Ubuntu Sharing » USB drive

Enable VirtualBox virtual machines(Guests) USB support

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:32:07 +0000

I installed Virtualbox and XP guest in Ubuntu 9.04,and enabled file sharing between them.But I encountered USB problem when I inserted a USB disk.Finally,I worked it out by following steps.
1.Open up VirtualBox,select the virtual machine and click on Settings.Then select USB in left and check the two checkboxes.

2.Open up terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal).Create usb group and add current user to the group:

sudo groupadd usbfs
sudo adduser your_username_here usbfs

3.Use this command,and you will get group id:

cat /etc/group | grep usbfs

Example of output:

usbfs:x:1001:wraith

Here,1001 is the group id.
4.Edit /etc/fstab by this command:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add this line in the bottom.

none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0

Here 1001 is the group id in step 3.
5.Run following command:

sudo chmod 777 /proc/bus/usb

Restart your computer.

Tips:
I don’t konw whether it matters,but you’d better install guest additions (from Devices->Install guest additions in VM window)

Create bootable Live USB Ubuntu with UNetbootin

admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 03:38:52 +0000

It’s very very easy to create a bootable Ubuntu live USB.You just need UNetbootin,Ubuntu .iso image and a usb device.

UNetbootin is a tool,allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions.

1.Install UNetbootin,install it in Windows or Linux.

Here is how to install UNetbootin in ubuntu
For windows,just go to this page and download it.(Just open it by clicking on the downloaded file.)
2.Download ubuntu .iso file from www.ubuntu.com.

3.Connect usb device and then open UNetbootin (Go to Applications->System Tools->UNetbootin).

Check Diskimag,select the .iso file by clicking on marked button at right.Select USB drive at bottom.

Click on OK to start,

After a few minutes,you will see this window.

Now you have this live usb created.

Just,reboot from usb and in a graphic interface select default.

How to install Ubuntu from USB drive

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:52:46 +0000

This tutorial will tell you how to install ubuntu from USB flash drive,it may help if your computer don’t have a CD-Rom.

Also,you can create a bootable ubuntu live usb with UNetbootin.This is highly recommended if you prefer doing this with a graphical interface and this make things very easy

1.First,download the ubuntu CD image file from ubuntu.com,and download “vmlinuz” and “initrd.gz” from here (for amd64) and here (for i386).

2.Then,in your root directory of your USB device,create a file folder named “install” and copy “vmlinuz” ,“initrd.gz” into this folder.

Double click the CD image file,and right click on “isolinux” folder,then extract to the root directory of your USB device.

Rename “isolinux” to “syslinux”,then go inside the folder and rename “isolinux.cfg” into “syslinux.cfg”.

3.Now,make the drive bootable.

For ubuntu user,run following in terminal:

sudo apt-get install syslinux

sudo syslinux /dev/sdb1 (use "sudo fdisk -l"to confirm "/dev/sdb1")

For windows user,download syslinux.zip from here,then extract it.

go to the file with command prompt,and run

cd win32

syslinux h: (change h: to your USB disk.)

4.Copy the CD image file to the root directory of your USB device.Now four files,or folders in your USB device:“syslinux”,”install”,”ldlinux.sys”,”.iso image file”.

Now,reboot computer from USB flash drive and start install ubuntu.

Tips:

You need a amd64 installer if you want to install an amd64 Ubuntu .iso image and the i386 installer for an i386 iso.

Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive with UNetbootin

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:13:54 +0000

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD.You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you’ve already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn’t on the list.(extracted from ：http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/)

To create a bootable USB flash drive,first install UNetbootin by following steps.

1.Open up a terminal window and run following command:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then,add following to the end of the file

deb http://cz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty main universe

2.Execute following command in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

Open synaptic at System–>Administration–>Synaptic Package Manager,search “unetbootin” as keyword ,mark on the package and click on Apply to install

To create a bootable USB drive,open up UNetbootin at Applications–>System Tools–>UNetbootin.Do as following screen

Click on OK.It starts and you will get following screen when finish.Click on Reboot Now,if you want to test booting up with the USB drive on the computer.

Tips:

If your USB partition is not marked as active.In your Windows,start->run->cmd and run following command

diskpart

list disk

select disk 1(the number 1 out from "list disk" )

select partition 1

active