[Freedombox-discuss] How to create the proper boot partition on a USB or SD card?

[Jack Wilborn]

Hello, I am new with the DreamPlug (which I have and am running in
it's original state) and am not a Linux wizard.  I posed a couple of
these questions to Nick D.   On his suggestion I am posting them here
for assistance from users that have a working DP.

The basic problem here is that I don't have a good Internet connection
and NO Internet to my Linux box.  I have a dual boot Windows 8/Debian
Linux on a quad core 386 (i5-3450) with 32G of memory and a Atheros
WiFi card that is not detected by Debian, and works under Windows.  So
some of the parts of creating an image is not applicable to my venue
and others as I've found out.

I have a couple of questions, first can you create the proper FS on a
USB memory stick to install the current with the original bootloader?
I understand this is probably a negative, so can I create the proper
FS on the USB stick or SD (when I get the proper hardware) via the
Dreamplug original software?  If all else fails, then does someone
know the proper steps to create the bootloader on a USB stick to
update the bootloader without turning my DP into a brick.

The following is the original note to Nick...


> Nick, one of the problems I have now is that they want me to format
> the SD card to a fat partition (with mkdosfs) and then to build a
> partition with ext3 (I would change it to ext2 based on your
> suggestion), but I have no way to interface with the SD on my Linux
> box.
>
> Can this be done under dos?  At least the initial format. Or better
> yet, how about using the DP to format this properly, is the software
> on the DP usable to build this file system? I do have it up, blinking
> and talking via it's Linux.  I can find the SD card or the USB card
> OK.

Any assistance would be of great value to me.  Also any information
will be gathered for other in the same boat.

Thanks
Jack