Mon, 11 Feb 2008
Creating live Fedora USB sticks, in Windows!
Last weekend I sat down and developed the liveusb-creator, a tool for creating live Fedora USB sticks from Windows. It will automatically detect all removable drives, find your ISO, extract it to your USB key, modify the syslinux.cfg, and install the bootloader. Technical details aside for a moment, the end-user workflow turns out to be something like this:
- Get Fedora Live Media.
- Download and extract liveusb-creator.zip
- Drag your Fedora Live media into the liveusb-creator directory
- Double click 'liveusb-creator.exe'
At the moment it is a simple a console application that asks the user if it has any questions (by default it won't), and then gets the job done. So shortly after announcing this tool, I started throwing together a graphical interface using PyGTK. While I was doing this, Kushal Das was on the other side of the planet working on a PyQT version :) It turns out his code is much cleaner than my gtk implementation, so I went ahead and committed it. Furthermore, I'm pretty excited to get a chance to play with The Other widget toolkit for once ;)
So, detecting removable devices and such is *trivial* in Windows using the powerfully-undocumented win32api Python module (after playing a few rounds of "match the return code to the enum", of course). Ideally, I want this tool to work in both Linux and Windows, so I redesigned the code quite a bit, broke it out into various modules, and recently started working on the Linux side of things. At this point in time, there is now code that detects removable drives using dbus and HAL. I still have a bunch of sanity checking and other bits to write, but progress is definitely being made. In the mean time for Linux users, see the USBHowTo for creating a live USB stick using the livecd-iso-to-disk tool.
If you're interested in helping out with the liveusb-creator, you can get ahold of the source code using git:
git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/liveusb-creator.git
posted at: 09:38 | link | | 72 comments
Posted by Waqas Shafiq at Sat Mar 22 18:14:16 2008
Does not work :(
Oops! Something went wrong:
Sorry, I couldn't find any devices
Done!
Posted by edforrest at Sun Mar 23 21:54:03 2008
Before I try this, I was wondering if the USB installation with be persistent. I'd like to be able to save configuration settings to the USB key (space permitting, of course).
Thnx.
Posted by ash at Sun Mar 30 22:14:01 2008
it does not work. At boot, message is: No bootable partition in table.
Posted by Eric at Fri Apr 11 05:27:22 2008
I love the idea of this tool, but when I boot from the USB key I get the same message: No bootable partition in table. What am I missing?
Posted by Sergio at Fri Apr 25 16:03:09 2008
Same error as the previous messages. No bootable partition in table.
Posted by Lin Goodwin at Thu May 1 02:07:04 2008
Thanks;
I will test this extensively with USB flash and stick media.
Posted by Max Spevack at Thu May 1 10:47:02 2008
Brilliant work, Luke! I'm looking forward to testing out this version, and the getting it some really good publicity.
Posted by Marland V. Pittman at Thu May 1 12:26:42 2008
Awesome work! Finally a GUI, but on Windows first? Heh.
I want a GUI in Linux, so I don't have to boot to Windows to show my friends how easy it is to make a USB stick.
One time I thought about switching distros, but making the USB stick is too awesome. I'll stick with Fedora.
Posted by Paul W. Frields at Sun May 4 10:26:27 2008
You are SO the man. Great work on this utility, Luke!
Posted by Luis Vaca at Fri May 9 23:45:39 2008
Resseting the master boot is supposed to be done in version 2.1 of liveusb creator, yet I get the same error everytime "No bootable partition in table."
So what is next?
Posted by Johny Maul at Fri May 16 11:14:51 2008
Great thing i do not need to install system on every computer or run slow live CD
thx man
Posted by Steve S at Fri May 16 18:37:06 2008
Hi,
This is simply too awesome.
Is there any chance you could mmodify this to enable a fully encrypted installation?
Posted by Rahul Sundaram at Sat May 17 11:37:18 2008
The lifehacker article has a lot of comments and some of them point of things to improve. Also "persistent overlay" is a rather meaningless term for non-technical people. Might want to choose something easier to understand and explain it in a context sensitive help too.
Good work overall. I am waiting for a Linux GUI.
Posted by luke at Sat May 17 11:55:52 2008
suggestions for a better name than "persistent overlay" are welcome.
