Troy, Konstantin, Thank you very much for your quick reply and valuable information.
As suggested, I hope to use extlinux for grub, and sl5.6 for sl5.5. However, I'm currently very mobile (for the next week or so) but will give feedback once I try out the suggestions. Kind Regards, William. --- On Wed, 3/16/11, Konstantin Olchanski <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Konstantin Olchanski <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: install the full SL6, SL5.5 OS's and GRUB on external USB hard > drive > To: "Troy Dawson" <[email protected]> > Cc: "William Shu" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" > <[email protected]> > Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 5:12 PM > On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 09:45:13AM > -0500, Troy Dawson wrote: > > I have a full distro on a USB stick. It's > currently Fedora 13 instead > > of SL6, but the procedure is the exact same. > > > > Do a normal install with the USB hard drive plugged in > and selected as > > the main hard drive, and with all your partitions on > it. The only thing > > you have to be careful of is where grub is put, and > what order grub > > thinks the drives are. > > > In my experience, trying to USB-boot Linux using SL5 GRUB > is futile. GRUB gets > hopelessly confused by the ordering of BIOS "hard drives" - > which seems to > change between cold and warm reboots. > > BTW, on the machines where I looked into it, one cannot > "select USB hard drive > as the main hard drive" on a permanent basis - if you ever > boot the machine > with the USB drive accidentally unplugged or powered down, > I see BIOS settings > reverting back to whatever crazy random order you use and > GRUB will fail > to boot until you go back to the BIOS setup screen and > change the settings. > > The best I can tell, the root of the problem is with GRUB > insisting on booting > from disk 0 (or whatever number is specified in grub.conf) > instead of continuing > to use the boot disk selected by the BIOS (as > SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX seems to do). > > This strategy of booting from BIOS disk number selected in > some config file > may have worked well in the days of hardwired "primary > master" IDE disks and > mostly continues to function with hardwired SATA disks > (i.e. fails on ASUS A8N-E mobos > where ordering of SATA ports by BIOS and Linux is not the > same), but completely > makes no sense with dynamically assigned USB disks (if I > have 2 USB disks, which > one is disk 0? Yes, it is in the USB enumeration order, so > it is deterinistic, > but if I plug in a 3rd USB disk, USB enumeration order may > change and GRUB will > not boot). > > Anyhow, according to http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ GRUB has > been abandoned, so why are we still using it?!? In > contrast, SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX/PXELINUX > is still in active development. (Yes, there is GRUB-2, if > you can find it, but SL5 is not > using it). > > > K.O. > > > > > > > > > http://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/6x/installing/boot.loader.configuration.html > > > > On SL6, be sure to select "Change device" and make > sure your USB drive > > is marked as the "First BIOS drive". Then make > sure it's set to install > > the boot loader on the MBR of our USB hard drive. > > http://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/6x/installing/large/boot.loader.5.png > > > > -- > Konstantin Olchanski > Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow! > Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca > Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., > V6T 2A3, Canada >
