Linux on USB Drives

**MetalheadGautham** · 01-01-2008, 09:34 PM

how do I install linux on a transcend tsonic 610 mp3 player without deleting all files in it? Please suggest me a good distro for it. I have everything I listed in the distro request thread(see last few posts)

Dark Star · 01-01-2008, 10:00 PM

Damn Small Linux | Article on How to Slax on Hub drive

silent008 · 01-01-2008, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

how do I install linux on a transcend tsonic 610 mp3 player without deleting all files in it? Please suggest me a good distro for it. I have everything I listed in the distro request thread(see last few posts)

I had tried installing DSL on my music player. It created two partitions in the player one for booting and another for data.

I think to make it bootable it is necessary to format it so that the boot sector can be created on it.

But i may be wrong!!!

**MetalheadGautham** · 01-01-2008, 11:26 PM

But won't I loose all my files and firmware?

And I think this means I may want to get a Pen Drive, as in SP Road, Bangalore, you can get a branded warrantied 8 GB Transcend Pen Drive for Rs. 1950/-, a good deal IMO.

Offtopic: How do frequent rewrites affect a pendrive and what are the best filesystems on it?

infra_red_dude · 01-01-2008, 11:37 PM

1) You will lose files but not firmware. Firmwares are stored in ROMs. You can always take a backup and restore your files.

2) I wouldn't recommend anyone install any OS on a Flash drive. The read/writes are quite frequent. Burn a custom live-cd or install Linux on an external USB HDD. Laptop HDDs (60GB+) + external USB casing can be had for about 2k now.

**MetalheadGautham** · 01-01-2008, 11:51 PM

What is the actual reason why flash is not sutiable for regular use?

I still haven't got the hang of why people embrace flash memory while its been proved to be short lifespanned. Why is it reliable, even more than HDDs when it is vulnerable to usage? And why are things like the XO laptop and the EEE PC popular when they have short lifespanned Drives? Please clear these rather n00bish doubt of mine.

infra_red_dude · 02-01-2008, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

What is the actual reason why flash is not sutiable for regular use?

I still haven't got the hang of why people embrace flash memory while its been proved to be short lifespanned. Why is it reliable, even more than HDDs when it is vulnerable to usage? And why are things like the XO laptop and the EEE PC popular when they have short lifespanned Drives? Please clear these rather n00bish doubt of mine.

1) Frequent read-writes which are heavy for most flash chips.

2) Cheap/Easy to carry.

3) Store the data and only make a read access with in-frequent writes and the drive will last for 10 years +!!!

4) All those computers use Flash memory of higher quality for sure; the ones in the Flash drives are cheaper. Even iPhone and W960i etc. use 8/4 GB Flash drives as the main storage.

However, while the Mac OS X core on iPhone is optimized for the flash memory (mebbe less read/write etc..), the OS are generic ones and not optimized to be installed on cheap flash drives. Just study a bit on file-systems and you will know how much strain it gives the media. In such cases (OS) an HDD is preferred over Flash drives. But for your music/personal files/pics etc. which mostly haf Reads and once-a-while writes Flash drives are more handy.

silent008 · 05-01-2008, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

What is the actual reason why flash is not sutiable for regular use?

I still haven't got the hang of why people embrace flash memory while its been proved to be short lifespanned. Why is it reliable, even more than HDDs when it is vulnerable to usage? And why are things like the XO laptop and the EEE PC popular when they have short lifespanned Drives? Please clear these rather n00bish doubt of mine.

Basically flash drives r based on the EEPROM technique. So every time u write the area is first erased and then written upon. Since memory is composed of transistors the transistors wear out due to this frequent read and write operations.

Basically a medium quality flash drive can give u few thousands of read and write cycle. The device would start performing slower as it ages and finally fail.

**MetalheadGautham** · 23-01-2008, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silent008

Basically flash drives r based on the EEPROM technique. So every time u write the area is first erased and then written upon. Since memory is composed of transistors the transistors wear out due to this frequent read and write operations.

Basically a medium quality flash drive can give u few thousands of read and write cycle. The device would start performing slower as it ages and finally fail.

Actually, a CD/DVD RW gives 1000 write cycles, a DVD-RAM 10000 cycles, and a pendrive 100000 or 1000000 cycles, I forgot which.

I finally decided that its better to install a distro on a Rs. 50/- Moser Baer DVD+RW which offers me huge capacities at a small price. So once again this question is asked: which distro is optimised for such environments? I want it to treat the DVD as a harddisk and write immidiately on copying/moving a file, like in a floppy. I also prefer minimum write cycles.