Marcus and me have been busy improving the USB experience. So here is how to use it:

download the live cd of your choice from http://download.opensuse.org/factory/iso/ and make sure you grab build218 or later. And then do something like I did:

linux-vgqb:~ # ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 13. Aug 10:04 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Kingston_DataTraveler_II+_5B751D8C1994-0:0 -> ../../sdb

So I use /dev/sdb in my commands to shorten it, normally I would use /dev/disk/by-id/.. directly to avoid overwriting my hard disk image.

dd if=openSUSE-KDE4-LiveCD-x86_64-Build0219-Media.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

linux-vgqb:~ # fdisk /dev/sdb

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 3935.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 4126 MB, 4126670848 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3935 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0×967113b7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 660 675840 83 Linux

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (661-3935, default 661):
Using default value 661
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (661-3935, default 3935):
Using default value 3935

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 4126 MB, 4126670848 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3935 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0×967113b7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 660 675840 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 661 3935 3353600 83 Linux

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

This is a 4G stick, so I have plenty of room to write, but the real content is put in a readonly partition. If you do not do the fdisk, your stick will behave like a live cd: poweroff and all data is gone. The /dev/sdb2 will be used to save your changes.

And now reboot – if you have a laptop like mine you need to press F9 during boot. If has some fun side effects as /livecd is still an ISO9660 file system, so it will appear as CDROM in various KDE dialogs.

I wonder though if we should let the user create an own user on suck a stick, putting all your private data in a password less linux account does not sound right.

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