Re: Making a localized, educational live-usb version of Netbsd? Possible, and is worth it?

[David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost>]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 01:38:30PM +0100, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> 
> I would be interested in having an image that can be easily copied and
> installed on a flash drive, ideally without repartitioning the drive,
> so that the student can reuse their drive either as a live usb or a as
> portable storage for their own private files.

The bootxx_fat16 (and bootxx_fat12) can be placed in the first sector
of a fat16 (or fat12) filesystem and will load /boot from that filesystem.
(They both read the filesystem metadata - they don't rely on a list of
sector numbers.)
One /boot is loaded it can load a kernel from any fat filesystem.

I've not tried to write a bootxx_fat32, I think it might be possible
because I believe there is usually more than one sector available.

Unfortunately most modern USB sticks are large enough to be FAT32.

On thing I did manage was to add a small mbr partition and FAT12
filesystem in the space before the main partition.
Setting this up was 'interesting'!
NetBSD's fdisk will do it from command line parameters, but the linux
one really won't let you.

        David

-- 
David Laight: david%l8s.co.uk@localhost