Re: Octave in live USB?

[Chengqi Chang]

The key to this problem is not how to install Octave into a USB stick but  
how to install a linux in USB.

According to my experience, it is very easy to install Ubuntu into USB  
sticks. Several steps:
1. Insert Ubuntu live CD (I chose Ubuntu 8.04), insert the USB stick
2. Boot from Ubuntu live CD,
3. Select the "install " menu.
4. When being asked about "Disk Partition", choose "manual"
5. Select the USB stick, part it into two partitions. One is mounted as  
"/", the rest is mounted as "swap". The swap partition can be quite small  
--- since USB speed is very slow, swap space in the USB stick will rarely  
be used. Which also means you may need large RAM.
6. If you've already installed a linux on the hard disk, make sure the  
swap partition on hard disk is not mounted.
7. Click "Next" or "OK" until the last step before copying files. In that  
step, you are asked to confirm all your choices.(As I am awared, it is the  
7th step of Ubuntu 8.04 installation). There is a button on the right side  
of the window, by clicking which you can choose where to install "GRUB"

Now you have three choices:
1st: install GRUB into the USB stick. Then each time you turn on the  
computer, you choose "Boot from USB" to start Ubuntu on USB stick. A  
problem usually occurs that: when you boot from CD, the USB stick is  
"hd1"(The hard disk is HD0); however, when you boot from USB stick  
directly, it may becomes "HD0"(Correspondingly, the hard drive becomes  
HD1). Therefore, if the booting process halts at the GRUB menu, you may  
have to modify "menu.lst" of GRUB.
2nd: Choose not to install GRUB. If there is already a GRUB installed on  
the hard disk, just add a menu item, which points to the linux image in  
the USB stick, into "menu.lst" file.
3rd: Choose not to install GRUB. If the system is MS's Windows 2000 or XP  
or Vista, you can download GRUB4DOS, and add a menu item into "menu.lst"  
file pointing to linux image in the USB stick.

To install Octave, you can simply run "aptitude" and then add "Octave".

Till now, you've successfully installed a linux with Octave into a Flash  
disk. It works exactly the same as that in hard drives, except for the  
slow reading and writing speed.
Fortunately, computation speed is not undermined.

Have fun!
--
Best Regards!
---------------------------
Sincerely Yours             Chengqi Chang
China Center for Economic Research
Mail: address@hidden
Personal Website: http://macro2.cn