Aug 30
adminLinux Flash Drive, News linux flash drive, linux on usb, USB boot drive
When it comes to portability, USB Flash Drives still reign. And while their capacities increase and prices continue to drop, they have been a major technological advancement for data portability. So how can you take it to the next level? By making an entire PC portable: both the OS and your data.
Puppy Linux Portability Overview
Pendrive Linux
It is true that many Linux distributions are being used in a portable fashion via USB Flash Drives and countless other mediums including external drives and CDs or DVDs. But, what makes Puppy Linux different is its size and features. With a distro that is approximately 100 MB in size, including its default applications, it makes it ideal to go where most other distros have not been, including older and smaller USB Flash Drives. Not only will Puppy Linux operate from a 128 MB USB Flash Drive, it provides ample space to make the distro portable and expandable for daily use.
puppy linux
The Puppy Linux Universal Installer included with the operating system makes the process so easy that anyone can do it, regardless of experience.
- With Puppy Linux running, insert the Puppy Linux Live CD in your PC’s optical drive.
- Plug the USB Flash Drive you wish to install Puppy Linux on and make sure that it is recognized by the system.
- Click on the Install icon located on the desktop to open the Install window.
- In the Universal Installer section, click on the “lightning bolt” icon to launch the Universal Installer.
- In the Puppy Universal Installer window, select the option labeled USB Flash Drive and click on OK to proceed.
- A small window will list all the USB Flash Drives that the system found. Select the one you wish to install Puppy Linux onto and click OK to proceed.
- Review the details about the drive and then click on the upper most button, next to “Install Puppy to…” description to initiate the installation process.
- On the confirmation window, review the details and click OK to proceed.
- When asked where the Puppy files are located, select CD.
- Confirm that the CD is in the drive and click OK.
- When asked about the MBR (Master Boot Record), select the default setting and click OK.
- In the “ABSOLUTE FINAL SANITY CHECK!” prompt, verify all the information and when ready to initiate the install, press the Enter key.
- For a clean install, press any letter followed by the Enter key in the remaining prompts.
- Installation is complete!
source : BrightHub.com
Jul 23
adminLinux Flash Drive, News Encrypted Flash Drive, linux flash drive, USB boot drive, usb flash drive
Nothing can beat having a great Linux distro installed on a super-fast hard drive, with all your favourite apps configured just how you like them and all your files at your fingertips. But this has one major drawback: perfect as your setup is, it’s also just one machine, and sooner or later you’ll be forced to leave that computer behind and use something else. Something that might run Windows. Something that might not even have Firefox.
Because no one likes being parted from their data for too long, we present a smarter option: store it all on a USB flash drive…
In older days, you were able to store Linux on a CD and use a flash drive just to save changes. After some advancements, you were able to run Linux straight from the flash drive, but it didn’t store any changes you made. But the latest generation of Linux distros – namely Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 9 – have a memory overlay system that allows you to store your Linux distro and any changes you make to it on a single flash drive. Sure, you’ll need at least 1GB to be able to fit the entire distro on there, but it does mean everything you need is all on the one device.
Once you switch your install to a flash drive, it means you can take it pretty much anywhere and get back to work immediately. Whether you’re using a server, a desktop or even a tiny little Aspire One or Eee PC, the vast majority of modern computers support booting straight from USB, so you can just plug in your drive and go.
You’ll need a flash drive with at least 1GB of free space, and ISO images of either Ubuntu 8.10 or Fedora 9. It’s likely there are other distros out there that work with similar or perhaps even identical instructions, but Ubuntu and Fedora are the big two so we stuck with them.
One of the first thing you encounter when switching to free software are people who want to let you know all a bout the difference between free beer and free speech, and that’s all very nice. But for most us, nearly all our software is free of cost and free to modify, so in our minds we balk at the idea of paying for functionality. However, if you want to put Linux on a flash drive you really do have to fork out and buy some hardware, so if you don’t already have a good flash drive you need to read this first.
