We will review in this guide how to create a live USB key, so we can boot Mandriva 2008 Spring on the Asus EEE PC.

Mandriva 2008 is one of the most complete linux distribution, and the final version of the Spring 2008 got out a few days ago, so it is a good occasion to create a live USB to test it on the EEE. Mandriva is selling USB disks with the OS preinstalled, and there isn’t an easy USB live creator like the one provided with eeexubuntu, or eeepclinuxos. The process isn’t that hard though, as we will see on with this step by step guide.

• Download and burn the Mandriva One 2008 Spring edition . You can find this iso here for example. I downloaded the mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-KDE-int-cdrom-i586.iso, but you have a gnome version if you prefer that environment.
• Boot your new live USB disk on your production PC. On the desktop you will find a live install icon.

Choose Custom disk partitioning and click next

Now you have to select your USB key. On our example, it was the second tab named sdb. You need a 4GB USB key, or an SDHC card. Before applying the next steps, please be aware of the risks implied, you could end up formating the wrong disk or messing up the mbr of your PC.

Select your disk click on delete, and Auto allocate.

Mandriva created an Ext3 partition as well as the swap in an automated fashion.

The Live Install will ask for the Bootloader options, as on the picture below. The most important thing is to choose your USB disk (sdb in our case). Leave Grub with graphical menu.

Finally, mandriva will ask for the drive you are booting from. Choose the USB disk.

You can start the installation. The process was painfully slow (especially when you are impatient to test the distribution), about 35 minutes. As we mentioned in earlier posts, installing eeexubuntu or eeepclos took only about 7mn or so.

Update: We have written an article about Mandriva 2009 live USB creation as well.