[karajorma]

I've got an issue with Linux that I figured was a better idea to ask about on here rather than trawling through pages of search engine hits.

The basic issue is this. The IT staff at the college where I teach are lazy sods who can't be bothered to get off their arses and remove the virus from one of the classroom PCs. Sick of the damn thing being a complete and utter pain in the arse, I simply brought in a Ubuntu Live USB stick last lesson and taught the entire class off of that. The problem is that I have a USB wireless adaptor which I can stick in the PC and do some interesting things with. Ubuntu has built in features that allow me to set up a WAP but it works as an ad-hoc network which my phone wouldn't be able to connect to.

If I want to set up a proper WAP is there a way to do it with a live USB stick? My stick does have persistence built in since I used Linux Live USB creator.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas to get me started, I'd appreciate it. If not, it's not exactly urgent, just something which would be cool. The perfect solution would be something I could set up once and forget about. Failing that, something I can set up on every boot in a few seconds.

[Bobboau]

yes this can be done
no I don't remember how to do it my self off the top of my head
yes I have succeeded in accomplishing this
no it was not off of a live usb stick
no I don't think it makes a difference
no it was not easy, expect to spend about 12 hours on this.

[LordMelvin]

Some basic instructions are here http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/how-to-set-up-wireless-hotspot-access.html
which in turn draw from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2009381


This may or may not be completely accurate/useful. I've not tested it.
As Bobboau said, I don't expect a liveUSB environment to be any significant difference.

[karajorma]

I'll give it a try.

While I'm here, I have another mildly annoying issue. I can't see any of the files on the Linux boot USB. I use the same stick on Windows PCs and I can copy files across easily, but when I try to access the files on Linux I can't even see the USB stick.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

While I'm here, I have another mildly annoying issue. I can't see any of the files on the Linux boot USB. I use the same stick on Windows PCs and I can copy files across easily, but when I try to access the files on Linux I can't even see the USB stick.

It's usually mounted in /cdrom/. It appears to be mounted as read-only by default though (writing this from a LiveUSB right now).

[karajorma]

Yeah, I found it. Is there any way to change that?

[S-99]

Install ubuntu to the usb drive. Then you won't be stuck with please install me whenever install iso. You'll have a much more flexible time with ubuntu on a usb drive then.

[karajorma]

The problem would be that I couldn't use the same USB with Windows though.

[S-99]

Yes, that would be a problem. I understand you can and want to do this with one usb drive, otherwise i would say go partition it. Too bad windows doesn't support partitioning of thumb drives

So, two thumb drives?

[karajorma]

That would remove a lot of the ease of use I currently have. Not to mention that I'd need to shell out for a second thumb drive.

I'll try plugging away with the system I currently have for now. It does do about 90% of what I need it to do already.

[S-99]

A 4gb stick comes pretty cheap these days. Larger sizes are more expensive. I'm sorry you can't buy some or borrow any. I have plenty over the years. Never turn down free stuff.

You seriously don't have a friend you can borrow a thumb drive from for long term? I'm out of here, this is an uphill climb that is not mine. Installing linux to a thumb drive is much better than leaving it as the install iso that tricks the thumb drive into booting up as a livecd (installing linux to a thumb drive will let you manage it as a normal linux installation). It's too bad windows doesn't support something simple like partitioning of thumb drives and sd cards (even though it's something i have to do all of the time for myself, i just don't use windows since it is so anti-technical; i understand you don't have the choice).

The only thing i can say here is if you do install ubuntu to your thumb drive. Make your thumb drive last longer. For the root partition in /etc/fstab, enable noatime, and nodiratime. This significantly reduces reads and writes using ext4 and is much better (and faster) than simply using ext2 as the install format (ext3 was ext2 with no journaling, ext4 is loads better than just format addons).

[Ghostavo]

While you can't format a USB flash drive under Windows to have multiple partitions, that doesn't stop you from doing so and using one of those partitions in Windows.

You can either format the USB flash drive in Linux or with some applications in Windows in a way that you want your Windows accessible partition to be the first one it can recognize in the partition table. Then you can use the remaining to boot Linux.

