Tutorials/Installation/How to make a SoaS.img file for repeated installs to 4 GB USB's

How to make a SoaS.img file for repeated installs to 4 GB USB's

updated 01/19/;2013

• These are full installs of Sugar-Desktop

This is a workaround for the fact that f18 SoaS live.iso's do not install to USB or HD with "liveinst"

This procedure yields fully installed ext4 filesystem on / (root) of the USB

write dd 4 GB USB with netinstall

Download

 http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/18/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-18-x86_64-netinst.iso

Write netinstall USB

 dd if=Fedora-18-x86_64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=2M

Boot netinstall USB

• look at this tutorial for installer information and guide:

   http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Tutorials/Installation/Install_using_Anaconda_f18_RC1_DVDx86_64

Wait for Download and error checking of default software to finish

Installation Destination

  select 2nd 4 GB USB (not the one you booted from)
  [continue]
  Select the Partitioning type first
  Partition scheme: Standard Partition
  [+]"I don't not need help: Let me customize disk partitioning"  
  add partition: / 3.6 GB
  [Reclaim space]

Software selection

select sugar-desktop from left list (scroll down if necessary)

[Back]

Finish install as shown in tutorial

Make a USB .img file of USB prior to running it

(firstboot will not have been run)

dd if=/dev/sdc of=Soas_8.img bs=2M
[root@localhost Desktop]# dd if=/dev/sdc of=Soas_8.img bs=2M
1912+0 records in
1912+0 records out
4009754624 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 207.237 s, 19.3 MB/s
[root@localhost Desktop]# 

Download a Soas_8.img file

For a 4 GB USB

http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/Soas_8.img 3.7G

• Full netinstall of Sugar-desktop to a ext4 / on 4 Gb USB

Download a Soas_8_litd.img file

For a 2 GB USB

http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/Soas_8_litd.img   1.9G 

• Built with livecd-iso-to-disk

persistence - overlay 500 mb /home 500 mb

This will not be as rugged as the above 4 GB .img and will fill up eventually

• Persistence tested after download and dd write to another USB 01/20/2013 tg

Write to new USB

This command can be repeated for multiple USB's

• In root terminal:

dd if=Soas_8.img of=/dev/sd(x)* bs=2M

or

dd if=Soas_8_litd.img of=/dev/sd(x)* bs=2M 

of=/dev/sd(x)* = find USB device name with "mount" command

Examples

• Successful copy

[root@localhost Desktop]# dd if=Soas_8.img of=/dev/sdc bs=2M  
1912+0 records in
1912+0 records out
4009754624 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 587.133 s, 6.8 MB/s
[root@localhost Desktop]#

Repeat this command for each new SoaS USB

• NOTE: You can use gparted to shrink the ext4 partition on the USB

yum install gparted

This will allow use of smaller 4 GB USB's

• Case of using a smaller 4 GB USB Successful in spite of error message

This seems to be true in tests on smaller 4 GB USB's

dd: writing ‘/dev/sdc’: No space left on device
1851+0 records in
1850+0 records out
3880452096 bytes (3.9 GB) copied, 676.209 s, 5.7 MB/s
[root@localhost Desktop]#