OpenSuSE on a pendrive

If you just want a persistent pendrive install of openSuSE then this is probably what you want,
but if you have a large size external hdd then you might want to check this HOWTO
We will assume that you have a basic knowledge on how to use VirtualBox.
Check out the manual.

Things you will need:

1. x86 hardware (so VirtualBox can run on it)
2.  VirtualBox program running in your system.
3. A working install of openSuSE inside VirtualBox.
4. A pen drive at least 6.0 GB data capacity.

Alright lets go step by step:




Create an openSuSE vm and give it a 5.00 GB FIX vdi.

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Start the installation.

When you get to the partition part, you do not need to create any partition other than
the root "/" since this only has 5.00 GB disk size.

Choose custom partitioning.

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 Since you did not assign a swap partition you will see some warning like this.

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Do not create any user, you can create it later with  yast2 users .

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You might get a "User Authentication Method" just choose the default "local".

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Finish the installation log-in as root since you did not create any user.

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Change the way how your disk is being mounted in fstab using   yast2 disk .

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Switch from Device ID

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To Volume Label:  and give it a label according to your hearts content
in my case a named it USB.

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If everything goes well you can check it with  yast2 bootloader .
You will see if the changes are made.

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The reason why we need to do this is to avoid any error
when you actually boot your pendrive to a real computer.
if you want to know what is the error then you can skip the
previous step. ;-)

The error you will get is similar to the following.

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 Now attach your pendrive and check your disk or partitions.

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According to fdisk your internal disk is   /dev/sda 
and your pendrive is  /dev/sdb 

 Make sure your pendrive is not mounted check it.

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We will use the dd_rescue utility to copy   /dev/sda   to  /dev/sdb 
although dd will do the same task, in this procedure it will be
more verbose on the output. You can check out this site for
more info  http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

Execute dd_rescue as shown here.

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 Wait until it is done.

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The last step would be to shutdown your guest and after that reboot
your Host machine while your pendrive is still attach to its port.
Make sure your BIOS  is set and able to boot from a usb drive.

Boot , log-in and configure your newly created portable SuSE.
add a new user using yast2 users, add a swap or a home
partition using  yast2 disk  and since you only made a
5.00 GB vdi but  you have a larger size pendrive  you can resize
the partition to fit your device. using  yast2 disk  or any
other tool that you are comfortable working with.

FINE TUNING:

Remove the file   /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-cd.rules    and put it
somewhere and  restart udev. As explained in this guide "Replacing DVD drives". 

 Edit the file   /boot/grub/device.map     since it contain the device-id of vbox's HardDisk.

change that device-id entry with the id of your disk which you can get from the
output of     ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb*  
 

 Save that modified device.map and as root run  /sbin/mkinitrd  

Check the entry of the  file /etc/grub.conf and try to jot it down, there should
be two entries in that file

Next as root run   /usr/sbin/grub   and enter those entry one at a time.

this can be done  also with    yast2 bootloader     there is button named "other" on the lower right dropdown menu

Cheers.