[tlug] USB Flash Drive Install

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

(I suddenly feel as if I really want to put "[OT]" in front of the
subject line of my post; why is that?)

So, after a "minor issue"[1] I've discovered that my attempt to try
out 9.10 (kinky kestrel?) I've discovered that my attempt to see how
well Ubuntu 9.10 ("itchy incubus"? no, something starting with "J" and
rhyming with "birk") will work on my computer may well be impeded by
my attempt to install it in 7 GB or so of a rather nice 8 GB USB Flash
memory thingie.

Now, it kinda looks like a hard drive, doesn't it? Especially when you
grew up on hoping your entire computing centre would get a 9 GB (and
Corvus, no less) hard drive to share. (Right, that's a very Apple ][
rather than PET-centric viewpoint, so sue me.) So what do I need to
do to install one one of these darn things, and not get strange error
messages out the wazoo?

Ok, I'm strange, but here's what I want:

    1. Say, 128 GB instead of the usual 256 GB for /boot. That should be
    enough for three kernels and initrds and all, easy.

    2. The basic encryption of root that everybody expects these days.

    3. No swap. It's a fricking USB key, after all. I use this on
    machines I don't trust in Internet cafes; it's not like I care if my
    session comes back[2].

That's about it, really. Suggestions?

[1]: It took me less than a day to recover from my entire /boot
partition becoming empty after a standard Ubuntu 9.04 "upgrade this
s**t" message to which I'd clicked the "yeah, f**k me now!" button. I
re-learned a fair amount about those /boot/initrd.img* files and how to
reconstruct them. Note that I don't claim that the failure was related
to the upgrade. Draw your own conclusions, as Oprah might say.

[2]: BTW, when you do an encrypted partition with the Ubuntu alternate
install CD, do not do the custom thing and do an encrypted partition
without an LVM in it, but just a DOS partition table with an extN
partition in it. Trust me, usplash will not know what to do....[3]

[3]: Instead, create an LVM with one root thingie in it.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
           Functional programming in all senses of the word:
                   http://www.starling-software.com