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Wishes warning! This article or section documents one or more OpenMoko Wish List items, the features described here may or may not be implemented in the future. |
An openmoko device could act as the perfect geeky swiss knive: go anywhere with your Linux desktop and tools.
When the openmoko device is in mass storage mode, a host computer should be able to boot on it, presenting a grub menu offering to boot into several images / partitions (payloads) on the transflash: memtest, UBCD (the ultimate boot cd), a lightweight security oriented livecd distro, you name it...
It's sometimes called Live USB: from Wikipedia LiveUSB definition, A live USB is a USB flash drive containing a full operating system which can be booted from. Live USBs are closely related to Live CDs, and are sometimes used interchangeably. Like Live CDs, Live USBs can be used for system administration, data recovery, or the testing of operating system distributions without committing to a permanent installation on the local hard drive. Many of the smaller Linux distributions can also be used from a USB flash drive.
Usually, all you need for this with an USB storage device (flash USB stick or external drive) is a partition, flagged "bootable" (see fdisk), containing a boot loader (say grub). But the problem is that specifications vary between motherboards, so there are variants and mandatory requirements to define (here would be a good idea), so that one can optimize/maximize the compatibility.
Testing/further research has to be conducted to determine:
The ideal way of doing it would be to have a bootloader on the usb flash, which would offer booting directly from an iso (stored on the very same device). This way, just download the new iso, and it's updated !
Hints:
Similar functionality can be found in the Wizpy portable media player
That way, one can install a new iso when it's released. An updater script shall be written.
Summary: When the neo/openmoko device is connected in mass storage mode to a linux host,
$ sudo syslinux -f /dev/sd?
* Flash installation via Windows: XUbuntu, DSL, Knoppix, Slax, MiniMe * Flash installation via Linux: Ubuntu Edgy, Knoppix, PCLinuxOS
Grub example (from stock /boot/grub/menu.lst ubuntu install):
title Ubuntu, memtest86+ root (hd0,2) kernel /memtest86+.bin quiet boot
The following tutorial explains how to use Qemu to boot Linux from a portable USB flash device while still working within Windows. This Enables the user to have both systems running at the same time eliminating the need to restart the PC and set your BIOS options to boot Linux.
System diagnostics / recovery
General purpose
Security-oriented: pentesting, forensics, anonymous webbrowsing
List of live distros @ wikipedia