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General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LePaul on February 26, 2008, 08:16:01 PM

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: LePaul on February 26, 2008, 08:16:01 PM

I'm seeing 8 to 16gb thumb drives these days.  I bought a 4gb a few days ago and its excellent, USB 2.0.

I was pondering using one for the robot project, if it could be done?  I've gone through a few zillion Google hits tonight and just can't seem to find a recent article that shows how to do it.

A thumb drive, with no moving parts and its speed, would be a superb replacement for a hard drive in the robot.  The power savings alone make it rather intriguing.

Anyone tried this?  Running Windows XP from a flash drive?

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Airscrew on February 26, 2008, 08:27:18 PM

I dont know about xp, but maybe DOS or Win 3.1.   It just a drive, similar to an MP3 player, and they have little mini operating systems on them.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: rpm on February 26, 2008, 08:57:38 PM

I don't see why it would'nt work.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: OOZ662 on February 26, 2008, 10:27:21 PM

The larger thumb drives could hold a stripped down XP. I install XP Home on a 15gb partition on this computer; it takes up around 8.

Just remember that thumb drives have a different read/write system than a hard drive, which is pretty inefficient speed wise. However, many people make their own "clean-boot" Linux drives that they plug into public computers and boot from. They have basic software including office programs, Firefox, ect. This not only lets you save your work and work in familiar programs with familiar space, but it keeps the owners of the machine from watching your every move (like they do at my school). If the boot order is incorrect on the machine (or it's older than the idea of bootable flash drives) you might not be able to pull that off, though.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Yknurd on February 27, 2008, 06:44:13 AM

There have been Linux bootable thumbdrives for a while now.

[edit]Also, there are several Linux distributions with LiveCDs.

Pop in the LiveCD, boot the computer and the Linux installation runs off the CD.

A normal looking desktop comes up and it auto-detects your hardware, including network cards and wifi.

Nothing is installed onto the computer unless you double click on the Install icon on the desktop.  Great way to test drive a new distribution.

Only cost to you is the time to download (for free) and the CD (or maybe DVD) to burn.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Trell on February 27, 2008, 07:42:17 AM

You are going to have issues getting xp to boot from a usb drive of any kind.
If you do some google searching there are some instructions on how to do it.

If you search for bartpe,  i believe they will have instructions for you.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Chairboy on February 27, 2008, 08:12:55 AM

BartPE doesn't create an XP bootable drive, of course, it makes a WinPE bootable volume that uses components of XP (or whatever OS you have installed) to make a very pared down bootable OS.

Windows PE is probably your best bet as long as your droid OS doesn't have any wacky dependencies on files that aren't installed.  Like, it doesn't use IE, right?  There are lots of guides on how to use BartPE or PEBuilder, here's one you may have seen:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6346-5928902.html

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: sluggish on February 27, 2008, 08:18:25 AM

Would it be possible to use a hacked PDA for the CPU of your robot?

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Chairboy on February 27, 2008, 08:27:20 AM

I'm guessing LePaul is planning on using some Windows software to run.  A Windows Mobile PDA can't do that yet.  There are some sub-micro PCs that are about as big that can, and he's probably heading in that direction.  I'd guess that either an old laptop or something based around a nano-itx motherboard would be the best bet.  Laptop is nice because you don't have to deal with power and stuff, just configure it to stay on when the lid is shut and have it control everything through USB.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: LePaul on February 27, 2008, 09:39:13 AM

As he pointed out ^^

Not enough peripheral connects.  I need 2-3 USB and one serial.

Linux would require a complete re-write of the DLLs for the servo controllers.

With USB flash drives getting bigger, I really think this is attainable.  Just how to get there  :)  Its effectively a less expensive solid-state disk

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Tac on February 27, 2008, 11:03:14 AM

Why would you run a robot with Windows?


Use UBUNTU


And yes, I have my old pentium III 1ghz running out of a USB hard drive. Its really weird but the computer is significantly faster than when using a regular hard disk. I have the USB as the boot + OS + installed programs drive and the hard drive as 'hard' storage (all files not related to installed programs..aka downloaded files, saved games, documents, etc).

IMO I do not know why they havent made a computer that works 100% on USB.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Chairboy on February 27, 2008, 12:03:34 PM

Tac, probably because there's more to building a robot than turning on a computer and saying "Klaatu, barada, nikto!"

If you're not developing the software from scratch, then you're limited to the OS that the pre-existing software runs on.  There are plenty of good robot controller programs out for Windows, he may have already picked one that does what he needs.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Yknurd on February 27, 2008, 12:13:57 PM

Quote

Originally posted by Chairboy
Tac, probably because there's more to building a robot than turning on a computer and saying "Klaatu, barada, nikto!"

HA.  I know that one.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Chairboy on February 27, 2008, 12:15:37 PM

Ah yes, but do you know it from the right context?  Or are you thinking Army of Darkness?  ;)

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Airscrew on February 27, 2008, 12:22:05 PM

Quote

Originally posted by Chairboy
Tac, probably because there's more to building a robot than turning on a computer and saying "Klaatu, barada, nikto!"

maybe "Clatto, Verata, Nicto" would work?

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: sluggish on February 27, 2008, 01:35:40 PM

Doesn't a Mac run it's OS from flash memory?

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: LePaul on February 27, 2008, 05:25:27 PM

Ironically, Windows XP runs best on an iMac...and boy Ive been tempted!  But its the power footprint I continue to try to balance with the space available inside the droid.

A laptop inside the robot is one way...as well as a DC powered mini-ITX system.  The car pcs go ths route, using a special interface that powers the system down before exhausting the batteries.

The stuff I've coded is under Microsoft C# and Visual Basic.  I'd hate to take all that and re-do it under Linux.

ubuntu is neat, we have a few tablet PCs running it here at the hospital, just trying it out.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: outbreak on February 27, 2008, 06:10:45 PM

ubuntu offers free cds, available in Single or Mass Quanitys, just check there website, downside takes 2-4 weeks to arrive, but once it does you got a Live version of ubuntu runnin on the CD :).

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: LePaul on February 27, 2008, 06:22:42 PM

Already have access to it.  :)

Re-read what I wrote.  Just because its a nice new operating system doesnt mean it will work with the USB Servo controllers, motor controllers and power management applications I have

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Chairboy on February 27, 2008, 07:06:26 PM

LePaul, I've had great luck with Opus DC-DC power supplies in my CarPC.  But an old lappy might be cheaper.

Title: Bootable Thumbdrive?
Post by: Heater on February 28, 2008, 04:56:38 AM

We do it all the time,
Not only XP but Windows 2003 Server / working on a 2008 Version as we speak and of Course Linux works fine (all are striped down to the bare bones) but it works

So long as the system will support it

Cheers