There are five things you’ll want to consider when buying the perfect flash drive for Linux. If we order them with the most important first, it looks like this:
- Reliability. This is easily the most important thing to care about, because it doesn’t matter how cheap, fast and spacious a flash drive is when it dies after 20 minutes. If losing your data is simply not an option (and, let’s face it, that’s almost certainly the case), go for a brand name you trust – we chose Corsair, because it’s a company with a huge amount of experience making quality flash drives, and its Flash Voyager range is designed to be water- and shock-proof.
- Cost. This is always going to be a consideration, but fortunately flash prices have dropped dramatically in recent years – whereas 256MB drives used to be £60 or £70, you can now get 32GB drives for the same price. That’s over 100 times the capacity for the same price!
- Capacity. 1GB is the absolute minimum needed to get started, but it really depends on how much data you want to store – and also how much extra software you want to install. If cost is an issue, the best value drive sizes right now are 4GB or 8GB.
- Speed. The simple rule here is “pay more, get more”. Companies such as OCZ and Corsair specialise in high-performance devices – Corsair even makes a special range of flash drives (known as ‘GT’) that are made from extra-fast components. Remember, your entire computer will be running from this tiny device, so only go for a slow drive if you’re a very, very patient person.
- Size. Arguably the least important consideration is the actual physical size of the flash drive. This isn’t usually a problem because all flash drives are necessarily small, and it’s only if you’re after a particularly tiny one that you even need to consider this. SanDisk’s Cruzer Micro and Corsair’s Flash Voyager Mini both come in 4GB and 8GB capacities, despite being less than half the size of conventional drives.
Make your choice
There are two distinct ways of running Linux from a flash drive, but we’ll only be covering one of them here – and for good reason, as you’ll see.
The two ways are: using your flash drive as a Live CD, and using the drive as a full Linux install. Perhaps surprisingly, the first option is the better one for several reasons:
- Live CDs scan the hardware at boot time, and so are likely to be compatible with the most machines.
- Live CDs must by necessity have a small footprint, which means there’s more space for your files – or you can just buy a smaller, cheaper drive.
- Live CDs run as much as they can in RAM, which makes for better performance.
- Live CDs don’t use swap.
That last point is actually the most important one of all: Linux makes extensive use of hard drives to save temporary data, and if you treat your flash drive as a real hard drive then Linux will use it for swap, too.
The problem is that flash drives, like all flash memory devices, have a limited number of times they can be written to before they fail. Most drives are able to withstand 100,000 writes to every memory sector, but the best can handle up to 1,000,000 and often automatically balance writes to ensure that no one sector gets excessively worn out while others are sitting untouched. Again, this is a reliability factor, so if you care for keeping your data intact for a long time it’s worth you buying a trusted brand.
Just how fast is it?
As fast as flash memory is compared with mechanical hard disks, it’s still limited by the throughput of USB. But on the upside, the lack of swap availability means that Linux will take advantage of your RAM much more, which means the most commonly accessed data will be just as fast if not faster when using USB drives.
If you’re used to using a Live CD, you’ll also be pleased to know there’s much less noise (the triple-digit decibel whir of a busy DVD drive is, of course, absent with flash drives), and there’s also none of the latency that usually happens when the OS lets the DVD drive go idle.
On the flip side, the nature of Live distros means they must detect their environment during boot up, so expect boot times to be a bit longer.
Do it with Ubuntu
Ubuntu 8.10 doesn’t contain much in the ‘wow’ department, but it does come with a USB installation wizard as standard. This works by mimicking the Casper system of running a live operating system from read-only media – with the exception that flash drives aren’t read-only, so you can actually make changes to the OS.
Even after Ubuntu is installed to your drive, it still looks and feels as if it works in Live mode, so you’ll be prompted to choose a language when it boots up. This might seem like an annoyance, but it does come with the added bonus that the Ubuntu hard disk installer is always within reach – you can use your flash drive as an Ubuntu installer on as many PCs as you want.
Get Ubuntu on your flash drive
Start the app
Plug in the drive – Once the app is running, go ahead and plug in your flash drive. Ubuntu will automatically mount the drive, and it will appear in the USB startup disk window.
