[lcapriotti]

Acknoledging that making a proper bootable flash disk can be quite a challenge for most of its users, TeamXBMC made a joint effort and created a new script addon facilitating (hopefully!) the creation of an XBMC Live bootable flash disk.

Bootable Disk Wizard (BDW) is designed to run from the live CD or from a properly created bootable flash disk.

XBMC Live Dharma beta1 has the script installed already, please try it and report your experience so that we can make the script more functional and bug-free!

Luigi

Additional Info:

The addon operates on removable disks only; the resulting flash disk is optimised to reduce disk writes.

The disk layout is completely different from what the traditional installer is producing since the latter is creating traditional Linux partitions (root/swap/home etc) while the former creates a properly formatted fat32 disk with the cd files plus a file that is used for permanently storing system changes.

The XBMC profile is also stored on the flash disk in a separate directory to ease access from all OSes.

[htrodscott]

It worked great for me. Just installed Dharma Beta 1 on a USB drive from the CD and it worked flawlessly. I have yet to test the Beta, but the install went well. It's a huge improvement.

Thanks.

[sdsnyr94]

Does this create the necessary files for "persistance"?

or do we still need:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/live-rw bs=1M count=600
mkfs.ext3 -F /mnt/live-rw

[pumkinut]

I ran it, creating a persistent portion, and everything seemed to work fine. I then ssh'd in to change the grub configuration to get rid of extraneous resolution options that were prohibiting dropping to a terminal. When I ran the sudo update-grub command I get the following:

Code:

/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).

I've checked all my mount points and tehy seem to be mounted as rw, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

The persistence part seems to be working fine, as other changes I've made have saved without issue.

[erhnam]

Bootable Disk Wizard (BDW) is designed to run from the live CD, but can also run out of a traditional disk installation provided that its addon settings are properly set.

Thanks, but where can I find it?

[lcapriotti]

Does this create the necessary files for "persistance"?

yes it does, you can also set its size with a nice slider

[lcapriotti]

Thanks, but where can I find it?

it's under "Programs"

[KidKiwi]

I ran it, creating a persistent portion, and everything seemed to work fine. I then ssh'd in to change the grub configuration to get rid of extraneous resolution options that were prohibiting dropping to a terminal.

Can you please expand on this comment. It seems I cannot get to a terminal cursor using lucid1-32696 and I betting this is probably why. Could you please tell me the exact steps you took to achieve this? Much appreciated. Thx.

[lcapriotti]

either you open the file (\boot\grub\grub.cfg) on the usb disk on a different machine (Win/Linux/OSX), or ssh into the box and edit /live/image/boot/grub/grub.cfg.

[pumkinut]

either you open the file (\boot\grub\grub.cfg) on the usb disk on a different machine (Win/Linux/OSX), or ssh into the box and edit /live/image/boot/grub/grub.cfg.

I'll try editing /boot/grub/grub.cfg tonight and see if that works, thanks.

[Geekzilla]

I tried it and it is working brilliantly. The one suggestion I have is to give some guidance on the step where the size of the Permanent Storage Size is determined. Perhaps placing the slider at a certain point with the word "Suggested' above it, and that would disappear if the slider is moved. I have been a hardcore XBMC-Live user since its beginning, but unfortunately am still a linux novice. I am still unsure what size was ideal for my 4GB drive after doing a forum search.

[BORIStheBLADE]

So I just gave this a shot with my thumb drive. After XBMC said the install was complete I pulled it out and tried installing into my Revo and it said " This media is not bootable".
I don't really know where to go from here, but I figured I would let you know.

[lcapriotti]

So I just gave this a shot with my thumb drive. After XBMC said the install was complete I pulled it out and tried installing into my Revo and it said " This media is not bootable".
I don't really know where to go from here, but I figured I would let you know.

your report is highly appreciated. To make it most productive you would need to provide the xbmc log of that session.

[lcapriotti]

I tried it and it is working brilliantly. The one suggestion I have is to give some guidance on the step where the size of the Permanent Storage Size is determined. Perhaps placing the slider at a certain point with the word "Suggested' above it, and that would disappear if the slider is moved.

nice, we'll have a look at that.

I am still unsure what size was ideal for my 4GB drive after doing a forum search.

The ideal size heavily depends on your usage pattern. Two extreme cases:

1. if you are going to modify the base system heavily (e.g. install lots of additional packages) you need a bigger persistent memory.
2. If you want to install several space-hungry skins, lost of addons, have a rather large library, you may leave a generous amount of space to the XBMC profile and reduce a bit the persistent memory since by default the XBMC profile is saved on the flash disk directly and is not part of the persistent memory.

Having said that, on a 4G+ disk you don't need any difficult calculation: 1 GB of permanent storage (even 2 GB) will allow almost any system customization while leaving plenty of space for the XBMC profile.

[BORIStheBLADE]

your report is highly appreciated. To make it most productive you would need to provide the xbmc log of that session.

I downloaded another copy of the beta and reflashed. if it doesn't work I will post the info.