Posted by Stumblng Tumblr at Mon May 19 06:18:17 2008
The USB flash drive works perfectly in a computer whose BIOS I can change to boot from USB. However, I have another computer whose BIOS I can't change in that way. I'd like to be able to boot that computer from a floppy, which would then hand over to the USB flash drive.
Any suggestions as to how I'd do that, if it's possible?
Thanks.
Posted by Rahul Sundaram at Mon May 19 11:18:32 2008
Persistent storage or permanent storage seems to be better than "persistent overlay". Context sensitive help can explain the details further. You should note especially that both software changes as well as settings can be retained.
Posted by lewk at Mon May 19 16:08:35 2008
I think "persistent storage" would be a good change.
There is already help within the application that explains this feature further. Just click the question mark in the toolbar and then click the section that you want details on.
Posted by Rahul Sundaram at Mon May 19 16:39:09 2008
Others suggested:
Quote
"
* Writable Layer (this really isn't bad 'tall)
* System Change Layer
* Flexible Data Layer
* Recordable Layer (dangerously close to jargon collision, but does make good sense)"
</End Quote>
Posted by robert at Tue May 20 19:54:11 2008
at least 3 times i haved used this program and it has crashed on me, rendering the installation unable to boot at startup? whats the problem?
Posted by Scatter Computers at Wed May 21 01:42:31 2008
Great concept, but I had the CD, not the ISO. I made the CD into an ISO, but of course it didn't pass the SHA1 test so it refuses to make my Live USB. An option to ignore the SHA1 check would be a nice feature. I guess I'll have to download the ISO.
Posted by JorgeC at Tue May 27 16:34:41 2008
I agree with the rest of the comments here, this is cool!. Please keep improving it!
Posted by Shane Douglas at Fri Jun 6 01:55:38 2008
Wow its about time someone made it simple. Thank you fedora.
Posted by Derek at Sun Aug 24 05:57:24 2008
My USB disk is not detected, possibly because XP treats it as a local disk due to the usb-ide adapter in the enclosure. XP treats it as a Local disk instead. Need to install from a live cd boot and install from there.
Posted by neba at Thu Sep 18 11:34:57 2008
Where can I get a usb stick like the one in the picture? One with the fedora sign on it? :)
Posted by Pieter at Thu Jan 1 11:56:51 2009
Happy New Year! I just installed liveusb-creator version 3.0-4fc10 on a laptop with F10 x86_64 and had a look. Under "Download Fedora" it says "Fedora 10 Beta <arch>". Shouldn't the "Beta" part be removed now that F10 is released?
Posted by Luke at Fri Jan 2 13:52:37 2009
Thanks for the heads up Pieter. Sounds like an old source tarball was being used in the latest rpm. I went ahead an pushed out liveusb-creator-3.1 into bodhi, which should hopefully resolve this issue.
Posted by Gavius at Tue Jun 16 12:37:31 2009
Hi
Good job done. I love this creator. it works for Fedora 11 too.
There is only 1 problem I faced.
That is with the persistent overlay,
I set it to 6.8GB, but when I login to the USB drive, it show me a total of 3.2GB in the USB Drive.
Anyone knows where is the balance went to?
Is there a reason why? Or something I did went wrong? Please help.
Posted by Smooth Criminal at Sun Nov 8 22:51:18 2009
Would it be possible to make liveUSB installer? In the age of (driveles) netbooks installing Fedora form installation media is quite cumbersome. I would really appreciate this feature.
Posted by Canada at Wed May 26 02:41:42 2010
Maybe you should post the software's MD5 checksum so users can compare and confirm?
Posted by Canada at Wed May 26 02:44:36 2010
Edit:
all infirmation is on the official page.
Quote:
Download
Warning: There are virus-infected copies of the Windows liveusb-creator floating around various download sites on the internet. Only download the Windows liveusb-creator from this page!
Windows
Windows installer: liveusb-creator-3.9.1-setup.exe (7.9M) (ChangeLog).
SHA1: 7e20f6937e93e048d65b461a3cd6feba54662464
Great work.
