Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Yes, shockingly, I don't have a USB CD/DVD drive (yet) which is why I had to do the XP install using a flash drive. Extra work, but it got the job done.

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Yes it does -- in practical terms, they're certainly loading the USB drive's MBR, from which everything's normal. And in theoretical terms, if they're not doing it that way, but faking in their own MBR or something (it's more work, they'd have to be actively trying to stop people from running Linux), you can still use isolinux/syslinux.Just like USB drive booting, actually. ;)

Not putting you down for asking, but yeah, it'll work. Hopefully Securix can give you hands-on confirmation.

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Are you asking if a Linux distro can INSTALL from USB flash to the local HD or if a distro can boot and RUN from USB flash?

I guess that's a silly question...there's really no difference as long as some bootloader works...booting an installer and booting a live OS is pretty much the same mechanism.

I'd have to try it to know for sure, though...

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Yeah, I was just thinking you could give danramos more peace of mind by trying to boot Linux on it than he'd get from my assertions, without one in my hands.

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Actually, that's a good point. Well said. Even if it's booting a DOS style MBR and ONLY looking for that, yeah. But there ARE come BIOS'es that will ONLY boot the Windows kernel straight off the medium instead of booting the MBR properly. (The Cloudbook was doing that previously with CD-ROM's on USB. It would refuse to boot Linux CD's but it'd recognize an XP boot CD and boot THAT up. Miserable. So yeah, basically it wasn't TRULY booting the CD so much as just booting the Windows install disc's kernel and going on from here.)

You're ALWAYS putting me down. But I still think you're okay, despite what everyone else says. ;)

Yeah, what I'd need to know is whether you could boot an Ubuntu live CD and STILL be able to see the primary hard drive.

When I had the Cloudbook and I'd tried, I couldn't boot any Linux distro off USB.. but I could get it to boot an Ubuntu Live CD that I'd installed on an SD card (so it'll boot off the SD--I even took pictures of the cloudbook running Ubuntu with my camera!) but once you got it running, it would no longer show the existence of the internal hard drive.

I wept.

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Man, that is evil. What were they thinking. :(

I do hope it's better now.

Re: Cloudbook / Netbook-G Now $299
 

Gee... I can't imagine what they were thinking.. but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some influence. (BTW: Yes, that was evidence in a class-action antitrust case i Iowa that eventually got settled out of court.. but not before a lot of very ugly things were put into evidence about MS's tactics to snuff out Linux.)