[gsingh2011]

I recently got ubuntu 8.10 on my flash drive, but I was wondering if I can use the usb creator in that distro or any other software to make any distro into a bootable flash drive, like a live CD?

[saikee]

No. 3 reasons

(1) A distro has to arrange the kernel and initrd to be bootable from a USB device first. Not all of them care about this functionality.

(2) Not all distros can function as a Live CD. It is more work for their developers.

(3) One can copy the Live CD information onto a USB device but its installer may have been written to fetch the system files from a CDrom device so the booting cannot be completed.

When you put a disto onto a USb device there are two different modes of installation.

The Live CD mode, also called Frugal install, is just to transfer the content of the Live CD onto the USB. The system boots everytime as though from new and the settings are not normally stored as the filing system may be read-onl. The installed image is the same size of the CD image except the CD-based boot loader, called isolinux, is changed to Grub or a disk-based bootloader called syslinux. You can imagine it as a hot dog stall at the street corner, a place you can get a hot dog when the stall is there but the owner will pack up everything and disappear when you go there in the evening. In some Frugal install the Linux system is rolled into a single file that can be stored in a Fat partition, just like a hot dog stall owner pack everything into his van. USb devices are factory-formatted to Fat16 or Fat32, the latter is for 2Gb and above. Since a CD holds only 650Mb so most USB devices can take Frugal install.

One can install a disto on a USB device just like a hard disk. The CD image has to be expanded 2 to 3 times and all settings are stored. This is a full installtion. You can visulise it as a MacDonald a place you can always go for a burger.

There various advantages and disadvantages of the two different modes. The main one is with the former you can use the USB on any computer but information can be temporary. With the latter the installation is specific to one computer but everything is permanent.

Here is an example of showing a previous attempt to put several distros onto a DVD and then USB flash drive. The attempt was 100% successful with the DVD but partially successfull with the USB flash drive in June 2004. It is possoble more distros are written to go into the USB now.