I am trying to install RHEL4 on an 80GB External USB 2.0 hard drive. The BIOS sees the USC device and Windows XP has no problem accessing the device, so the hardware is in working order. When I run Disk Druid in Anaconda, the USB drive does not show up.

What would be the best way to install RHEL4 on the external USB drive? Thanks in advance for your help.

-Beau

beau@beausanders.com

I am not sure how RHEL's installer loads things such as USB disks etc... But I can tell you that it might be helpfull to install to an ATA disk then mount the usb disk. Create proper partitions on the USB disk, tar the FS on the ATA disk, copy them into place untar the FS. Then manually install Grub to the USB disk. This is how I used to get SATA working back in the 2.4 days before SATA was built in.

As to the reason that the disk is not seen by disk druid during the installer, I would assume because it has not started the services required for a USB disk. I can not say exactly because I have never done what you are describing specifically. I do not know if I have been any help, I apologize if this did not help. But I can assure you that USB hard disks, and flash drives work flawlessly with the 2.6 kernel, with the proper modules loaded.

Thanks, Joshua. That's an excellent idea. I appreciate your input.

-Beau

Did it work?

We're building a new POS system for a client, based on Dells with RH EL WS4, and they are making noises about maybe using USB HDD's.

I have been covered up with projects, so no...I have not tried it yet. I will let you know when we take another stab at it.

-Beau

Hi,

I also also looking into building a POS based on the Dell hardware. Are there any gotchas with the touch screen or USB devices. Any pointer would be appreciated.

Thanks.

We've decided to go with SuSE - current system is using SuSE 9.2 Pro. Works great. As to touchscreen, just make sure the install is the -default version (for some reason ours installed itself as -smp, so we had to use YaST to take it back to the -default) because the touchscreen is a 3M, and 3M does have the drivers for SuSE 9.2 -default. Works flawlessly, even has the calibration program, and a damned nice screen, too.

Dell is pushing an Epson USB receipt printer, and the damned thing shows up to the system as an Epson UB-03II "USB Interface" and not a printer - we just got parallel printer instead, but... someday, we'll have to find a driver for the USB version.

We also have always used two or more RS232 serial devices, such as customer displays, check scanners, change machines, electronic scales, and what have you. The DellPOS comes with one serial port (which is one more than a LOT of new computers have), but does have an expansion slot. We bought an I/O card, from Dell, and the (*&#@%^ thing is a normal profile card, while the DellPOS is low profile - just barely over two inches, so the )(*#$ card won't work. I haven't talked to oir hardware guy to see if he's tracked down the low-profile I/O card yet...

It ain't a 10, but it ain't bad, either. If we had the USB printer driver and the extra I/O, I think it would be a 9+, though, and it could happen.