The NetBSD LiveKey

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Introduction
Content
Bootloader
Installation
Status
Screenshots
Downloads
Contact

Introduction

The NetBSD LiveKey project is a non-destructive NetBSD/i386 on USB stick. It is composed of a tarball or zipfile to be uncompressed on an USB key without changing the original Filesystem (usually VFAT).
You will probably need about 256MB RAM to run the key smoothly.

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Content

The compressed archive is composed of :

A 8MB compressed NetBSD 3.0 kernel bundled with a RAMDISK for initial boot
A 50MB compressed vnd ffs disk image containing :

full base
full xbase
misc and helvetica fonts

A tgz archive containing tuned /var, /dev and /etc
A pkg directory, containing packages to be installed at boot time, in the actual image these are :

bash 3.1 (due to many complains, it is not the default shell anymore ;)
ion3 window manager
links-gui and dependencies (jpeg, png, tiff, zlib)

A root directory, directly customizable before booting the key

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Bootloader

To make the key bootable, you will use grub, probably like this :

mount_msdos /dev/sd0e /mnt
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sd0

And create a /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst like this one :

title NetBSD LiveKey
root (hd0,0)
kernel --type=netbsd /livekey/netbsd
boot

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Installation

$ cd /key/mount/point
$ tar zxvf /path/to/livekey.tar.gz

$ unzip /path/to/livekey.zip

Simple, huh ?

Login using "root" with no password, start X11 with ion3 window manager running xinit at prompt.
XF86Config is configured to use the VESA driver, at 1024×768 16bpp

.xinitrc, .profile, .Xdefaults and everything you'd want to tune can be found on the root/ directory placed in the key.

You may want to try it without rebooting using QEMU. The command line will be something like :

$ qemu -m 256 /dev/sda

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Status

10 / 05 / 2006 - The disk boots, the whole OS is loaded
11 / 05 / 2006 - Runs X11 !
11 / 05 / 2006 - FS image is now a compressed vnd(4) image, writable directories are mount'ed on mfs(8)
12 / 05 / 2006 - Configuration and rw directories are now located in RAMDISK, in /live/initfiles.tgz
13 / 05 / 2006 - Automatic packages installation, initfiles.tgz out of RAMDISK and root directory directly in the key
14 / 05 / 2006 - The project gets its own homepage ;)

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Screenshots

Grub

Loading the kernel

Stage 2, enter the device key name (usually sd0e on a real key, wd0e in QEMU)

Login screen

ion3 window manager

See my mp3 walkman booting NetBSD !