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A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months: universal
support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...

1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk of
wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it. Most of the
user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by default. It should take
several prompts (where you have to agree) to do this. There are not enough
prompts around for this dangerous operation.

2. Flash drives only come in select sizes, making them easier to spot
-- 64, 128, 256, 1024, 2048 ... mb
-- To optimally install the OS to Flash, some logic will be needed to choose
the best sector sizes for FAT32 systems, and similar code could be reused
for NTFS.
-- Setting the Flash disk to bootable should be handled by the installer
program as well. Partition Commander etc ... should not be required.
-- Most CD-ROM and DVD-ROM "ISO" disk image programs on Windows, Mac need to
make this fix also -- but the "Unix-like" OSes need to make it first.

3. The "Unix-like" OS installers should support installing to USB, but with
an NTFS file system preferred over FAT32. Inode file systems and Flash
Memory have had historic interoperability problems -- and NASA and the ESA
have not transferred their solutions to the problem to the general public,
specifically the affected hardware and software producers. I assume the Mars
Rovers and Cassini use Inode file systems in their flash memory. DVD-ROM
file systems could be emulated on Flash based data recorders, but I don't
believe this is done.

4. Technical note: weather the Flash Memory card reader is mounted via USB /
Firewire, IDE(?), or whatever else is typical for a PC or workstation ... it
is very easy to spot on the [universal to most modern OSes] Device Tree --
thus very little new programming is required. Less than 100k (exec binary
code) per installer program, most of it related to user interface logic is
in need of change. PC and MAC ISO CD-ROM & DVD-ROM image writing programs
may need more or less than a 100k change in their binary sizes to accomplish
this change.

5. "ISO" is being used generically here, as there are about 5 kinds of disk
image formats in use. DMG is used for OSX for example. I am ignoring the
proprietary disk image formats.

MP / Power Broadcasting / HireMe.geek.nz

Max Power schreef:
> A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months:
> universal support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...
>
> 1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk of
> wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it. Most of
> the user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by default. It
> should take several prompts (where you have to agree) to do this. There
> are not enough prompts around for this dangerous operation.

You have a point.

But many (most) distributions already give the option to install to a
disk and partition of choice.

Your claim 'force wiping your HD by default' is in my view only
applicable to Microsoft products.

Having a multi-boot system with links to removable media has it's
challenges, it should not crash when the media is not present.

A lot of problems could be avoided by fool proof installers but even
more could be gained by newbies reading TFM.
I know some people will see that as the typical reason that has held
back Linux on the Desktop for so many years, yet the world does not need
an other OS that is wide open to all kinds of abuse.

Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
> Max Power schreef:
>> A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months:
>> universal support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...
>>
>> 1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk
>> of wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it. Most
>> of the user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by default. It
>> should take several prompts (where you have to agree) to do this.
>> There are not enough prompts around for this dangerous operation.
>
> You have a point.
>
> But many (most) distributions already give the option to install to a
> disk and partition of choice.
>
> Your claim 'force wiping your HD by default' is in my view only
> applicable to Microsoft products.

The available options could be more gracefully presented. Dealing with the
boot loaders, in particular is an interesting problem.

> Having a multi-boot system with links to removable media has it's
> challenges, it should not crash when the media is not present.

Oh, don't get me going. I just went through conniptions with an LVM based
external USB drive, that kept showing up as "inactive" at boot time and
screwing up RHEL booting.

> A lot of problems could be avoided by fool proof installers but even
> more could be gained by newbies reading TFM.
> I know some people will see that as the typical reason that has held
> back Linux on the Desktop for so many years, yet the world does not need
> an other OS that is wide open to all kinds of abuse.

Max Power wrote:
> A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months:
> universal support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...

Well, both Debian and FreeBSD can easily be installed onto a usb drive,
I have a FreeBSD system here on a usb drive, no hassle at all. This
facility has been available for some time, it is really just down to
what your pc will boot from.

>
> 1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk of
> wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it. Most of
> the user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by default. It
> should take several prompts (where you have to agree) to do this. There
> are not enough prompts around for this dangerous operation.

If you install Debian, you will get gparted (a fairly sophisticated
partition editor) which will offer to shrink your existing drive in the
way you wish.
Though I might add from my POV the elimination of a Vista drive can only
be a good thing. I have assisted a number of people to put debian onto
existing windows machines, the standard is to install grub, which
automatically detects the windows system and makes dual booting very simple.


