Using Pendrive Linux to Install Porteus to USB

Using the Universal Linux USB Installer from Pendrive Linux to Install Porteus to USB

Although installing Porteus to a USB device is a fairly simple procedure, if you are having troubles then perhaps this tool is the answer. You will need to have downloaded the porteus .iso file or you can create a Gzip tarball from existing porteus files using a free application such as peazip.

The following is a list of what you will need in order to set up porteus on your USB:

  1. Universal-USB-InstallUniversal-USB-Installer-x.x.x.x.exe (get it here)
  2. Windows XP/Vista/7 to create the USB (Win 98/2K WILL NOT Work!)
  3. Fat32 Formatted Flash Drive
  4. PC with a BIOS that can boot from USB
  5. Your Favorite Linux ISO (Get it here)

Once you have these you simply double click on the Universal-USB-Installer-x.x.x.x.exe and follow the prompts and choose Porteus from the list. Your Porteus tarball must be named exactly as it appears in the list otherwise you will not see it when searching your files through the program. You will be asked to choose your USB drive and you porteus tarball. After this everything else is done for you and you should be left with a USB that boots into porteus.

A NOTE ABOUT SAVING YOUR CHANGES IN PORTEUS:

Please note that if Porteus is installed on a FAT32 partition (almost all flash drives are formatted with a FAT32 filesystem by default) and you want your changes to persist between reboots, you must use a save.dat file.  More information on how and why to do this can be found here.