but it will do it's best and then when I try to run VB it won't load my gnomew 3 desktop (in mint only. Opensuse just doesn't work for some reason...)

 

You just plug in the flash drive, boot, and press your function key (f1,f2,etc..) to bring up the manual boot list. Usually laptops have 2 boot functions. one to enter the bios and a second to bring up a boot list selection. try that and see if the flash drive shows up there.

another option, more technical though, is to use a format utility (i cant remember the name of it) that tricks the computer into thinking its booting a cd instead of a flash drive.

when all else fails, i just burn the cd images onto a cdrw or use virtualbox to run the linux.

 

I have some DVD's that I burned and I have been running Mint 11 off of that. I dislike how slow it is and that I can't save my settings.
I tried a virtual box on a usb drive and the program I used to write it to the usb didn't support mint 11 or opensuse kde 11.4

I don't want to load virtualbox onto this laptop because I am selling it in a few days so if I can work a virtualbox off my usb that would be best.

 

Yes pressing the boot menu key (F2, F4, F8, F12 or something else - based on your laptop manufacturer) should bring up the boot menu and if you alreayd had the USB stick plugged in you should be able to get the USB device listed as one of the options.

I was adding extra RAM to a friend's nearly 6 yr old Compaq laptop and although it didnt have an option in the BIOS - the boot menu trick worked fine.

 

The 'delete' key is also another way to access any system's BIOS.