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Billix: a Sysadmin's Swiss Army Knife

Issue 172

From Issue #172
August 2008

Aug 01, 2008  By Bill Childers
 in
Turn that spare USB stick into a sysadmin's dream with Billix.

Expanding Billix

It's relatively easy to expand Billix to support other Linux distributions, such as Knoppix or the Ubuntu live CDs. Copy the contents of the Billix USB tarball to a directory on your hard disk, and download the distro you want. Copy the necessary kernel and initrd to the directory where you put the contents of the USB tarball, taking care to rename any files if there are files in that directory with the same name. Copy any compressed filesystems that your new distro may use to the USB drive (for example, Knoppix has the KNOPPIX directory, and Puppy Linux uses PUP_XXX.SFS). Then, look at the boot configuration for that distro (it should be in isolinux.cfg). Take the necessary lines out of that file, and put them in the Billix syslinux.cfg file, changing filenames as necessary. Optionally, you can add a menu item to the boot.msg file. Finally, run syslinux -s <device>, and reboot your system to test out your newly expanded Billix.

I have a 2GB USB drive that has a “Super-Billix” installation that includes Knoppix and Ubuntu 8.04. An added bonus of having the entire Ubuntu live CD in your pocket is that, thanks to the speed of USB 2.0, you can install Ubuntu in less than ten minutes, which would be really useful at an installfest. There is good information on creating Ubuntu-bootable USB drives available at the Pendrive Linux Web site.

Alternatively, a really neat thing to do (but way beyond the scope of this article) is to convert Billix into a network-boot (via Pre-Execution Environment, or PXE) environment. I've actually got a VMware virtual machine running Billix as a PXE boot server.

In closing, Billix may not make you coffee in the morning or eradicate Windows from the face of the earth, but having a USB key in your pocket that offers you the functionality to do all of those tasks quickly and easily can make the life of a system administrator (or any Linux-oriented person) much easier.

Resources

Billix Project Page: sourceforge.net/projects/billix

Damn Small Linux: www.damnsmalllinux.org

DBAN Project Page: dban.sourceforge.net

Knoppix: www.knoppix.net

Pendrive Linux: www.pendrivelinux.com

Syslinux: syslinux.zytor.com/index.php

Pxelinux: syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php

U3 Removal Software: www.u3.com/uninstall

Bill Childers is an IT Manager in Silicon Valley, where he lives with his wife and two children. He enjoys Linux far too much, and probably should get more sun from time to time. In his spare time, he does work with the Gilroy Garlic Festival, but he does not smell like garlic.

______________________

Bill Childers is the Virtual Editor for Linux Journal. No one really knows what that means.

Comments

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Billix and FreeBSD

Mario Guerra's picture
Submitted by Mario Guerra (not verified) on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 12:09.

I wonder if booting a netinstall FreeBSD 7 is possible.

Yes indeed

Onno's picture
Submitted by Onno (not verified) on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 03:38.

That would really be great!
I modified billix already to use full installation ISO's, but we also use FreeBSD installation so it would be really really great if we can also include those installation on the USB.
Thanks!

Billix - a linux super tool

Alireza Aghamohammadi's picture
Submitted by Alireza Aghamohammadi (not verified) on Sun, 11/02/2008 - 16:34.

This is a very good tool to have on a USB/flash drive. I'll give it a try.

Thanks
Alireza Aghamohammadi

needed options for Windows version of syslinux

cdharding's picture
Submitted by cdharding on Sat, 07/12/2008 - 16:09.

while troubleshooting why my thumb drive wouldn't boot, I came across a forum post that was about installing
Ubuntu on a flash drive from windows, and there was mention of using the m and a options for syslinux if you were running it from Windows. It says it is not needed for the *nix version but is definitely needed for the Windows version. the post is here: http://jsco.org/dectop/

Syslinux

sigint's picture
Submitted by sigint on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 14:51.

Hello

I was extremely excited to read this article. I ran out and purchased a 512 Kingston DT games USB($9.99US), and get to
running this line >> syslinux -s {device},and syslinux is telling me that i don't have a valid FAT filesystem; when i do have a valid FAT filesystem. Where can i for help?

Have you tried reformatting

paulatthehug's picture
Submitted by paulatthehug on Sat, 07/19/2008 - 13:08.

Have you tried reformatting it using 'mkfs.msdos' or 'mkfs.vfat'?

TallPaul
http://tallpaul.org

No valid FAT filesystem

systemansvarlig@vagaungdomsskule.no's picture
Submitted by systemansvarlig... on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 03:57.

I have the same problem. Running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and have tried two different USB sticks, and both FAT16 and FAT32. syslinux will not recognise the file system, for some reason.

Lars Erik

Same problem

Cwolly's picture
Submitted by Cwolly (not verified) on Mon, 07/14/2008 - 08:05.

I continue to have the same problem, and have not yet found a solid answer on how to fix it. when I run the install-mbr, it is doing something to the thumb drive that will not allow syslinux to see it as a valid partition anymore. I also get the "this doesn't look like a valid FAT filesystem" error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

billix and syslinux

mdeschane's picture
Submitted by mdeschane on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 17:11.

I was having the same problems; here are the steps I took that finally succeeded:

my USB device is sdc

cfdisk /dev/sdc; create partition and change type to FAT16
mkdosfs /dev/sdc1
mount -t msdos /dev/sdc1 /usbdrive (or where ever)
cd /usbdrive
cp billix-0.23.tar.gz
tar -zxvf billix-0.23.tar.gz (got a whole bunch of error messages "Cannot change ownership to uid 1000, gid 1000: Operation not permitted" even though I am root)
install-mbr -p1 /dev/sdc
cd ~
umount /usbdrive
syslinux -s /dev/sdc1

if you hold you mouth just right and clutch your favorite talisman firmly this should work.

permissions on fat16/32

linuxjnl's picture
Submitted by linuxjnl on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 10:55.

FAT16/32 does not support file permissions. This is why you get the errors. These can be safely ignored.

ownership errors

cosmiclint's picture
Submitted by cosmiclint (not verified) on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 00:03.

I was getting the same errors. I think it's because of the way you mounted the drive. The UID and GID for /usbdrive would both be root, but I think the file wants be be untarred by a regular user.

When I included

-o uid=ubuntu,gid=root

in the mount command (I was using a live cd, so my username was ubuntu) then ran

tar -xzvf billix-0.23.tar.gz

as user ubuntu I didn't get the errors.

I've been able to boot dsl on a toshiba that supports booting from usb drive, but my Latitude doesn't make it past the menu.

Still playing with it, though and having a lot of fun. I routinely use live cds to fix borked windows boxes, so this is another handy tool.

Ownership errors

cosmiclint's picture
Submitted by cosmiclint (not verified) on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 11:55.

I should have added that I also copied the file in to the root of the drive as a regular user, so the file was also owned by user "ubuntu."

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