Download Ubuntu – Now download the version of Ubuntu you want to use. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 32-bit or 64-bit, or whether it’s 8.04 LTS or 8.10. If you have an Ubuntu CD handy, you can use that.
Select your ISO – Click on the Other button to choose the ISO you just downloaded. If you have a real CD, it should be auto-detected.
Choose free space – Make sure you specify that documents and settings be stored in reserved extra space, then drag the slider up as far as you want it. Don’t worry – the space for the Live CD image is automatically deducted.
Sit back and wait – When you’re ready, click Make Startup Disk, then sit back and wait – it will take a few minutes to copy the image, and if you have a large flash drive you can expect it to take up to 10 minutes in total.
reboot pc
Reboot your PC – When the installer finishes, click Quit then reboot your computer. This is the tricky part: you need to press a key to get to your BIOS boot screen then choose the right device.
Booting from your flash drive
The more advanced your motherboard, the more options you will have to boot from. But sometimes even the best motherboards don’t have a USB booting option – even though they support it. To get started, read the BIOS output when your computer boots up and note down which key you have to press to select your boot device. Some BIOSes don’t have such a screen, so you may need to go into the setup system to manually reorder your boot devices. Once that’s done, the next problem is to figure out just which device represents your flash drive.
In our tests, most motherboards that don’t have a single “USB” option instead have things like “USB-FDD”, “USB-CDROM” and even “USB-ZIP”, and one of these was the correct option on all the machines. Of course, your own machine will almost certainly be different, so you’ll probably need to work your way through the most popular options to see what works.
Choose your language – When your USB Linux boots, you’ll see the usual ‘Choose your language’ screen, and it will log in as the Live session user.
customise
Customise! – Your flash drive is finished: now you can make all the customizations you want, because it all gets saved. Add users, add packages, and make it your own!
Make these changes
Once you have your Linux installation, you can do with it as you please. But we’d recommend you make some or all of these simple changes to make it truly feel like home:
- Add your own user. Running under the Live session user will get old sooner or later, so create your own user and home directory, and make sure you give it the “administer the system” privilege.
- Set a strong password for yourself, and/or the root user. Lots of people hate the way Ubuntu insists on using sudo – if you’re one of them, run sudo bash, enter your password, then type passwd to set the root password yourself. After that, su works fine.
- Delete the ‘Install’ item from the desktop. If you want to use your stick to install custom Ubuntus around the office, you’ll want to keep this; otherwise, bin it and don’t look back.
- Customise the software. Replace OpenOffice.org with AbiWord if you want to, or get your favourite coding tools in place.
- Update, update, update: you have a real Linux system now, which means staying up to date with patches and other updates.
It’s important to remember that as you make changes from the default installation, you are possibly straying away from what makes the Live CD so darn useful in the fi rst place. For example, if you configure it to automatically use a specific X.org configuration your graphical display (perhaps to enable 3D hardware acceleration on Nvidia cards using a proprietary driver), it may mean that your flash drive Ubuntu won’t work so well on other machines.
Yes, Ubuntu is supposed to have a failsafe X.org mode that switches to a standard VESA-compatible resolution when it encounters problems, but we find that rarely works when we need it!
Installing to USB
Although the Live USB method of installing Ubuntu is the easiest and safest, there is one good alternative: when you’re installing Ubuntu from a CD-ROM, slot in your flash drive and choose that as the installation target. The problem, as mentioned earlier, is that it will wear down your flash drive with unnecessary writes, and the solution here is to edit your /etc/fstab file so that it uses tmpfs (otherwise known as a RAM disk) for the /tmp directory. For example:
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0
If you have enough RAM you should be able to do without swap entirely, which neatly sidesteps this problem.
source: tuxdar.com
Jun 24
adminLinux Flash Drive Encrypted Flash Drive, linux flash drive, USB boot drive, USB encryption, usb protection
Encrypted USB Drive is cost effective method of securing confidential data. Encrypted USB provides best security for storing and transmitting confidential data.
