Sugar Labs

Sugar on a Stick/Windows

< Sugar on a Stick

Introduction

This page is designed to help you to put your Sugar on a Stick image under Windows on a thumbdrive. If you have questions, trouble or feedback, please let us know on the SoaS talk page. If you can improve these instructions, please edit the page and do so!

Windows Instructions

The recommended process for creating a SoaS stick in Windows is to use the Fedora LiveUSB Creator, a cross-platform tool for easily installing live operating systems on to USB flash drives.

  1. Download and then extract the Windows executable for Fedora LiveUSB Creator. This creates a folder named liveusb-creator-version.
  2. Download Sugar on a Stick http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/releases/soas-strawberry.iso
  3. Insert your stick into a USB port.
  4. In File Manager's Properties dialog for your USB device, rename it to FEDORA.
  5. Navigate to the LiveUSB folder you extracted and double-click on the liveusb-creator.exe file to open the program.
  6. Browse to find the soas-strawberry.iso file that you downloaded in step 2.
  7. Set the Target Device to your USB device FEDORA.
  8. Move the slider to set some persistent storage. (Hint: Set it to maximum, then it will tell you how much space there is, and you can adjust it to your desired value. How much persistent storage space you set will depend on the size of the .iso and the storage capacity of your USB device. Persistent storage is needed to save your work in the Journal or to save changes to the system.) You may leave some of your device capacity unallocated if you want to use that space when not booting Sugar.
    Note: persistent storage will save Journal items between reboots—but not between Sugar system updates with the LiveUSB Creator (in its current version). Watch this page for instructions on making your Journal persist between system updates. (The Linux livecd-iso-to-disk script does provide this feature with the --home-size-mb option.)
  9. Click "Create Live USB". It will take a few minutes.
  10. When finished, be sure to properly eject the USB device using the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray. Failure to do this can render your stick unbootable.

What's next?

Please return to the Sugar on a Stick page for instructions how to boot from your USB key!

See Also

Unetbootin for an alternate method for Windows users.

Caroline's Repeatable Process for Creating Sticks

This is the process I (Caroline Meeks) use. Some of the things I do maybe superstition, but here is it.

Preparation:

  1. Download and install version 3.6.5 live usb creator for XP
  2. Download the iso snapshot you want to create - You only have to download it once.

For Each Stick

  1. Insert a 1 or 2 GB Stick
  2. Delete files so that you have 700 MiB or more of space available.
    (This step is not needed, but may help if other methods don't work) Format it using FAT. If it has anything on it it will be completely erased so you can reuse sticks.
    See olpc:How to Damage a FLASH Storage Device before formatting. The 'Stick' probably came with a FAT file system that the Fedora LiveUSB Creator will use. You can even leave some of your files on the drive. You may want to try using the native drive formatting to see if it works before reformatting the drive.
  3. Name the volume FEDORA (The File Manager's properties, General tab panel will let you rename a volume.)
  4. Open the live USB creator
  5. Click Browse and find your snapshot
  6. Move the slider for persistent storage but don't use absolutely everything on the stick. These days I use about 500 MB for a 1 GB Stick
  7. Burn the stick. It takes about 15 minutes or so for me
  8. Close the live USB creator
  9. Eject the stick
  10. Create a boot-helper CD that matches your snapshot (I use my mac for that, but I've never heard of problems so any way of creating a LiveCD should work)
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