35 Responses to “Making openSUSE 11.0 LiveUSB : The Easiest (and Fastest) Way”

1. rhorstkoetter
   June 4, 2008 at 16:10 |

   But with that approach we’ll have no persistent storage available. Is there any way to make use of the builtin aufs filesystem?
2. John G.
   June 5, 2008 at 03:40 |

   Worked swimmingly on my Eee, thanks!
3. OMA
   June 5, 2008 at 11:11 |

   Does this work with the 64-bit GNOME version? I’ve tried but I get errors when after loading the kernel
4. v4mpiro
   June 5, 2008 at 13:44 |

   Very useful, thanks!
5. DaGringo
   June 11, 2008 at 21:20 |

   Doesn’t work… used kde4 ISO and when booting I get error COULDN’T FIND USB IMAGE CONFIGURATION FILE and immediately afterwards something about a SHELL EXCEPTION. Any ideas? Would love a copy to take with me this summer on vacation so I can try to learn a little linux. Anybody want to help a newbie?
6. Karl
   June 19, 2008 at 19:27 |

   Great tutorial, but it would be wonderful if it included an initrdud for the official 11.0 release. I can’t get it to work with the RC 1 initrdud–it can’t find the usb drives.

   Perhaps you could add to the tutorial the method for creating the custom initrdud.

   Thanks a lot!

   • Masim Sugianto
     June 20, 2008 at 17:40 |

     Hi Karl,

     Please take a look on this post.

     //lizards.opensuse.org/2008/06/20/how-to-makeopensuse-110-gm-version-live-usb/#more-75

     I’ve updated the initrdud as requested.Hope this worked with GM version. I tried this with my USB disk and worked flawlessly.
7. earlycj5
   June 20, 2008 at 14:33 |

   Hmm, I finally got a USB key that will boot but as noted above something isn’t working.

   It stops at “Waiting for USB device(s) to appear……………………….”

   Then it says “Failed to detect USB drive !” – which is silly it booted off of it?

   Finishes by dumping me at a not very useful terminal by saying “shellException: providing shell…”

   So all in all, no it does not appear to work. I really, really wish it would. I do not have a CD-ROM drive for my Mini-Note and would love to try it out. Making a live USB disk of Ubuntu is so easy. Really wish OpenSUSE were too. I got my hopes up when I saw this post, only to have them dashed by some shellException.

   • Vavai
     June 20, 2008 at 17:44 |

     Hi earlycj5,

     The above problem occurred with non modified initrd. Original initrdud will called CDDevice function because it will run with CD/DVD ROM. The modified initrd change the CD mounted with USB.

     Please take a look on this post for updating initrdud.

     //lizards.opensuse.org/2008/06/20/how-to-makeopensuse-110-gm-version-live-usb/#more-75

     • _ku
       February 16, 2009 at 19:51 |

       I used your initrdud, but i have same problem with my mininote )=
8. FameWolf
   June 20, 2008 at 20:54 |

   Why not just provide the modified initrdud instead of a bunch of steps people need to run? I realize the steps are important for those running x86_6 etc but I think the majority use the i386 livecd so their key will work on ANY intel pc.

   • Vavai
     June 20, 2008 at 23:12 |

     Hi FameWolf,

     Did you read the article carefully ? 🙂

     I noticed this one on the article (and in this article too) :

     “Download the modified initrd file (called initrdud) from this link.”

     this link = http://opensuse.or.id/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/initrdud

     I also provide how to make the modified initrdud tutorial to everyone who need this step, maybe he want to modified initrd for another reason or for add another module 😉
9. FameWolf
   June 20, 2008 at 21:28 |

   Sorry..I see you did provide it..I misunderstood the new post to mean we had to apply those changes to the downloaded initrdud…just ignore previous post.

   It works wonderfully…now i’ll push my luck. 😉 I installed it to a 1 gb jumpdrive so I’ve got some space left…wondering if there is a way to create a persistant home so it would at least let us keep firefox extensions we use etc?

   • Vavai
     June 20, 2008 at 23:13 |

     and I missed this comment. Sorry for skipping this 🙂
10. Raffo
    June 20, 2008 at 23:24 |

    The partition to which you are copying the files has to be marked active in order to boot. Otherwise the computer may fail to boot the stick.

    • Ahmadinejad
      June 29, 2008 at 01:38 |

      Agree. I’ve been confuse for hours in this. cfdisk saved the day.
11. Linux
    June 21, 2008 at 13:35 |

    i got your tutorial, thank you bos.
12. Trent
    June 26, 2008 at 17:52 |

    Is this a true install of openSUSE 11 onto a USB drive, i.e. will installed programs and changed setting remain upon reboot?

    Sorry for the newbie question.
13. Sonny
    June 28, 2008 at 19:37 |

    Hi, I’m trying this tutorial because, for some reason, the openSUSE 11 i386 DVD, KDE4 liveCD, and internet install CD won’t boot on my box.

    I followed all the instructions and get the error “Operating System not found” when trying to boot.

    Should I try making the initrdud myself, might that make the difference? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.

    • Andy
      June 30, 2008 at 09:45 |

      Hi there!

