Hi Hank, On 01/14/11 18:25, Hank Barta wrote:
I could also use 'debirf' as suggested by Iordan Iordanov, but I prefer to retain the full (disk based) environment with ease of installing and updating S/W. I haven't studied debirf but I suspect I would have to create and install a new image any time I want to update or install new packages.
Just to help clarify the debirf possibility. Debirf is Debian inside initrd, so yes, in order to make a change persistent, one would have to copy a new initrd over to the USB stick. However, since Debian is fully functional, running in a RAM disk, one is also able to install and update software on the fly using apt/aptitude. It's just that changes made to the ramdisk do not make it automatically into the initrd on the USB stick. You have to run one make command and copy the new image to the stick yourself. You can easily cron the building of the image, mounting of the USB stick, copying over, and unmounting once a day or week to keep the image up-to-date.
Also, all of this may be possible with Ubuntu, I just haven't had to do the research.
If you don't do debirf, don't forget to NOT put swap on the stick, and I would also make a ramdisk for /var/log and copy the logs to the stick upon shutdown (to prevent unnecessary flash wear as logs are gradually incremented).
Cheers and good luck! Iordan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