>
> 2. Flash drives only come in select sizes, making them easier to spot
> -- 64, 128, 256, 1024, 2048 ... mb
> -- To optimally install the OS to Flash, some logic will be needed to
> choose the best sector sizes for FAT32 systems, and similar code could
> be reused for NTFS.
> -- Setting the Flash disk to bootable should be handled by the installer
> program as well. Partition Commander etc ... should not be required.
> -- Most CD-ROM and DVD-ROM "ISO" disk image programs on Windows, Mac
> need to make this fix also -- but the "Unix-like" OSes need to make it
> first.

You should have either a good google or a nose aroung the archives of
linux.debian.user for links as to how to install to a flash drive, a lot
of people are doing it these days.



--
Martin

Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
> Max Power schreef:
>> A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months:
>> universal support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...
>>
>> 1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk
>> of wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it. Most
>> of the user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by default. It
>> should take several prompts (where you have to agree) to do this.
>> There are not enough prompts around for this dangerous operation.
>
> You have a point.
>
> But many (most) distributions already give the option to install to a
> disk and partition of choice.
>
> Your claim 'force wiping your HD by default' is in my view only
> applicable to Microsoft products.
>
> Having a multi-boot system with links to removable media has it's
> challenges, it should not crash when the media is not present.
>
> A lot of problems could be avoided by fool proof installers but even
> more could be gained by newbies reading TFM.
> I know some people will see that as the typical reason that has held
> back Linux on the Desktop for so many years, yet the world does not need
> an other OS that is wide open to all kinds of abuse.

With the price of flash memory dropping so fast I'm surprised that MB
mfg's haven't already included a 4GB or 8GB flash-ram disk on the board.
(maybe they have already?) This ramdisk could hold the base OS and
additional drives could run OS's in VM's, or boot direct from the boot
menu in the base OS. The board makers could even include their OS of
choice, pre-configured and fine tuned for their own hardware. Just think
of the possibilities.(...voice in the distance> TIME FOR BREAKFAST!!
...sorry, I must have been dreaming again....)

User wrote:
> Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
>> Max Power schreef:
>>> A Unix / Linux / BSD fix I would like to see in the next 6 months:
>>> universal support for installing to USB drives (Live CDs / DVDs) ...
>>>
>>> 1. The preference for installing to USB should be paramount. The risk
>>> of wiping one's XP or Vista drive for most users is not worth it.
>>> Most of the user interfaces practically force wiping your HD by
>>> default. It should take several prompts (where you have to agree) to
>>> do this. There are not enough prompts around for this dangerous
>>> operation.
>>
>> You have a point.
>>
>> But many (most) distributions already give the option to install to a
>> disk and partition of choice.
>>
>> Your claim 'force wiping your HD by default' is in my view only
>> applicable to Microsoft products.
>>
>> Having a multi-boot system with links to removable media has it's
>> challenges, it should not crash when the media is not present.
>>
>> A lot of problems could be avoided by fool proof installers but even
>> more could be gained by newbies reading TFM.
>> I know some people will see that as the typical reason that has held
>> back Linux on the Desktop for so many years, yet the world does not
>> need an other OS that is wide open to all kinds of abuse.
>
> With the price of flash memory dropping so fast I'm surprised that MB
> mfg's haven't already included a 4GB or 8GB flash-ram disk on the board.
> (maybe they have already?) This ramdisk could hold the base OS and
> additional drives could run OS's in VM's, or boot direct from the boot
> menu in the base OS. The board makers could even include their OS of
> choice, pre-configured and fine tuned for their own hardware. Just think
> of the possibilities.(...voice in the distance> TIME FOR BREAKFAST!!
> ...sorry, I must have been dreaming again....)

They're not that cheap, and in a number of ways they're not that reliable.
There are a few high-end laptops that use it, and it's a big improvement on
start-up and shut-down times if you have a BIOS that also knows how to be quick.

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:

>
> They're not that cheap, and in a number of ways they're not that
> reliable. There are a few high-end laptops that use it, and it's a big
> improvement on start-up and shut-down times if you have a BIOS that also
> knows how to be quick.

This is kinda cheap:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820141349
If you are referring to the 1GB intel turbo-ram offered on high-end
laptops running vista this does not apply. I was babbling about
installing the OS on a 4GB or 8GB ramdisk. The above link demonstrates
that flash-mem prices are falling fast, so what is keeping the mb mfg's
from hard-wiring it into the board itself?