Posted by Doc Atomic at Wed May 26 10:35:14 2010
But a SHA1 is not an MD5, though... and information is not "infirmation" either, unless your intent is to cripple the thing and hospitalise it! Are you certain it's a virus? How can you write bug-free code, if you can't spell? :-p
In any case, my issue with liveUSB booting of any kind is that while that technique is okay for either running live constantly or installing to only a single hard drive, it fails miserably whenever anyone tries to perform an install into a system that has more than one hard drive because booting from a liveUSB stick in the first place always screws up the drive detection and so when you go to reboot after a multi-drive installation, the reboot fails because /dev/sdc (or whatever) then becomes /dev/sdb (or whatever) instead, as soon as the stick is removed. So, you're stuck with rebooting live yet again and then manually patching-up the newly-installed fstab, just to get the hard disk boot to work properly. Certainly a stupid annoyance, in my opinion.
Posted by Dinooz at Tue Nov 23 10:29:36 2010
Any idea when an update to the LiveUSB Creator will be issued ?
From: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=253636
This will update the bootloader on the specified drive, so make sure to get it right.
Another option is to replace the syslinux.exe file LiveUSB Creator uses with the new one and run LiveUSB Creator again. The file goes into the "tools" directory. So, if LiveUSB Creator was installed to C:\Program Files\LiveUSB Creator, it needs to go in C:\Program Files\LiveUSB Creator\tools.
Posted by Peter at Thu Jan 6 12:01:33 2011
Thanks Luke! Its much appreciated, hope you'll be @ FUDCon so I can buy you beer :-)
Posted by Rudy Szuch at Thu Jan 6 17:17:53 2011
I downloaded Live-usb creator 3.9.3 and tried to boot using the boot disk I downloaded 10/5/09
Sugar froze at the splash screen with three dots showing.
the 3.9.3 worked fine on the thumb drive.
Is there a newer version of the boot disk to run on xppro?
regards
Posted by Luke Macken at Fri Jan 7 15:05:22 2011
@Peter: Yep!
@Rudy: I'm not sure what version of Sugar you downloaded, but I just tested the liveusb-creator 3.9.3 and had it download Sugar on a Stick v4, and it worked great.
Posted by Art Hunkins at Mon Jan 10 16:59:58 2011
Hi, Luke -
Live USB Creator 3.9.3 works fine with SoaS 4 (Fedora-14) and recent nightly builds, but not for SoaS 1 through 3.
With SoaS 1-3, booting halts at the SYXLINUX screen with multiple iterations of:
()esamenu.c32: not a COM32R image
Boot:_
I can't determine the first character above, as it is off my screen.
You can type: linux0
at the Boot prompt and continue normally (as with 3.9.2), and you don't need to press SHIFT during boot to do this.
Live USB Creator 3.9 works with SoaS 1 through 3 correctly.
Posted by Luke Macken at Tue Jan 11 18:00:03 2011
Art, looks like a syslinux incompatiblity. I followed up via email.
Posted by Art Hunkins at Sat Mar 12 21:50:23 2011
@Luke:
I misspoke earlier when I said that 3.10.0 would make bootable USB's of nightly composes of SoaS. (3.10.0 works great with 0.90 Mango.) They fail somewhere after the dotted circle completes, often with a small box, "No valid session found." Then nothing but a blank screen with an active but tiny "watch-face" cursor. Seems to be in the middle of Fedora somewhere.
I need to test my Activities with a 0.92-class Sugar .iso, and am currently stymied. (Hopefully, the nightly builds represent this generation (??))
At any rate, it would be wonderful if Live USB Creator were compatible with these recent builds. Is this possible?
Thanks for all your great work.
Posted by Art Hunkins at Wed Jun 1 16:21:40 2011
@ Luke:
My latest series of LiveUSB Creator tests and various Sugar-on-a-Stick installations came up with these results:
LiveUSB Creator 3.9.2 creates only SoaS Strawberry through Mirabelle (Fedora 13).
(Then apparently the version of Syslinux changes, as you note.)
LiveUSB Creator 3.9.3 and later create SoaS Mango Lassi (Fedora 14) and higher (currently beta Fedora 15, Coconut).
Incidentally, incompatible versions of LiveUSB Creator and SoaS can still "work", but hang at the Syslinux screen - at a Boot: prompt.
Typing:
linux0<enter>
at the prompt allows the boot to continue (at substantial inconvenience).
Noting these guidelines could save LiveUSB Creator users a lot of time, frustration and confusion.
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