[jr2]

http://superuser.com/questions/404951/accessing-partitions-of-an-usb-flash-drive-in-windows-7-64-bit

I found the solution for me in this question! A small application that alternates the first partition without having to reboot.

Long story short, you download and run Bootice, go "Parts Manage" > "ReFormat USB disk" (don't worry, it won't "format" the USB) > choose the dropdown option for your new first partition > click "Set Accessible" and it's done already! After that you can just click cancel/close/etc.

[karajorma]

Useless to me. If I had the access to install drivers I'd just install Avast and delete the virus myself!

[jr2]

Hmm.  Many popular AV software have live USB now, TRK has 5 of them or something, and you can make a bootable USB from the .iso ... not sure if it's possible to do it and still have your USB viewable in Windows, but you could always have the Windows partition first as was mentioned earlier and the rescue partition second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_live_CDs#Rescue_and_repair_live_CDs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Rescue_Kit

http://www.webupd8.org/2009/04/4-ways-to-create-bootable-live-usb.html

[karajorma]

Which is not going to help me given that the image they are doing the PXE boot from is the one that has gotten corrupted by a virus. Yes it was pretty stupid of them to do that but that's what they did and the best solution is to ignore their version of Windows completely whenever I have to use one of the infected PCs but use their system whenever the PC isn't infected.

I appreciate the attempt to help but I did think quite hard about what the problem was and what was the best solution to it before I posted on here. What I need is a solution that allows me to use the same stick to boot into Linux and access my data on Windows. I already have that. If I can solve the other issues I actually asked about, great. But I have a working solution and I'm certainly not going to solve the computer problems the people paid to do that are too lazy to do. Nor do I particularly want to have to gunk up my own computers with solutions that I only need in order to solve problems caused by the inept computer department I have to deal with.

And I'm absolutely not going to spend my own money in order to solve the problem.

[jr2]

Ok, on a long shot..  Is your phone an iPhone?

[karajorma]

No. Why would that matter?

[jr2]

iPhones can only connect to an ad-hoc network if it is secured using 128-bit WEP (meaning security code has to be 13 digits long).
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4327536?start=30&tstart=0
Had to deal with this to allow some coworkers wireless access to my tethered USB connection on my laptop. Fun job figuring out that iOS is persnickety that way with Windows ad-hoc, but anyways I know now.

But to the point, that shouldn't have anything to do with your issue, you don't have an iPhone.

[S-99]

While you can't format a USB flash drive under Windows to have multiple partitions, that doesn't stop you from doing so and using one of those partitions in Windows.

You can either format the USB flash drive in Linux or with some applications in Windows in a way that you want your Windows accessible partition to be the first one it can recognize in the partition table. Then you can use the remaining to boot Linux.

Well, yeah. That's what i was getting at. This however doesn't bypass the fact that windows doesn't support multiple partitions on a thumb drive. This has nothing to do with wanting to put multiple partitions on a thumb drive in windows.

Here's how the pointless scenario would go. You'd use linux to format multiple partitions on a thumb drive just to not be able to use all of the partitions on the drive in windows when windows computers is what you have to plug into all of the time. This is why i suggested two thumb drives, since still entertaining the idea of one drive really isn't really going to fix the difficult situation.

The main thing about windows and a partitioned thumb drive. Well, okay sure, access the partition you need access to in windows. However when i was messing around with partitioned thumb drives in windows...i thought of this. I had a hard time with windows showing at least the partition that i would want access to in windows when plugged in. It was a 16gb thumb drive setup for live booting. The smaller partition was fat32 where i had bootable linux, the much bigger partition was ntfs. Plugging into windows sometimes i'd get the fat32 or the ntfs partition. I got one or the other, it was inconsistent because microsoft doesn't support partitioned thumb drives. If you could choose one partition over the other on a thumb drive in windows, that would suggest microsoft has some minor support for partitions on thumb drives, or  more likely that there was a way to coax windows.

So, i ask, how would you get windows to favor one partition over the other on a thumb drive? If you know a way, then i would to find this handy