Boot from USB External Drive with Mint 6.0

[Harryc]

Here's the deal. I have a 320GB external hard drive with a nice fast USB 2.0 interface that sits on a shelf when I am not doing backups. I want to install Linux Mint 6.0 on a small section of it (use the rest for backups), and I want to just be able to plug the drive in, boot, hit F12, then boot into Mint. Even better would be that the Thinkpad just boots into Linux if the external drive is plugged in. Assume that I have XP or Vista installed on the internal hard drive and that I want to keep that MBR intact. Also I know about putting USB first in boot order, so we can skip that part. I want to be able to use this setup on the machines in my sig. I am looking for basic steps on how to get Mint installed in this scenario. Any help?

[archer6]

I'm going to defer to fellow Roadrunner GomJabbar on this one, as he's the master at this. Thanks to his help, I've got a Ubuntu install on a HDD in my ultrabay that I can remove and replace with my optical drive, or any other ultrbay device at a moments notice with no other changes required. It's a terrific setup.
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Cheers...
posted via BlackBerry Bold

[Harryc]

archer6, thanks. My problem is that given the varying architectures of my machines, I'd have to have (2) Ultrabay adapters/drives to do that ... and I want to just have the one Mint install that is persistent between machines as far as files/settings.

[K0LO]

Harry:

It's been a while since I looked at this but what you are describing should be possible. You would use partitioning software on your external USB disk to shrink the existing NTFS (I assume) partition to make room for some Mint partitions.

Ubuntu can be installed to a USB hard disk, and since Mint is Ubuntu based, I presume it can also. If so, run the installer and let it create the partitions for Mint. Make sure that it installs GRUB to the MBR of the external USB hard disk. To reduce the risk of accidentally installing GRUB to the MBR of your internal hard disk it is recommended that you remove it while you are running the MINT installer.

Booting from the external disk should then start GRUB, from which you can select MINT. Booting from the internal disk should work like it does now. Here is an article describing how to do this with Ubuntu.

*Edit* You may find that Xorg.conf needs to be different for your different ThinkPads if they have different video hardware, so you may need to come up with a clever workaround for this.

[Harryc]

Mark, thanks. A couple of the howto's for Ubuntu I found stated to;

3.Once the Ubuntu Live system is up and running, navigate to System-> Preferences-> Removable Drives and Media and uncheck the following options:
Mount removable drives when hot-plugged
Mount removable media when inserted
Browse removable media when inserted

Do you think this would be necessary as well?

[K0LO]

Harry:

Are you going to do a full-blown install of MINT, or are you going to run the Live USB version? Those instructions sound like they are for the Live version, or if you are going to install from a Live CD.

If possible, use the normal install CD. Ubuntu calls this the "Alternate Install" CD. It is text-based and gives you more control over the install process. I don't know if MINT has something similar.

[Harryc]

Hmm...Ok Mint has (3) Editions, Main, X64, and Universal. To the best of my knowledge they are all Live CD's, from which you can also do a full install of Mint. I have the main version burned to a CD and have done a full install of Mint from it on numerous occasions. I don't beleive Mint has an alternate install image like Ubuntu does. The Main version does have manual partitioning control, and it will let you put GRUB where you want to put it. The instructions I mentioned above were from a full Ubuntu/USB install howto at Pendrivelinux;
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/installing ... ard-drive/

[K0LO]

OK - then the Main version sounds correct since it does let you have control over partitioning, GRUB installation, etc.

Those cautionary notes are for changing the settings of the Live CD version after it is up and running. Apparently they are meant to prevent the system from trying to automount and display the contents of removable drives (like your external USB disk) while you are trying to run the installer. If MINT Live has similar settings then it's probably a good idea to turn them off.

Even if you can't it probably won't matter. You may occasionally get a file browser window popping open to display the contents of your external disk. If so, just close the window. I've had this occur with Ubuntu when I did not change the settings and it didn't hurt anything; it's just a slight annoyance.

[Harryc]

Thanks....installing now.

