The Warden

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usb-creator + Linux Mint = awesomeness

with 2 comments


Most of you Xubuntu users have probably seen this post mentioning how easy it is to install Ubuntu (or, in this specific case, Xubuntu) on a USB drive with Ubuntu Intrepid’s newest tool, usb-creator. Ubuntu has it preinstalled, but any Debian-based system can run it with the package in the Intrepid repositories.

I’d been wanting to try Linux Mint out for a really long time, since I had heard from everyone (*cough* jeremythegeek *cough*) that the pre-installed drivers were awesome. Who knows, thought I, maybe it will even be able to use my Creative Webcam Live Pro that STILL can’t get detected by Ubuntu (even with the new gspca preinstallation and the upgrades to the kernel in 2.6.26).

So when I heard that usb-creator would make persistent drives, I thought it would be a great time to try out Linux Mint. By CD-RWs are really lame, and most of them don’t… uh… work. I was thrilled to discover usb-creator actually did detect Linux Mint, since I was a little worried it would only detect standard *buntus (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu). It even had an option for persistence, though, as I soon found out, it was useless with Mint.

After formatting the disk, I booted it with my spare Dimension 4600. It worked like a charm. First of all, it booted faster than Ubuntu did. And Ubuntu was installed to the hard drive, which (supposedly) is faster than a USB 2.0 flash drive. I was also very impressed with the look and feel of Linux Mint. It didn’t, unfortunately, pick up my webcam, even after modprobing gspca. It also didn’t save any of my settings persistently, which was a little annoying (Xubuntu did this easily). Still, for showing off Linux Mint to other people, it’s awesome. And hey, USB drives are a dime a dozen these days. I think I can sacrifice this one for the cause.

Written by Andrew Min

November 9th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Posted in Blurbs

Tagged with , , ,

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2 Responses to 'usb-creator + Linux Mint = awesomeness'

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  1. It’s quite impressive if it really booted faster, as booting from USB also means first uncompressing the image, loading it into RAM and then booting from it.

    As for the persistence, have you edited the syslinux/text.cfg file? You could use the example for Xubuntu in my post to modify it for Linux Mint – I could probably also modify it for you if you’re not sure how to (just drop me a mail ;-) .

    Vincent

    9 Nov 08 at 5:22 pm

  2. Vincent, there is no reason to load the whole image into RAM in order to mount it…

    And while a DVD may be faster regarding raw transfer speeds, a USB flash drive has lower access (seeking) time.

    (Too late a reply, I know!)

    pfff

    4 Apr 09 at 11:45 am

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