About turbo-ram, I have to disable it in the bios to get grub to not
hang and to work properly on a dual boot ubuntu install. The effect this
disabling had on vista boot times or performance was not noticeable to me.

User wrote:
> Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
>> They're not that cheap, and in a number of ways they're not that
>> reliable. There are a few high-end laptops that use it, and it's a big
>> improvement on start-up and shut-down times if you have a BIOS that
>> also knows how to be quick.

> This is kinda cheap:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820141349
> If you are referring to the 1GB intel turbo-ram offered on high-end
> laptops running vista this does not apply. I was babbling about
> installing the OS on a 4GB or 8GB ramdisk. The above link demonstrates
> that flash-mem prices are falling fast, so what is keeping the mb mfg's
> from hard-wiring it into the board itself?

Someone probably is but it hasn't fallen far enough to be in our price range.
But last I looked speed is lagging behind the price drop so you do not want it
on 2-3GHz MOBOs yet regardless of the price. Leave them to laptops where other
things are more important, in this case, power consumption.

--
Israel's national anthem is being changed to the theme from The Highlander.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3962
http://www.giwersworld.org/disinfo/occupied-2.phtml a6

Matt Giwer wrote:

> Someone probably is but it hasn't fallen far enough to be in our price
> range. But last I looked speed is lagging behind the price drop so you do
> not want it on 2-3GHz MOBOs yet regardless of the price. Leave them to
> laptops where other things are more important, in this case, power
> consumption.

I've got a little Asus EEE here, which came with a 4 Gb flash drive. With
very little work (though invalidating the warranty), I've added a further
44 Gb of flash, Bluetooth, and extra USB ports. The thing is now a /very/
useful portable tool, robust, reliable, and incredibly cheap!

C.

I was considering using an ASUS EEE PC for my distributed computing project.
-- http://hireme.geek.nz/dsn-at-home.html

But the unit's capabilities were such that I had to use a MiniPC instead.
Once I finally figured out how to get the MiniPC networking subsystem to
work (the Linux software part of it), the update left the unit incapable of
accessing the internet. I was only able to get networking via USB, something
totally contradictory to the way Unix typically works. Full Ethernet
interface interoperability is probably a pipedream for the Unbuntu branch of
Linux. USB networking is fine for my uses, but not what I expected to use.
My web router supports USB and Ethernet interface connections.

The MiniPC was pre-installed with Unbuntu 7.10 -- but Unbuntu 8.0 seems
riddled with similar functionality problems.

I need to get on the Linux Store (in Canada) and convince them to switch to
a stable Redhat or BSD variant (probably Fedora, it seems easy to use) -- if
I can get said Red hat variant installed via a Flash USB card.

http://www.thelinuxstore.ca/index.ph...tqj4jdbv013j91

Hardware detection and driver support for the MiniPC probably led the Linux
Store to install Unbuntu. However, I suspect that other more stable Linux
variants use the same [base] hardware drivers. The only thing I will
probably lose support for (with the new OS) is the audio subsystem. I
suspect that I will find a fix for that near the end of the project. The
MiniPC will be used as a server -- so audio support it does not really
matter. I suspect that all the USB interfaces, Ethernet NIC subsystems will
be detected an supported fully by other more stable Linux variants.

The main cause of all of these problems is that I am too poor to afford a
Mac to do the project -- and I wanted a quiet PC. My current 350 USD Compaq
is as loud as INXS (or from the classical realm, 'Hecla' [Jon Liefs]). Apple
may sell servers, but is not really interested in helping distributed
computing projects along at the project level.

Paying 800 USD for the cheapest Mac is beyond my means -- and I have the
extreme misfortune of living in the USA where the American National
Character is against helping the sciences -- unless it involves helping
people in the sciences who already come from money.

The nearest BOINC projects to me are : Rosetta @ Home.
Canada, where I am from has ZERO distributed computing projects native to
the country.
Australia, where I hope to continue the project: ditto.
NZ, ditto.

>> Someone probably is but it hasn't fallen far enough to be in our price
>> range. But last I looked speed is lagging behind the price drop so you do
>> not want it on 2-3GHz MOBOs yet regardless of the price. Leave them to
>> laptops where other things are more important, in this case, power
>> consumption.
>
> I've got a little Asus EEE here, which came with a 4 Gb flash drive. With
> very little work (though invalidating the warranty), I've added a further
> 44 Gb of flash, Bluetooth, and extra USB ports. The thing is now a /very/
> useful portable tool, robust, reliable, and incredibly cheap!