[Harryc]

Am getting a GRUB error 22 on boot. I do get a GRUB boot screen, then I select Mint to boot, then boom...error 22. Here is my menu.lst entry for Mint -

root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=/dev/sdb3 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrds.img-2.6.27-7-generic


As far as I know I formatted /sdb2 as swap, /sdb3 as /, and /sdb4 as /home

[Harryc]

I had to change (hd1,2) to (hd0,2) in GRUB...don't ask me why it worked.

[K0LO]

Harry:

Try (hd0,2)

When you boot from the USB disk then it should be enumerated as disk 0 by the BIOS. Your other references may need to be sda instead of sdb...

[Harryc]

Thanks. So, It works as planned on the first machine I tried (T43P). I'll try it on the others and post back with results. Mark I saw your comment earlier about xorg. 3 out of 4 machines are running an ATI chipset, so the generic Radeon drivers should be fine. The other (X61s) is an Intel Chipset. I'll have to think about an xorg.conf switching scheme for that one....

[K0LO]

Linux is pretty good about detecting hardware on the fly. As an example, I recently upgraded from an X41T to an X61T. I simply copied an image of the Linux partitions from the old machine and restored them to the new machine. Everything worked except on first boot there was a fatal xorg error, which recovered automatically. Upon examining the contents of /etc/X11/ I noticed that the system had regenerated a new xorg.conf file for the new machine. All of the rest of the hardware was working correctly.

If your xorg files differ between machines you may need to figure out which machine is in use early in the boot process and then substitute the correct xorg.conf file for the machine before X starts. I haven't tried to do this but in theory it sounds possible.

[archer6]

Linux is pretty good about detecting hardware on the fly. As an example, I recently upgraded from an X41T to an X61T. I simply copied an image of the Linux partitions from the old machine and restored them to the new machine. Everything worked except on first boot there was a fatal xorg error, which recovered automatically. Upon examining the contents of /etc/X11/ I noticed that the system had regenerated a new xorg.conf file for the new machine. All of the rest of the hardware was working correctly.

If your xorg files differ between machines you may need to figure out which machine is in use early in the boot process and then substitute the correct xorg.conf file for the machine before X starts. I haven't tried to do this but in theory it sounds possible.

Your comment about Linux detecting hardware on the fly is so true. In fact after trying several different distros prior to Ubuntu, I noticed that Ubuntu seems to be the best and fastest with this. I'm not sure why. When I copied my image of Linux across from my X40 to my X60s, I had the exact same experience that you did with xorg.conf, the interesting part is the speed at which the machine recovered. I'm a bit impatient at times and was just about to take an action, when I looked away for a moment only to find when I looked back that it had already recovered. In addition, to the best of my knowledge based on experience, your suggestion of substituting the correct xorg.conf file _before_ the machine boots works just fine.

Cheers...

[Harryc]

Well, it's funny you should mention this. As I said the external Mint install booted fine on the T43P, and when I attached it to a T400 is also booted fine, but at the wrong resolution. So I changed the resolution and restarted X. Then I got just a white screen. So I ran 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and I still boot into a white screen. I have no clue how to fix this.

[archer6]

Well, it's funny you should mention this. As I said the external Mint install booted fine on the T43P, and when I attached it to a T400 is also booted fine, but at the wrong resolution. So I changed the resolution and restarted X. Then I got just a white screen. So I ran 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and I still boot into a white screen. I have no clue how to fix this.

I have not used Mint, do you have a live CD? If so, boot from it, and during that process press F4. See if that takes you to a safe graphics mode, and allows you to run the OS. If so, then we know it's a driver issue. Unfortunately I'm going into a long meeting so I will not be able to respond until later. Good Luck.

Cheers...

[K0LO]

Harry:

The comments in xorg.conf suggest the following command:

Code: Select all

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

[Harryc]

Thanks for the reply, 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg' did not work. I can tell that an unacceptable resolution is still selected somewhere, but I can't get to the setting.

[Harryc]

I got it to work on the T400 by switching resolutions while connected to the T43P, then reconnecting to the T400.