LinuxCNC 2.5 will not install to USB drive

I am trying to install LinuxCNC 2.5 to USB 16 MB Sandisk Cruzer. When I reboot my computer into the USB drive the splash screen appears saying " Unable to find a medium containing a live file system".

I used the program in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and I tried several other installers but none worked.

How can I install this on a USB

Hi

I have done this many times, so it works.

Have a look at
help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

Also go into BIOS and make sure that 'boot from USB' is turned on and that the device address it defaults to booting from, is the one you are putting your stick into.
(If you have a card reader built in it could have 6 - 8 different addresses)

regards

Hi Again

Assuming you have done all the above OK, the problem is likely to be this

ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1273928

Although the previous link I posted only says the Sandisk U3 / Launchpad is a problem with 11.04, looks like it goes a lot deeper than that.
You can download a windoze tool to remove the U3 from the stick ( link in the forum post link above) and it should then be able to be partitioned, formatted and booted from as per a normal stick.

Sandisk have a good reputation for quality, but why do they have to muck around with something as simple and generic as USB storage?

regards

Thanks for your quick reply.

I did not explain well what I am trying to do.

I have ECM2 running my CNC machine and it works very well. My CNC machine is out in my machine shop which is not heated.
The disk drive is affected by the temperature swings.

What I want is to install a bootable copy of LinuxCNC onto the USB disk and run the program from the USB disk.

Can you help me do that?

Hi

I'm afraid I don't really understand what you are asking.

Linuxcnc is not an operating system, it is a program, as such you cannot boot it.
You need to install the entire operating system to USB stick from the Live Cd iso ( Ubuntu 10.04 - which includes Linuxcnc ), then you can boot it and run Linuxcnc from the running OS.
Running fron USB stick is not fast however (see below)

If you just installed Linuxcnc on the USB stick, even if you got all the symlinks and PATHs etc so that it would run, you would still be running from your HDD with just that 1 application on USB.

My CNC machine is out in my machine shop which is not heated.
The disk drive is affected by the temperature swings.

Another solution to this would be to consider a SSD.
There are no moving parts and the temperature range tolerance will be far larger than a conventional HDD.

It is claimed that Solid-State Flash Disk operates at industrial temperatures range of -40°C to +85°C and storage temperature range of -55°C to +95°C.
I'm sure this far exceeds your workshop!

It doesn't have to be huge or costly if you just run Linuxcnc on it. The system will install in about 2.4GB, so anything 4GB + will suffice.


regards

Thanks for the help.

I am now looking at solid state hard drives. My computer is only ATA 100 hard drive and it supports Ultra DMA on the IDE slots.

I think I am going to buy a Syba SD-CF-IDE-A compact flash to IDE adapter. I hope it supports a 32 GB compact flash.

Regards,

Hi

I think I am going to buy a Syba SD-CF-IDE-A compact flash to IDE adapter. I hope it supports a 32 GB compact flash.

In which case read this
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Install_To_CompactFlash

The important thing is to set it up in fstab to minimise writes and thus extend the life of the CF card.

Buy the fastest CF card you can get (266x - 300x) and it works very well, you won't need 32GB if you want to keep costs down.

The thread below is for a very small footprint PC we tested which solely uses CF, it boots very quickly.
www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/compo...=18&id=20692&limit=6

regards

Hi,

I purchased the IDE to CF card I was talking about, and a 16 GB compact flash with a read speed of 400x.

Are the instructions for installing the CF card still good? They were done in 2008.

Regards.

are the instructions for installing the CF card still good? They were done in 2008.

The only thing that has changed about CF cards is that they have become much faster and cheaper.

Basically all you do is:

Establish what device your CF card comes up as (/dev/sdb or whatever)

Boot the Live CD, select install and when choosing the drive to install to in the partition manager, choose the CF card
as the '/' (root of filesystem) and the file system format as ext3

IMPORTANT - on the final page of the partitioning section of the install, click the advanced button and change the GRUB installation
to the MBR of the CF card, or it will default to your hard drive.

You can edit /etc/fstab once up and running.

regards