website annotate en/doc/manuals/tazusb.en.html @ rev 169

en: Update Tazusb Manual (roadmap) and Edits
author Paul Issott <paul@slitaz.org>
date Wed Sep 17 20:49:14 2008 +0000 (2008-09-17)
parents 9e30e64c8198
children 4fc4af3cd0cc
rev   line source
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MikeDSmith25@117 3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
pankso@7 4 <head>
pankso@7 5 <title>TazUSB - SliTaz Live utility English manual</title>
pankso@7 6 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
pankso@7 7 <meta name="description" content="slitaz bootable media LiveUSB key hd SD card" />
pankso@7 8 <meta name="expires" content="never" />
MikeDSmith25@117 9 <meta name="modified" content="2008-07-18 20:00:00" />
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pankso@7 23 </head>
pankso@7 24 <body bgcolor="#ffffff">
pankso@7 25 <div id="header">
pankso@7 26 <h1><font color="#3e1220">TazUSB Manual</font></h1>
pankso@7 27 </div>
pankso@7 28 <hr />
pankso@7 29 <!-- Start content -->
pankso@7 30 <div id="content">
pankso@7 31
paul@45 32 <h2>NAME</h2>
pankso@7 33 <p>
MikeDSmith25@117 34 TazUSB - SliTaz LiveUSB utility
pankso@7 35 </p>
pankso@7 36
pankso@7 37 <h2>SYNTAX</h2>
pankso@7 38 <pre>
paul@169 39 tazusb [command] [compression|device|file]
pankso@7 40 </pre>
pankso@7 41
pankso@7 42 <h2>DESCRIPTION</h2>
pankso@7 43 <p>
MikeDSmith25@117 44 TazUSB is a utility designed for installing SliTaz to a USB drive. Unlike a hard drive install, the filesystem is kept in a compressed "rootfs.gz" file. The filesystem is loaded entirely into memory upon boot. This should increase responsiveness, protect the filesystem against accidental corruption and reduce read/writes to the USB drive. Once setup, this utility can also rewrite the root filesystem with any changes you have made since booting up, giving the effective benefits of a hard drive install.
pankso@7 45 </p>
pankso@7 46 <p>
pankso@7 47 TazUSB supports both FAT32/EXT3 formatted drives using SYSLINUX and EXTLINUX respectively. "/home" is mounted on boot using the UUID of your particular flash drive. Unlike a device name, the UUID has the benefit of never changing from machine to machine.
pankso@7 48 </p>
pankso@7 49
pankso@7 50 <h2>COMMANDS</h2>
pankso@7 51 <h3><font color="#6c0023">usage</font></h3>
pankso@7 52 <p>
pankso@9 53 The command 'usage' will display a short summary of all available commands.
pankso@7 54 </p>
pankso@7 55 <pre>
pankso@7 56 # tazusb usage
pankso@7 57 </pre>
pankso@7 58
pankso@7 59 <h3><font color="#6c0023">writefs</font></h3>
pankso@7 60 <p>
MikeDSmith25@117 61 The command 'writefs' will take the current memory resident filesystem and create a "rootfs.gz" file. If your flash drive is mounted as /home (as it should be), the new filesystem will be copied to the drive for you, otherwise it is left on the root of the drive. Your previous filesystem will be renamed to "previous.gz" and can be accessed on bootup by typing "previous" at the "boot:" prompt. All previous filesystems are renamed to rootfs.gz.unixtimestamp. These are not removed automatically, so you should periodically delete these to keep disk usage down.
pankso@7 62 </p>
pankso@7 63 <p>
pankso@9 64 Filesystem compression is supported in the form of lzma, gzip or none. Using no compression is very quick (under 5 seconds) and useful if you are experimenting with a lot of changes. By comparison, using lzma or gzip takes a few minutes but will dramatically reduce file size. This is recommended when committing permanent changes to the filesystem.
pankso@7 65 </p>
pankso@7 66 <pre>
pankso@7 67 # tazusb writefs compression
pankso@7 68 </pre>
pankso@7 69 Example:
pankso@7 70 <pre>
pankso@7 71 # tazusb writefs lzma
pankso@7 72 </pre>
pankso@7 73
pankso@7 74 <h3><font color="#6c0023">format</font></h3>
pankso@7 75 <p>
pankso@7 76 The command 'format' is used for formatting a device for use as a LiveUSB device. Currently, it only supports formatting as EXT3.
pankso@7 77 </p>
pankso@7 78 <pre>
pankso@7 79 # tazusb format /dev/name
pankso@7 80 </pre>
pankso@7 81 Example:
pankso@7 82 <pre>
pankso@7 83 # tazusb format /dev/sda1
pankso@7 84 </pre>
pankso@7 85
pankso@7 86 <h3><font color="#6c0023">gen-liveusb</font></h3>
pankso@7 87 <p>
MikeDSmith25@117 88 "gen-liveusb" will install a fresh MBR, set your partition as bootable and install syslinux/extlinux depending on the detected filesystem. It will then copy the kernel and filesystem from the CDROM drive, and place this on the target USB drive. This will leave you with a bootable USB copy of SliTaz.
pankso@7 89 </p>
pankso@7 90 <pre>
pankso@7 91 # tazusb gen-liveusb /dev/name
pankso@7 92 </pre>
pankso@7 93 Example:
pankso@7 94 <pre>
pankso@7 95 # tazusb gen-liveusb /dev/sda1
pankso@7 96 </pre>
paul@169 97
paul@169 98 <h3><font color="#6c0023">gen-swap-file</font></h3>
paul@169 99 <p>
paul@169 100 The 'gen-swap-file' command re/creates a virtual swap file and places
paul@169 101 it in the /home directory to be activated on each boot. This is useful
paul@169 102 for old systems with low memory.
paul@169 103 </p>
paul@169 104 <pre> # tazusb gen-swap-file
paul@169 105 </pre>
paul@169 106
paul@169 107 <h3><font color="#6c0023">gen-iso2usb</font></h3>
paul@169 108 <p>
paul@169 109 This command performs the same task as gen-liveusb, only copying the Kernel
paul@169 110 and filesystem from a downloaded ISO image instead of the CDROM drive.
paul@169 111 </p>
paul@169 112 <pre> # tazusb gen-iso2usb /path/to/iso
paul@169 113 </pre>
paul@169 114 Example:
paul@169 115 <pre> # tazusb gen-iso2usb /home/tux/slitaz.iso
paul@169 116 </pre>
paul@169 117
paul@169 118 <h3><font color="#6c0023">clean</font></h3>
paul@169 119 <p>
paul@169 120 "clean" removes old rootfs.gz.unixtimestamp filesystems (see writefs)
paul@169 121 to keep disk usage down.
paul@169 122 </p>
paul@169 123 <pre> # tazusb clean
paul@169 124 </pre>
paul@169 125
pankso@7 126 <!-- End content -->
pankso@7 127 </div>
pankso@7 128 </body>
pankso@7 129 </html>