Installing Ubuntu 8.10 to USB Flash Drive

Since Ubuntu 8.10 is out, I decided to install it to a USB instead of burning a CD. After all, most computers I work with boot from USB. The new Ubuntu 8.10 is supposed to make this easy and does feature a tutorial online here.

Once Unetbootin gets going, it takes off by itself.


I'm using a 1gig flash drive to put Ubuntu8.10 live on. Some people are selling this but it's so easy to do using Unetbootin on Windows, it's a waste unless you just want a $15 Kingston drive (you can get them for $5 from NewEgg, so think twice about it!) like the one shown below.

Time to reboot...will report back and let you know how it went.
Ok, that worked great. However, I wanted to install Ubuntu to USB Flash drive so that I could run Ubuntu from Flash and save my settings, essentially carrying it around with me and running it on whatever machine i wanted to.

The method described above results in a "non-persistent" installation (here's another tutorial on how to do that); what I want is a "persistent" install. Several places on the Web offer instructions to accomplish that:

• Ubuntu 8.10 Install using the built in USB Installer (Persistent)
• Persistent Install of Ubuntu 8.10 to USB

Although persistent install of Ubuntu 8.10 to USB tutorials above were great, they didn't work in my particular situation. Only the tutorial below worked fine, however, Ubuntu tends to freeze when doing software updates...I have to power down and restart. Not sure why that is....

• Another tutorial
  

On my Macbook, I upgraded to Edubuntu 8.10 without incident. I did have to remap my Apple key as Control key but that wasn't too hard with these instructions.

First, create a file in your home directory. Browse to /home/yourusername/ and create a file called .xmodmap. Open the file and paste in the following:

remove control = Control_L Control_R
keycode 115 = Super_L Super_L
keycode 116 = Super_R Super_R
add control = Super_L Super_R

Now, open up terminal and type the following:

Code:

xmodmap ~/.xmodmap

Finally, set this up as a Session. To do that, go to SYSTEM, PREFERENCES, SESSIONS. Create a new session and paste in the xmod map ~/.xmodmap as the command. This should load your changes at start-up.

UPDATE 06/30/2009: Be sure to read this blog entry on setting up on a Flash Drive using UNETBOOTIN. Great and quick!

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