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Mandriva Flash 4GB Released

Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 24 Comments

Mandriva today launches the 4GB version of Mandriva Flash, its live flash drive. Mandriva Flash 2GB, which was released in December 2006, has been a true success for Mandriva. It was sold out in less than two weeks! Mandriva has listen to user feedback and decided to develop a new version of its best seller flash drive.

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Eugenia Loli

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24 Comments

  1. 2007-04-05 7:25 pm
    TommyD

    I hope someday to have a computer that can boot off a flash drive. So far, none of my computers can. Admittedly, my newest is an Athlon 2800 (2 years old), so I probably don’t count. Both of my sons’ computers can. However, I haven’t really seen much of a need for a bootable flash OS. To me, it always seems like a solution in search of a problem.

    • 2007-04-05 8:44 pm
      Laurence

      I haven’t really seen much of a need for a bootable flash OS. To me, it always seems like a solution in search of a problem.

      I can.

      * It could be handy for if you need to type up a document on someone elses machine (who may have Windows installed) and want you’re own interface.

      * It’s good for truely silent workstations (no HDDs wizzing away)

      * It could be handy for data recovery. Say your HDD is failing and you need to rescue some data off of it – you could use this instead of a boot CD (as you could transfer the recovered files onto the flash media)

      * You could use it to test out hardware where otherwise you’d have to install a whole OS just to check if a CPU is working at full capacity.

      • 2007-04-05 8:49 pm
        TommyD

        All of those can be done by any of the many, many live CD’s our there. The only one that might be better served by a USB drive is typing up something on someone elses computer and wanting to use your own OS. The flash drive would be easier to carry around. However, in that case I just use PortableApps that I carry around on my USB drive. I have Firefox, OOO, etc. Surprisingly, they even run well with Wine under Linux.

        • 2007-04-06 2:16 pm
          Doc Pain

          As it has been mentioned before, data recovery is one of the most important fields of usage for such a device. It can even serve similar purposes when CD or DVD drives will lead to problems:

          “All of those can be done by any of the many, many live CD’s our there.”

          Imagine you’ve got only one CD drive available and you need to dump data on a CD (because you cannot / may not open the computer to insert a backup / spare hard disk or the computer does not hava a network connection to access a NAS backup device). Here an USB drive solution is very useful: You boot from USB and still have a CD drive available. So, there are fields where a live CD cannot help.

          If you wish, just s/CD/DVD/g. 🙂

          “The only one that might be better served by a USB drive is typing up something on someone elses computer and wanting to use your own OS.”

          This is in fact a great solution. It can be handy for demonstration purposes and testing hardware support as well. The USB drive even allows to install additional drivers (and keep them on the drive). Other useful intentions have been listed before (applications, data, look & feel, regards of OS etc.).

        • 2007-04-06 7:43 pm
          Jody

          A USB drive is easier to carry than a LiveCD and with all the crap I have seen on most non-technical users PC’s I am afraid to even check my email on anything that isn’t mine.

          People often carry around USB drives to store files on anyway, now that they are large enough to throw a full OS on them too it seems like a good idea.

    • 2007-04-05 11:21 pm
      smitty

      This solution’s problem may not be common, but it does exist. It’s basically a more convenient LiveCD, because you can modify the filesystem and make changes to it.

      • 2007-04-06 1:44 am
        umccullough

        It’s basically a more convenient LiveCD, because you can modify the filesystem and make changes to it.

        There are distros out there that support LiveCD on CD-RW (or DVD-RW more appropriately?) allowing modifications to the filesystem as you suggest.

        • 2007-04-06 8:03 pm
          StephenBeDoper

          That’s cool, but – going by the packet-writing apps I’ve tried – wouldn’t that give you excruciatingly-slow write times?

    • 2007-04-06 8:01 pm
      StephenBeDoper

      Many support techs still use software that boots from diskette, believe it or not (I personally have a small collection of diskettes/images of ghost, burn-in diagnostic tools, etc). Yes, those can be turned into bootable CDs easily enough – but the advantage of doing it with a flash disk is that you have a writable medium without the space constraints of a floppy.

  2. 2007-04-05 7:55 pm
    holywood

    If I have to buy a flash drive, i will surely buy it from Mandriva. They aren’t so expensive and you have Mandriva installed, ready to boot.

  3. 2007-04-05 11:54 pm
    Angel Blue01

    Can’t you install Mandriva on a flash drive? That would be a lot easier than buying this thing.

    • 2007-04-06 9:26 am
      glyj

      Of course it is possible to install it on a flash drive and mandriva allow you to do it freely.

      But, the mandriva flash has to be seen more as a service (with a cost) than a product. The system on it is compressed so there is less data to be load when they are needed, it balance the relatively (no so much) small speed of the USB 2.0 ( compared to the sata/ide hard drives ) It also preserves the life of the key as they are limited in read/write cycles

      Edited 2007-04-06 09:32

  4. 2007-04-06 12:00 am
    Calipso

    At school we started the year using 4GB flash drives for running Suse. We learned that not all flash drives are the same. Some people thought they got a good deal for a 4GB flash drive and they ended up being useless. It took 6 hours to install Suse and probably just as long to actually boot it. We also had a lot of other flash drives breaking. Maybe because we didn’t go for the most expensive drives we could find and went for something affordable. I think most people are now using USB laptop hard drives.

    • 2007-04-06 8:09 pm
      StephenBeDoper

      Is that for a CS course? That’s a pretty neat idea, giving all the students their own portable linux system/install to work from.

  5. 2007-04-06 1:51 am
    transputer_guy

    I also have real issues with key USB flash drives.

    My 1st Lexra USB1 256M was okay but died soon enough.

    My 2nd 1GB USB2 Samsung got little use and also died but was noticeably faster, couple of MBytes/s.

    My 3rd is also USB2 1GB but cheap store brand and complete junk. In W2K it writes at 250KBytes/s, any modern HD can do 30MB/s even with the latency.

    Anyone know of good brands that actually last and have performance anywhere near slow HD? I see that most USB flash drives claim to be fast based solely on their USB2 connection and give no info on actual flash chips used.

    Also still never managed to boot off USB port even though it is in the mobo Bios.

  6. 2007-04-06 8:19 am
    nadavkav

    I’ve been using it for some time now, and it works great. (we even made some for the Israeli board of education so they can give it to students, they were amazed with it!)

    here is the simple howto install it on any usb key:

    http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/25/usb-x-ubuntu-610

    it so useful to:

    + have me presentations and documents with me

    + have my custom Open Office suite

    + my favorite bookmarks and Firefox extensions

    + my music (and jukebox app)

    + my photos and favorite photo manipulation app

    + you know…

    their are some other Distros you can load on the key, just made you pick.

    (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/category/usb-installs-from-linux/)

    btw. i think we’re going to see it on cellphones very very soon 😉

    kindly,

    Nadav 🙂

  7. 2007-04-06 10:36 am
    timefortea

    I just don’t understand how a USB flash drive could deliver even a half-respectable read speed (and write speeds quoted on even decent makes are very poor). Reading at a few Mb/s is slow even compared to a Live CD distro (although the seek speed is going to reduce it a bit). I did like the idea of someone using a USB laptop HD though, that seems like a nicer alternative.

    Even more unbelievable is that you can use one of these flash drives for swap under Vista – I can’t think of anything that would slow it down more!

  8. 2007-04-07 2:13 pm
    shiva

    It’s possible to install Mandriva 2007 on a usb flash drive. There is a remasterized version of it made by Netherland user group (MandrivaClub.nl):

    http://www.mcnlive.org/usblive.htm

    It is better than Ubuntu in my opinion.