Make a USB Boot CD for CrunchBang Linux

Updated By - November 27, 2009

The following tutorial will enable you to create a USB boot CD that can be used to Boot CrunchBang Linux from a USB flash drive on systems that do not natively support booting from USB. The Boot CD uses a grub bootloader to launch the vmlinuz kernel and initrd from the CD, loading the necessary USB drivers, and then proceeds to locate and extract the compressed filesystem from the flash drive. CrunchBang Linux is a unique remix based on Ubuntu.

USB Boot CD for CrunchBang Linux creation essentials:

  • PC with a BIOS that does not support booting from USB
  • CrunchBang Live CD
  • Working CD Drive and USB Port
  • Flash drive

How to Create a CD to Boot CrunchBang from USB

    1. Insert the Live CD and restart, booting from the CD
    2. Open a terminal and type mkdir -p usbcdcb/boot/grub
    3. Type cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito usbcdcb/boot/grub
    4. Type gedit usbcdcb/boot/grub/menu.lst
    5. Add the following information to your menu.lst file and save it

title Run CrunchBang from USB DISK
root (cd)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/custom.seed boot=casper noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
boot

  1. Type cp /cdrom/casper/vmlinuz ~/usbcdcb/boot
  2. Type sudo gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
    Add the following lines to the modules file and click save:

    usbcore
    usb-storage
    uhci_hcd
    ohci_hcd
    ehci_hcd
    sd_mod
    scsi_mod

  3. Type sudo gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
    Add the following line to the bottom of the file and click save:

    WAIT=8

  4. Type sudo mkinitramfs -o usbcdcb/boot/initrd.gz
  5. Type mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o usbcdcb.iso usbcdcb
  6. Burn the usbcdcb.iso to a CD

Booting from the USB Boot CD for CrunchBang

  1. Shutdown your computer
  2. Insert the USB Boot CD and your CrunchBang USB drive
  3. Set your BIOS or Startup Menu to boot from CD
  4. Start your computer (booting from the CD)

The USB Boot CD should load the necessary USB drivers, locate filesystem.squashfs on your flash drive, and then proceed to boot the operating system from the USB device.