Bootable DreamLinux 2.2 USB Pen Drive.

(A tutorial + list of suggestions I made on July 2007, for Dreamlinux 2.2 MMGL developpers)
 

Link to my profile on Dreamlinux forums (english version): viulian

I was motivated in creating this bootable device for two reasons. One is that DL’s 2.2 Grub does not recognize my J micron IDE chip set (thus cannot boot from CDROM) and second, DL worked flawless detecting my WIFI network, so I decided to keep it around. However, booting from a USB stick is much faster than a CDROM so.. a third advantage there.

Acknowledgments: I used this very nice tutorial from the guys at pendrivelinux.com: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/02/all-in-one-usb-dsl
Also, the logo.jpg file provided below belongs to Dreamlinux team ( I got it from the their site).
 

Prerequisites:

First make sure that your BIOS supports booting from USB stick. I have a 2 year old Toshiba L10 laptop which doesn’t want to boot from USB, even if it’s rather new hardware. So it’s best to make sure that it works before proceeding with the steps below.

a) USB Stick (minimum 1Gb).

b) DreamLinux ISO file ( I had this one: DL_2.2_070701MMGL_en.iso )

c) Syslinux: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Old/syslinux-3.36.zip

d) HP USB Format Tool: ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp27001-27500/SP27213.exe

e) These updated/needed files:

syslinux.cfg
vesamenu.c32
logo.jpg
miniroot.gz

Steps:

1) Install HP USB Format Tool and format your stick.

2) Use an utility such as WinRAR to open the big DreamLinux .iso file and extract the contents to the USB drive.

3) You then need to replace the boot/miniroot.gz file on the USB stick with the one I provided (to see why I needed to modify the miniroot.gz file, please check this thread: http://www.epron.com.br/ingles/viewtopic.php?t=1528

4) Copy the syslinux.cfg, logo.jpg and vesamenu.c32 to the root of the USB drive.

5) Unpack the syslinux-3.36.zip file somewhere and open a cmd.exe and change to the directory where you have unpacked it.

6) Issue the command: syslinux.exe -ma X: (where X: is the letter of your USB drive) to make it bootable.

You should now be able to reboot the system, update BIOS to boot from USB stick and enjoy 🙂

Having questions ?

If you encounter problems or other issues please use this thread on the english forum on dreamlinux site [includes some screenshots, as well as a description of the whole ‘debugging’ I had to do to come up with the solution]: http://www.epron.com.br/ingles/viewtopic.php?t=1528