Insecure USBs can cost company’s millions in damage control, but some company’s continue to use them. The only solution to this is to secure confidential data with a secure USB drive. By doing this company’s can avoid these unnecessary expenditures.
There are plenty of protected USB drives in the market but all protected USB drives are not reliable, some of them use outdated encryption algorithms where USB security comes in danger zone. One must follow some guidelines while buying an encrypted USB such as:
- Drive and encryption works across multiple Operating Systems
- Ability to encrypt files on USB and computer also
- Should provide password management facilities
- An accurate and efficient mechanism for deleting files from the drive
- Should provide you at least AES 256-bit Encryption
AES 256-bit Encryption allows you to get the highest level USB protection available for your files. We can also divide USB devices into secure area and public area after encryption. Encrypted Linux Flash Drives has higher level of security. Data on secure area will be accessible only through password but on public area it will be accessible to anyone. One can also hide data for better security on USB by deleting the files and recovering back when needed.
Theft of valuable data is rising day by day with inferior USB drives.If a company is not using USB encryption it is not taking essential steps to protect their data.Using encrypted flash drives are best option to ensure that you are not next victim to data theft. So encrypted USB drive is an effective tool for protection of your data from inside and outside threats.
Jun 19
adminLinux Flash Drive Encrypted Flash Drive, linux flash drive, USB boot drive, USB encryption, usb protection
USB flash drives have become essential devices in all organizations, thats because of their low cost and ease of use. But with these handy devices there is a bigger risk, they can also serve as a tremendous source of data leakage.Here we have a solution to this high security risk – LOK-IT Secure Flash Drive. USB encryption and authentication are handled on the drive itself, so there is no software involved- no driver updates, no software updates, no admin privileges necessary, and no worries about whether you may or may not be able to open stored files on any operating system.
Jun 18
adminLinux Flash Drive Encrypted Flash Drive, linux flash drive, USB boot drive, USB encryption, usb protection
USB security must be a no-brainer because we all need to protect our vital information and personal data on USB flash drives. This is particularly important as the usage of these small-sized flash drives is getting increased day by day along with the incidences of lost and stolen USB drives that ultimately leads to data loss and privacy breach.
Surely, we all might not carry private and confidential stuff on these portable drives all the time, so we would not have to be anxious about privacy breach and identity theft every time we use them, but there are some confidential data that we would certainly not want to slip into the wrong hands, and for that we simply password protect our USB drives or try the most complicated encryption option. Since the encryption method is very complicated, many users prefer password protecting their USB flash drive.
You must have heard that USB drives have been accused for privacy breach and identity theft just because they are small enough to get stolen and misplaced. Even though, many people are using them to take their data from one PC to another. This has been a positive approach towards USB and other storage devices.
To attain complete USB security in USB drive, you must have a strong password locking protection that is easy to use but impossible to break like that of USB Secure which is very easy to use when it comes to protect your flash drive but its protection is so hard that it cannot be broken.
You can find numbers of USB Security software but the point is that you have to select the BEST among them, and how do you decide which software is the Best? I always recommend not to use any freeware security application as they pose great risk of data loss. This does not mean that you should have to buy a very expensive security software. You should always keep few things in mind when you want to buy any USB security software; e.g. what kind of security you want for your USB drive and how many portable devices you want to protect with it as many of us carry more than one portable devices like flash drive, memory cards and external drive, so it is important to have a security software that supports all type of storage devices.
Source:Ezinearticles.com
Jun 17
adminLinux Flash Drive Encrypted Flash Drive, linux flash drive, USB boot drive, USB encryption, usb protection
It would not be wrong to say that a large number of people are carrying their life on USB encrypted flash drives. Whether, it is their email, contacts, current/ongoing work, passwords, useful utilities or anything else that they need, people like to carry it on their flash drives. The small size, capacity to store large amount of data, simple operating system, USB encryption etc are some of the qualities that makes it the most popular and useful tool in the computer technology.
