Eureka!

[cormac]

After many adjustments (and lots of swearing), I finally got the searchable SCA Ordinary and Armorial working on my Linux flashdrive. I now have the capability of conflict checking names and armory at a field consultation table, without the internet.

*strikes a superheroic pose*

Now to set up a mirror of the rest of the heralds' website. And figure out how to easily duplicate flash drives with OSs on them.

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Woo Hoo! Can I use it on a Mac?

[cormac.livejournal.com]

The flash drive has its own OS, so as long as the computer can boot from USB, it can be used with this.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

This keeps getting better and better. Now I need to save up for a laptop. :-/

[herveus.livejournal.com]

You certainly can. I don't recall having any particular difficulties getting it running on my Mac, but it's been several years since I had to do that.

Perhaps I'll try redoing the install and take careful notes. And then post them at the Morsulus wiki.

[matrygg.livejournal.com]

make an image of the drive, then you can flash the additional flash drives with the image.

[cormac.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the difference in firmware from drive to drive make this difficult?

[matrygg.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't with the flash drive, so long as USB is bootable from bios. There's info on live usb with ubuntu here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

What I'd do is build the iso from your working distrib, then follow method 2 or 3 in that link.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

So it's got the DB and whatever engine is needed for the forms to interact with it? Massive coolness.

Now if it only worked with my laptop. (IBM Thinkpad 570. USB is 1.1 and flaky at that. Bootable? Ha. Only removable media drive is an external floppy drive. The system is 10 years old so I can't really gripe too much. But I can't afford a new one.)

[cormac.livejournal.com]

The smaller netbooks (Acer, for example) are going for under $400. The next time I have money burning a hole in my pocket*, I'm minded to get one. I imagine the small size would be useful at war.

*The last time was when I bought my new Panther pavilion, so it's going to be a while.

[dieppe.livejournal.com]

I have the Acer Aspire, the 10.1" model... It's nice, small, has a 7 hour battery life. It's an excellent little war computer, and was used at Potrero by a bard who was frustrated with trying to compose a poem on paper... and who made excellent use of the mad editing on a netbook! :)

It doesn't have an optical drive, but $70 at Fry's and I have a portable CD/DVD ROM drive/burner... that I can use on anything with USB 2.0. :)

[the-celestia.livejournal.com]

Fry's in LV has the Acer mini's for under $300. We damn near bought one.

[cormac.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmm. Mayhaps there's a Starkhafn road trip in my future. :)

[the-celestia.livejournal.com]

There's probably very similar deals at any Fry's nearer you...we just happened to be in Las Vegas.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

Do you have pearls of wisdom distilled from the struggle that would be of interest to others in your situation?

[cormac.livejournal.com]

I could probably go back and document what I did, but I started with a flash drive with a full install of Ubuntu 9.04 that I got off Ebay, so steps 1 through 40 are still quite a mystery to me.

[amykb.livejournal.com]

Sweet! fosveny told me about it last night, my response was "I want!"

[cormac.livejournal.com]

At one point I was working with my kingdom webwright, who builds OS-installed flash drives for a living, about coming up with a limited-run SCA Heralds' edition with the O&A, mirrors of the CoA and Medieval Names Archive websites, and an heraldic clipart package, plus a one-click update functionality. I haven't heard back from him for a couple months though.