[NTLUG:Discuss] USB Pen Drives

[Tom Hoover]

On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 12:11:54PM -0600, Ed Coates wrote:
> I've been looking at these things, and I wonder if they can be used in
> Linux.  I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with the Pen
> Drives.  How are they used?  Do you put a filesystem on them to store
> information on them?  

I use one all of the time...works fine.  They normally come preformatted
with a FAT filesystem, so I just mount them using vfat as the filesystem
type (this allows them to also be used on a Windows machine, of which we
still have many at work).  

> Can they be booted from?  Can you take, let's say, a 512MB or a 1GB
> Pen Drive, install Linux on it, and use it for a firewall if the
> motherboard can boot a USB device?

None of my machines support booting from USB, but I understand that it
is possible if your BIOS supports it.