How-to: Create a CAELinux2008 LiveUSB

Don't know if anyone else has been trying to do this; either way I'll post how I did it just in case. I used Windows to do this; if on Linux, you should be able to just open the DVD and copy the files from it after you burn yourself a copy. Otherwise I don't know of a program for Linux that can open iso images directly.

Prep:
1. Download the CAELinux iso from this site.
2. Download SYSLINUX from: syslinux.zytor.com/
3. Download IsoBuster from: www.isobuster.com/

Actual work:
4. Format the thumb drive you're going to use as FAT32 (may work with FAT16 a.k.a FAT)
5. Open up a command prompt and go to the directory where you placed SYSLINUX
6. Type "syslinux -m -a -d /syslinux/ [the drive letter of the thumb drive]" i.e. "syslinux -m -a -d /syslinux/ e:", in my case
7. Open the CAELinux iso in IsoBuster and extract the isolinux folder and livecd.sqfs to your thumb drive.
8. Rename the "isolinux" folder to "syslinux"
9. SYSLINUX didn't seem to like the isolinux.cfg after I renamed it (to syslinux.cfg), so I'd just make a new syslinux.cfg with the following:
DEFAULT caelinux
LABEL caelinux
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND livecd=livecf initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/rd/3 acpi=on vga=788 keyb=us splash=silent fstab=rw,noauto

Make sure syslinux.cfg is in the "syslinux" folder.
10. The end.

Notes:

Didn't copy any of the other boot entries into my syslinux.cfg; never had the need to use em.

Comments are welcome, especially if there's an easier way to do this. So far I'm very pleased, it boots much faster off of a thumb drive. Cheers.

recently tried this so I could boot the v2008 on a PC without a DVD (plan on installing, so VM solution not an option)

anyway, documenting a few errors that popped up:

1) following the exact instructions above, my computer would show the PCLinuxOS splash screen with progress bar, but hang about 10% of the way through, and the Caps Lock and Scroll Lock lights were flashing, indicating some kernel error, usually hardware related.

replaced splash=silent with nosplash so that I could see the detailed boot process.

the boot hangs at "Probing SCSI devices".

so I added noscsi to the end of the APPEND line.

2) gets past that point, but now it can't find the boot image. It shows:

Searching for the loop image:
/dev/hda1
/dev/hda2
[DONE]
ERROR: Unable to mount the livecd

So, it's not searching my sdX's for the .sqfs file. (i think that's what it's looking for now). did my noscsi do that, or is it something in the append line?

(will edit with anything of interest.)

didn't fix it, but safe to assume the "livecf" is supposed to be "livecd" ?

Post edited by: Nick J., at: 2010/12/09 20:42

And, never did fix the scsi thing, but the LiveUSB worked fine without the noscsi on a different computer (apparently without whatever conflict caused the issue on the first computer). Some in between solution (disabling some SCSI but allowing the parts needed for USB) would be nice. but not worrying about it for now.

Biggest problem was that the CAElinux 2008 wound up being a bit problematic after I installed it to the hard drive. First thing I tried to do was run a synaptic update for a bunch of things. All of the default repositories failed to connect on the first try. turning on all of the included repositories, only one would connect. I assume that too much is just out of date. Even with the valid repository, I was unable to upgrade any packages. Even just upgrading firefox failed.

So, only owning 32-bit hardware, I guess I'm a bit out of luck. I saw some other threads saying it &quot;wouldn't be too difficult&quot; to turn a more recent version of any other 32 bit linux distro into something like CAELinux, but that kind of defeats the purpose.<br /><br />Post edited by: Nick J., at: 2010/12/12 05:56

Well, bad news, because PCLinuxOS 2007/2009 (the base OS of CAELinux 2008) is no longer mantained because there's a new version, 2010, that had many changes and thus not allowing to keep the rolling release of PCLOS 2009. PCLOS 2010 is, however, a rolling distro and will keep on for several years.
All the previous paragraphs mean that the preloaded repos in CAELinux 2008 will never work again because they are empty or perhaps inexistent (you may check it with your favorite browser). There was however one last repo created specifically as a final snapshot of the 2009 repos, so that users not willing to change to PCLOS 2010 could keep using the old version (like me, hehe), but since some days ago it seems to be down too, and when I check it with the browser the files are simply not there, only source rpms .
Anyway, for rpm lovers you can still try the newer PCLOS 2010 (only available in 32bit) or my new favorite, Unity Linux which is developed by a group including former PCLOS developers (CAELinux 2008 users will notice many similarities in the OS structure). It doesn't have (yet) a repo as big as PCLOS, but it has both 32 and 64bit versions, usually the packages are the latest, the comunity is active, and it's ideal if you want to build your own OS through remastering. That's because basic Unity is just a 300MB iso with core packages and Openbox and then you pull in what you want (including other desktops), but there are many other ready-to-use OS (all live-CD) made from it like HUMANity, UnitE17, etc..

I've been using Unity to make &quot;my own CAELinux&quot;, so I reccomend it seriously if you want to go cutting edge and love spending some time understanding the guts of your system. I compiled from source there OFoam 1.7, Elmer, Saturne 2.0, OCascade and a bunch others... no complaints at all, but you need a lot of patience, compiling can take easily a lot of hours.