[Tfug] CD to boot USB

[Claude Rubinson]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 01:56:55AM -0700, John Gruenenfelder wrote:
> >I'm searching for a CD to boot a USB drive or USB stick for
> >installation.  Apparently my googling combination isn't adequate to
> >find such a CD.  If anyone knows of one or has any suggestions, I
> >would appreciate it.
> 
> So, to get this straight, you would like a CD that will begin the
> boot process and then hand off control to a USB flash device of some
> sort?  I can't think of any program offhand that does exactly this.

Sure there is--it's called an installer.  The installer lets you get a
base system up and running and then points at external media for all
of the supplemental packages.  Earl, if you're simply looking to make
things easy such that you don't have to pick the same packages over
and over again for each installation, there are a bunch of different
ways to accomplish this.  You could dump a list of packages to your
package manager, create your own repository (either
internet-accessible or on mass storage), or create a meta package that
depends upon the packages you want.  In Debian, you might look into
creating a custom "task" and hacking tasksel to display it.  That way,
installation could occur as part of the installation process proper.

Claude