Specifications

working Internet connection with DHCP
is required, as the netinstall downloads
the installation bits for each distribution
on the fly from Internet-based mirrors.
Hopefully, you’re excited to check out
Billix. You simply can download the ISO
version and burn it to a CD to get start-
ed, but the full utility of Billix really shines
when you install it on a USB disk. Before
you install it on a USB disk, you need to
meet the following prerequisites:
I 256MB or greater USB drive with
FAT- or FAT32-based filesystem.
I Internet connection with DHCP (for
netinstalls only, not required for DSL,
Windows password removal or disk
wiping with DBAN).
I install-mbr (part of the mbr package
on Ubuntu or Debian, needed for
some USB drives).
I syslinux (from the syslinux package on
Ubuntu or Debian, required to create
the bootsector on the USB drive).
I Your system must be capable of boot-
ing from USB devices (most have this
ability if they’re made after 2005).
To install the USB-based version of
Billix, first check your drive. If that drive
has the U3 Windows software on it, you
may want to remove it to unlock all of
the drive’s capacity (see the Resources
section for U3 removal utilities, which are
typically Windows-based). Next, if your
USB drive has data on it, back up the
data. I cannot stress this enough. You will
be making adjustments to the partition
table of the USB drive, so backing up any
data that already is on the key is critical.
Download the latest version of Billix from
the Sourceforge.net project page to your
computer. Once the download is com-
plete, untar the contents of the tarball to
the root directory of your USB drive.
Now that the contents of the tarball
are on your USB drive, you need to
install a Master Boot Record (MBR) on
the drive and set a bootsector on the
drive. The Master Boot Record needs to
be set up on the USB drive first. Issue a
install-mbr -p1 <device> (where
<device> is your USB drive, such as
/dev/sdb). Warning: make sure that you
get the device of the USB drive correct,
or you run the risk of messing up the
MBR on your system’s boot device. The
-p1 option tells install-mbr to set the
first partition as active (that’s the one
that will contain the bootsector).
Next, the bootsector needs to be
installed within the first partition. Run
syslinux -s <device/partition>
(where <device/partition> is the
device and partition of the USB drive,
such as /dev/sdb1). Warning: much like
installing the MBR, installing the boot-
sector can be a dangerous operation if
you run it on the wrong device, so take
care and double-check your command
line before pressing the Enter key.
At this point, your USB drive can be
unmounted safely, and you can test it
out by booting from the USB drive. Once
your system successfully boots from the
USB drive, you should see a menu simi-
lar to the one shown in Figure 1. Simply
choose the number for what you want
to boot, run or install, and that distribu-
tion will spring into action. If you don’t
select a number, Damn Small Linux will
boot automatically after 30 seconds.
Damn Small Linux is a miniature ver-
sion of Knoppix (it actually has much of
the automatic hardware-detection rou-
tines of Knoppix in it). As such, it makes
an excellent rescue environment, or it
can be used as a quick “trusted desk-
top” in the event you need to “borrow”
a friend’s computer to do something. I
have used DSL in the past to comman-
deer a system temporarily at a cybercafé,
so I could log in to work and fix a sick
server. I’ve even used DSL to boot and
54 | august 2008 www.linuxjournal.com
Troubleshooting Billix
A few things can go wrong when converting a USB key to run Billix (or any USB-
based distribution). The most common issue is for the USB drive to fail to boot the
system. This can be due to several things. Older systems often split USB disk support
into USB-Floppy emulation and USB-HDD emulation. For Billix to work on these sys-
tems, USB-HDD needs to be enabled. If your drive came with the U3 Windows-based
software vault, this typically needs to be disabled or removed prior to installing Billix.
If you’re seeing “MBR123” or something similar in the upper-left corner, but the
system is hanging, you have a misconfigured MBR. Try
install-mbr again, and
make sure to use the -p1 switch. You will need to run syslinux again after running
install-mbr. If all else fails, you probably need to wipe the USB drive and begin
again. Back up the data on the USB drive, then use fdisk to build a new partition
table (make sure to set it as FAT or FAT32). Use mkfs.vfat (with the -F 32 switch
if it’s a FAT32 filesystem) to build a new blank filesystem, untar the tarball again,
and run install-mbr and syslinux on the newly defined filesystem.
Figure 1. The Billix Boot Menu
FEATURE Billix