Some of the other advantages of USB flash drive are that it can easily be inserted into the USB port of the computer and the data can be easily and safely transferred in to the computer. It is a useful and reliable source as compared floppy disks as they are small, don’t gather much space and are not delicate as floppies and disks. USB encrypted flash drives provide more benefits to its users than storing information. Flash drives these days can also be used for getting an entire operating system on them. It can be done with the help of firmware available for the PCs. Linux flash drive is one of the most common operating system used these days and is beneficial if you are looking forward to indulge in multitasking like installing operating systems across a network or for loading minimal kernel for embedded operations or maintenance tasks.
Even though it has been called the most useful tool in the computer technology concern has always been raised about safety and security of the USB encrypted flash drive. Being of the small size that it is, none of us can renounce the fact that it is quite easy to lose a flash drive or forget it somewhere or what if someone tries to steal it knowing that you keep all your essential data and information in it. To overcome this situation and to keep all your information and data secured, all you need is USB protection. You can now easily protect all your data and private information by encrypting your data and controlling access to it with a password.
With USB protection now available it is no possible to all your data without any fear of it being misused. In the end, all we can say is that USB flash drives have improved as per the requirement of the users and will keep changing to match the changing needs of the users.
Jun 08
adminNews linux flash drive, USB boot drive, usb flash drive
Handy for portable file storage, system maintenance, and plenty of other uses!
Installing a fast, versatile, and modern Linux operating system in a commonly available flash memory device. Bootable USB Linux systems are useful tools for handling many of today’s computing challenges. It is something I realized after suffering a computer crash. System files had become corrupted, and my backup software wouldn’t work either. I was in a pinch, because there were records that I needed badly, and they were held captive by a PC that would not cooperate in any way. Compounding the irritation was the fact that that I had backed up documents onto a CD and yet couldn’t get them because the whole system was down!
Solving the problem was a hours long exercise involving a trip to the nearest library to access and print my documents, then a visit to the local electronics emporium for a system rescue CD, and a return home to fix the problems on my hard drive. After getting my system up and running again, I made a discovery that would forever change the way I used my PC, and forever banished worries about my data.
What was the discovery? Live Linux – on-a-disc. Fundamentally different than the windows rescue discs circulating at the time, a live Linux cisc can be either a CD or DVD that is used to boot the computer into an operating environment independent of its local hard drive. The live stand alone system contains all of the programs the user needs for fixing the PC and / or accessing the internet, doing word processing, playing multimedia files – literally ANYTHING a computer can do. That is a very, very, nifty capability!
First I tried KNOPPIX, a CD that allowed me to scan my Windows drive for viruses, surf the net, and edit a job resume at the same time. Then I found SLAX, a small and fast linux distribution that was easy to customize through the use of installable software modules. One evening, I made one that loads entirely into memory (for speed), provides internet utilities (web browsing, email, audio streaming, etc), and neither touches the hard drive nor leaves any usage tracks when the system is turned off. That completely prevents infection of my main system by spyware, adware, viruses, or any other malware! A few days later, I set up a dual-boot scheme on my hard drive. One side was Windows, and the other a customized SLAX containing an office productivity suite, allowing me to edit documents, work with powerpoint presentations, and build spreadsheets, then save them to my hard drive before shutting down. It was cutting edge in a lot of ways, but not so convenient.
At that time, I was spending a lot of time waiting for my computer to write, erase, or rewrite to my optical discs, and knew there had to be a better way to both customize a distro and save my data and settings (called “persistent changes”) in a more convenient manner. A Google search turned up the answer: move everything off of optical discs and onto a flash memory device. Shirt pocket portability combined with full featured computing power – perfect. One flash drive with lots of storage AND its own operating system provides NUMEROUS advantages:
* PC repair: access any data on the hard drive, and repair as necessary.
* PC data recovery / forensics: access and copy any part or all of the hard drive, without altering data.
* Sterile internet access: operate in an isolated manner, preventing malware / spyware from getting into main system.
* Security: a secure, encrypted partition may be used for storing sensitive data.