      I had a similar problem, and was able to solve it. In my case I think perhaps the hardware was too old so the BIOS could not find the boot information unless it was located near the beginning of the hard disk. So the solution in this case: shortly before actual installation begins, when you’re offered a “suggested partitioning”, which usually has three parts (swap, /, /home), edit by hand to add an extra partition. This extra partition should be created at the very beginning of the hard disk, 100 MB should be more than enough, and set it to mound /boot from there.

      Then continue with your installation as usual.
      Hope that helps,
      Andy
    • condor1
      September 2, 2008 at 13:41 |

      Hi , for this problem,
      I redo the syslinux stage on windows.
      After that, I get a file I didn’t have before (with syslinux on linux).
      Then I redo all other stage,
      Now that’s work.

      Cheers,
      condor1
14. Ahmadinejad
    June 29, 2008 at 00:58 |

    Just want to share, if you guys have already done all the above steps but the usb disk won’t boot, try to flag the usb disk as bootable. In my case, usb disk recognized as /dev/sdb1 so i would run “cfdisk /dev/sdb” ( without quote, off course ). Choose “bootable” from the menu and then choose “write” before you exit.
    Hope this helpful thanks.

    ( terima kasih mas vavai atas email opensuse nya -;) )
15. daniel
    July 20, 2008 at 21:41 |

    I have tried all this steps but the instalation failed to detect CD drive (I dont have one)
    and told me “shellException: providing shell…. and thats it no more opensuse….

    I have a TPadX61 – 64 bit and tried to install the opensuse 11.

    Any idea how to solve this problem?
16. mixomix
    August 19, 2008 at 14:02 |

    Same here.

    Failed to detect CD drive…
17. Aubrely Bourke
    August 24, 2008 at 12:51 |

    Hi, Ive tried following your instructions but it doesnt work.
    Im getting a syslinux error – cant find Linux image when I try to boot.
    What do I have to do to get it to work?

    Regards
    ABourke.
18. sharms
    August 25, 2008 at 18:46 |

    //lizards.opensuse.org/2008/06/20/how-to-makeopensuse-110-gm-version-live-usb/

    That post worked for me, the initrdud in this post didnt load right
19. Lincoln Lourens
    August 30, 2008 at 16:09 |

    Ok, I’m a total noob, but I’m waiting on my MSI Wind and wanna scratch XP and just do OpenSUSE. I’m aware that Ubuntu would prolly be easier, but OpenSUSE seems better. Stupid stupid questions follow….

    How on earth do I determine if I’m trying to create a LiveUSB from the non-GM or the GM image? What does GM mean? Additionally, I can’t see the name of the text file in the URL, so if I’m trying to save the initrdvd for this, should I just right-click and “save-as”? And I’m making this using the LiveCD image, right? So 1 GB USB stick is good, right?

    What are command line commands to get this to all happen?

    4. Copying all of liveiso content (mounted ISO content) into USB disk
    5. Copying all of content on boot/i386/loader folder into root folder of USB disk
    6. Rename isolinux.cfg on root folder of USB disk into syslinux.cfg
    7. copying initrdud into root folder of usb disk

    Please bear with me, I’m trying…
20. condor1
    September 2, 2008 at 14:18 |

    Hi, thank for this job, it’s really great.

    One question, Is anybody know how to add a driver to this openSuSe Live USB ?
21. Jon
    December 21, 2008 at 10:32 |

    hi, thanks for the tutorial
    but i am having trouble as to mounting the USB with the command "mount -o loop openSUSE-11.0-KDE4-LiveCD-i386.iso liveiso/"
    i am running winXP and cd to f: (my flashdrive) then executed that command, but it gave me the following error message:
    
"'mount' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.".

    is there additional program needs to be installed? I am trying to create a bootable USB for the openSUSE 11.0 KDE4. Thanks for the great help.

    • Charles
      January 3, 2009 at 19:41 |

      mount is not in your PATH, so either you are not root (try sudo mount …) or you have the wrong path (try su -l to become root)
22. Tonny
    January 6, 2009 at 09:59 |

    I did on your way, the usb-fdd is bootable, however, it fails to install and the error information is shown below:
    rebootException: error consloles at Alt-F3/F4
    rebootException: reboot in 120 sec
23. Tonny
    January 6, 2009 at 10:01 |

    there is no CD-ROM in my desktop, I did on your way, the usb-fdd is bootable, however, it fails to install and the error information is shown below:

    Fail to mount RW root filesystem
    rebootException: error consloles at Alt-F3/F4
    rebootException: reboot in 120 sec

    thanks

    Tonny
24. DnS
    January 16, 2009 at 16:34 |

    Have the same problem with liveCD

    rebootException: error consloles at Alt-F3/F4
    rebootException: reboot in 120 sec
25. ProNux
    January 18, 2009 at 02:04 |

    Nice tutorial. I missed a few steps at first but I got it….
26. vince
    February 24, 2009 at 15:19 |

    for 4 days ive tried to make this work using this tutorial but i cant..

    here are my questions:
    1) how would you know the syslinux -ma g:(in my case) is successful and the usb may boot now?
    2) what OS are you using really during the processing of the image part? i dont remember windows got ‘mount’ command

    ive tried a couple of combination but im not successful.

    this is the straightest tutorial as i scour the net but i hope you can elaborate.

    further, it would greatly help for a total noob like me if you care to specify where are you (example: pc in windows c: prompt, in pc terminal or inside the usb already) when issuing commands.

    thanks.