Install Windows 7 from a USB stick
On my netbooks, I have to install (too often) Windows 7 from the USB port. I usually use the “Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool” but today it just didn’t want to build the USB stick properly.
Here’s the manual way to prepare a USB stick that allows installing Windows 7. The directions worked from a Windows 7 virtual machine running on my Mac.
Use an HSDPA 3G USB adapter with the Asus Transformer TF101
My Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 is quite nice to take on a ride. The only issue is that when there’s no WiFi around, there’s no Internet at all. I used to have a Novatel MiFi 2352 3G hotspot but it died. All I have left is a data-only SIM card and an Huawei E220 USB modem.
By default, even with the dock keyboard, plugin the HSDPA USB adapter into the Transformer won’t lead far. But since I can root the Pad and install an alternate ROM, there are every likelihood that I can manage to access Internet via the 3G modem.
Automount USB stick on OpenBSD
In my previous “using OpenBSD as a workstation” review, I was told by Landry that auto-mount of USB stick can be done with hotplugd(8). Let’s see if we can achieve something useful…
Continue reading…
Hercules Wireless Pico USB HWNUp-150 working on OpenBSD
Unfortunately, the Broadcom BCM4315 wireless adapter from the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 is not supported by OpenBSD (as of 5.0). So I looked for a wireless USB adapter. First I looked at my favorite online shops to see what was available. Then I searched for the chipset of the adapter I’ve selected.
The Hercules Wireless N USB Pico (HWNUp-150) looked perfect as it is really small. Having a look at urtwn(4), I read that, in theory, this adapter should work. In practice, it does:
urtwn0 at uhub0 port 3 "Realtek 802.11n WLAN Adapter" rev 2.00/2.00 addr 2 urtwn0: MAC/BB RTL8188CUS, RF 6052 1T1R, address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Configured for WPA2, it’s up and running.
Hurray!
Run OpenBSD from USB on MacBook Pro
I own a MacBook Pro (5,5 with Core 2 Duo) and wish to test running OpenBSD on it. But I don’t want any impact on my OS X installation. So I’m going to install and run OpenBSD from a USB stick.
What I used
- A mid-2009 MacBook Pro (MacBookPro5,5);
- A Corsair VoyagerGT 16GB;
- An OpenBSD 5.0 (/snapshots/) CD;
- The rEFIt 0.14 boot selector.