Kingston unveils 32GB Linux friendly USB drive

Recent advances in storage technology has made it possible to literally carry all your data in your pocket. Kingston - one of the major global players in the USB storage and memory market with more than 2,000 memory products in its offing, has unveiled a 32GB USB flash drive called "DataTraveller 150".

It has a dimension of 3.06" x 0.9" x 0.47" and is Linux friendly. Kingston offers the DataTraveller 150 with a 5 year warranty. It is priced at around USD 100.

Full Specifications of DataTraveler 150

• Capacity – 32GB
• Dimensions – 3.06" x 0.9" x 0.47" (77.9 mm x 22 mm x 12.05 mm)
• Operating Temperatures – 32º F to 140º F (0º C to 60º C)
• Storage Temperatures – -4º F to 185º F (-20º C to 85º C)
• Convenient – Pocket-sized for easy transportability
• Simple – Just plug into a USB port
• Practical – Stores cap securely on end of device to prevent loss of cap
• Guaranteed – Five-year warranty
• Operating systems - Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OSX and Linux.
  

QEMU-Puppy - A portable personal computer on a USB stick

A few months back, I bought a 4 GB Kingston USB memory stick. It cost me around 1800 Indian Rupees (In US dollars it comes to just over $45). My idea was to use it partly as a data storage where I could keep files as backup and to use a part of the USB stick to install Linux.

The USB stick initially had only a single FAT 32 partition. So I repartitioned the USB stick to two 2 GB partitions each, both having FAT 32 file system. And in the first partition, I decided to install Linux. I went through the process and copied the distribution of my choice to my USB stick partition and even made it bootable using syslinux - which is a boot loader for Linux operating system. But as luck would have it, my computer refused to boot from the USB stick complaining there was no boot loader on the USB stick.

Later I came to know that syslinux has a limitation of working only if the partition is less than 1GB size and my USB stick had a partition of 2 GB. I didn't get the time to go back and try it out again. Perhaps I will try it some time soon on a 1 GB partition.

Today I came across this quite exhaustive but very informative article titled - "QEMU-Puppy - A Personal Portable Computer" written by Erik Veenstra where he explains how to turn your USB stick into a personal portable computer. He uses Puppy Linux (A very good minimalistic Linux distribution) and QEMU for the same. Erik walks one through the installation of QEMU and Puppy, to booting, configuration of various parameters, some tips and tricks that will save your time and a bit of Puppy Linux internals. All in all a very interesting article and a project worth trying out.