Ubuntu ISOs To Finally Double As USB Images

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu ISOs To Finally Double As USB Images

A small but useful feature for the CD ISOs of Fedora, openSUSE, MeeGo, and many other Linux distributions is that they are spun as hybrid ISOs. Hybrid ISOs allow the same CD ISO to be copied directly to a USB storage device (i.e. flash drive) without needing to rely upon any external utilities. Ubuntu ISOs have not supported this feature, but they do have their easy-to-use start-up disk creator to take care of this task. However, the daily ISOs for the Ubuntu Oneiric development cycle and all official Ubuntu CD releases going forward for i386 and x86_64 platforms will be now spun as hybrid ISOs...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTU3NA

[uwgandalf]

What's the low level difference?
Can't really care, I always use Grub2's excellent functionality of being able to boot from an iso file (still packed iso.)

[Delgarde]

What's the low level difference?

Ubuntu's program worked by copying files to a filesystem on a formatted USB drive, plus installing a bootloader. But with this change, you can just dump the ISO straight to the raw device, without needing any awareness of filesystems or bootloaders...

The downside to doing it the new way is that it sets up only the read-only file system image - it doesn't allow you to use the remaining space on the flash drive for persistent storage. Ubuntu's program is still useful if you want to be able to install additional programs to the flash drive...

[Kano]

I reported this bug over 15 month ago, really fast reaction time

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/524803

[cl333r]

Do I actually need to use "dd" or can I simply drag-n-drop the iso (from Nautilus) to a clean usb-drive?

[Kivada]

Persistent live CD? Des this mean I could get a fast 64Gb+ USB3 stick, load it with up to date and speed tweaked Gallium3D drivers and games and be able to plug in to any random hardware and get it to fully auto setup at boot?

That could help make quite a few converts...

[walterav]

Anyone noticed that these hybrid mbr images will not mount anymore in Archive mounter in nautilus and diskutility in (Snow) Leopard? I thought it was in the spec of a iso image to skip the bytes in the first 32K but apparantly these two applictions are trying to mount the mbr partitions instead.

[DisabledLeopard]

Can't really care, I always use Grub2's excellent functionality of being able to boot from an iso file (still packed iso.)

I love this feature too - just wish the Fedora DVD Install ISO's could actually be used from this method. While they will boot via grub chainloading into the iso - the install fails when it tries to build a package list :-( At least the LiveDVD's install a pretty good base to go from ...anyone know a workaround / fix to get a Fedora Install DVD iso to work via grub??

[HokTar]

Persistent live CD? Des this mean I could get a fast 64Gb+ USB3 stick, load it with up to date and speed tweaked Gallium3D drivers and games and be able to plug in to any random hardware and get it to fully auto setup at boot?

That could help make quite a few converts...

That is possible for ages.

However, I tend to install a full Ubuntu on the drive just like you do onto an hdd/ssd. That way the system is faster and probably more robust. In fact I am writing while running on my usb drive. I can boot any 64 bit machines and have my usual system, so I love it!

[krazy]

However, I tend to install a full Ubuntu on the drive just like you do onto an hdd/ssd. That way the system is faster and probably more robust.

I want one of these sandforce-powered USB3 drives - running from USB at (almost) SSD speeds!
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4417/c...red-usb3-stick