In an earlier article we installed kubuntu on a usb pendrive. We will see how to add it to your menu, so you can boot the system from the USB pendrive.

The operating system is installed on the usb pendrive, but it is not bootable. To make it bootable we would have to install a bootloader on the pendrive, but we could also use another method: add it to your eee pc’s existing grub menu.

To archieve that you need to:

  • Open the terminal (crtl+alt+t) and then launch Kwrite as the root user (sudo kwrite).
  • Go to the folder /boot/grub and find a file named menu.lst, open it (if you cannot find it at first, start Konqueror as root, and search it in file:///).
  • Now you need to edit the file adding the following lines at the end (but do not replace the existing options from the menu.lst file):

title Kubuntu
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic quiet rw irqpoll root=/dev/sda1
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

If you installed your operating system on an SD card, then you need to change the second line to root (hd2,0). (hd0,0) is the first partition of the SSD. Depending on how your usb is assigned, you may have to change the third line with sdb1 instead of sda1.

Now you just have to save the file.

At the next boot you will see kubuntu as an option on your bootloading list. If you are under Xandros (the default linux on the eee), you need to press F9 at boot to see the menu.

I have eeepclinuxos installed on my eee pc, and my boot menu looks like this:

custom boot menu

As you can see, Kubuntu can be selected now, and the OS will boot from the pendrive.