[Live-demo] Notes on USB sticks

Alex Mandel tech_dev at wildintellect.com
Fri May 25 14:27:33 PDT 2012


A few notes from a batch of sticks I just made for a Forest Service
Workshop on Climate Change.

1. The keys for getting into boot menus or configuring BIOS to boot usb
are different between every brand, and across lines in the same brand.
Providing some more hints on this is useful. e.g. on a MAC hold the c
button during boot, F12 seems common for boot menus without needing to
enter bios.
http://www.mydigitallife.info/comprehensive-list-of-how-key-to-press-to-access-bios-for-various-oem-and-computer-systems/

2. Non-technical users are likely to move the osgeo boot files into a
single folder after you give them a drive. This of course breaks the boot.

3. Reminder:Windows can't see more than 1 partition on a usb flash drive.

4. Ubuntu does not like to make persistence partitions smaller than 1
GB. That means for a 4 GB stick (~3.7 GB usable), we would need to fit
in 2.7 GB if we want persistence. On a 8 GB stick it works out nicely to
have 3.7 GB osgeo, 1 GB persistence and ~2.7 GB space remaining for
other stuff that windows/mac can see.

5. I made a youtube video showing how to boot, we should probably
include it or something similar on the disc. (Edited with openShot)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQBdVO-n6Mg

More notes to come later on making the documentation easier for 1st time
users who seem to have no idea what to do once booted.

Thanks,
Alex






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