* Portability: flash drives are small, portable, and some are quite rugged.
* Durability: no moving parts to break; no delicate surfaces to scratch.
* Convenience: flash drives hold as much data as multiple DVDs or CDs, while considerably smaller.
* Flexibility: A Linux flash drive, with persistant changes allows you to compute your way on any system.
Follow the links on this website for step by step installation and set-up instructions. Note that these systems are quite flexible; you can create a USB stick with one or many operating systems. Each optimized for a specific purpose with specific settings.
source : www.ab9il.net
May 07
adminLinux Flash Drive encrypted us, linux flash drive, secure usb, USB boot drive
Some people opt to have an open source operating system running on their computers. This is practical nowadays especially if you do not have enough money for license fees. But in using free OS such as Linux, some encounters problem when doing data backups. The common dilemma of these users is that their flash drives are not recognized by the computer. To solve this problem, you will need a flash drive which is host independent or cross platform.
Looking for a Linux flash drive is not an easy task but searching for flash drives which run on different platforms is a bit easier. This host-independent flash drives are so convenient to use because of their ability to run on different operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS. You can also use these storage devices on any office equipment as long as it supports USB mass storage.
Finding a flash drive that runs on Linux is your main goal, but you cannot ignore the fact that protecting your data is a more important task. Usually, a host-independent flash drive uses hardware authentication and encryption. This is because when a storage device operates without the use of software then you can practically plug it anywhere. This type of flash drive is also self-secured because all the security mechanisms are present within the device.
It is also important to know that the computer is not involved in using a flash drive that implements hardware authentication. In this case, having a Linux OS will not be a factor at all. But make sure that the hardware security being implemented is so reliable and trustworthy so that no illegal access and misuse on your data will occur.
There are other flash drive users whose concern is on the ease of use of this hardware authenticated storage devices. But basically there is no need to worry because hardware mechanisms for security code or password input are easy to use as well. You will not need to do any spectacular things because in most cases, you will just need to plug your flash drive and enter the correct code then you are already authenticated.
If you are using a Linux OS then you should not worry anymore because there are lots of flash drives that run on any platform nowadays. Some even provide PIN security with hardware authentication. So just be critical in buying one, read all the features and make sure that they will satisfy your need on data storage and security.
Apr 07
adminLinux Flash Drive encrypted us, linux flash drive, secure usb, USB boot drive
If you are going to buy a flash drive specially made for Linux OS then you will surely have a hard time. But if you look for something that is host independent then you will easily find one. This type of flash drive will also run on your Linux OS so basically you have achieved the same thing.
In the past, you can only run a flash drive on different platforms if you have the appropriate drivers for it. Usually you will need to secure an installer per platform. But nowadays, this is not the case anymore. With the emergence of flash drives that are host independent and runs on different platforms, plugging and using your storage device became easier than before.
Some flash drive users doubt the security mechanisms on host-independent flash drives. They believe that once the software is removed then the authentication feature is gone as well. But again, this is not the case anymore nowadays. You should know that most flash drives in the market are already using hardware authentication and encryption. It means that even if the driver or installer is removed, you will still have a security mechanism through the hardware security feature.
This hardware security may come on different forms. The normal approach is to provide a password input mechanism which allows the users to enter their respective code. Again, if you use Linux then you do not have to worry anything because this type of flash drives authenticates the user without creating any channel to the host computer’s operating system. So if a hacker attack is initiated during the authentication and it works by exploiting the data channel connection between the host computer and the flash drive, then it will absolutely fail since there are no connections established in the authentication process.
As you can see, hardware authentication also uses two-factor authentication. But it is implemented in an easier way because all you need to have is the flash drive and the password, unlike in software authentication wherein you will rely to the installer to initiate the security feature. Losing the installer disc will then disable all the security features of your flash drive, so imagine how inconvenient it is.
If you are an avid Linux user and currently encountering problems in transferring and storing your data then do not worry anymore because you can now do it with ease and greater confidence. This is because there are host-independent and cross-platform secure linux flash drive options with numerous provide better security features.
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