partial success booting from and restoring from usb stick

[nomaps@…]

I'm developing a debian installer from a usb flash stick. I currently can boot all the way to the interactive command line with no problems. To continue, I must resort to manually mounting the usb stick to /mnt/cdrom from an alternate screen whenever it fails to find the archives directory (it's looking on the cdrom device).

I've apparently taken it a far as I can from editing text files in the mondorestore-1.iso file. Further progress appears to require changes in the C/C++ sources.

Two questions:

1. is anyone interested in detailed instructions on how I got this far
2. can someone provide tips or suggestions that might help me complete this effort.

Anticipating some of the questions that might occur:

1. yes, I know how to use the debian preseed installer on a flash stick, but I prefer mondo for various reasons

2. I'm aware that the 3.0 release will have some USB support. However, from browsing the svn sources, it appears that it might not be able to support bootable USB sticks (fat16 / syslinux, etc.)

Thanks for a unique and useful tool!

BTW, my apologies in advance if this should have been submitted to a discussion group rather than a trac ticket (if so, please direct me)

Phil Walker phil.walker@…