Installing Backtrack Linux to a USB Thumb Drive

A few months back, when I was doing to series on my Capstone class for school, I wrote about installing Backtrack Linux to your hard drive. For those not in the know, or for those that didn't read my article, Backtrack Linux is a Linux distro based off Slackware Linux, and is designed for pentesting, and hacking. It normally comes as a live CD, and is pre-packaged with all sorts of hacking tools and scanners.

I don't know about you, but I don't like walking around with CD's in my pockets. They are just too cumbersome. What about a USB stick? Most of us, techie or not, carry around a USB flash drive now days right? I mean, they have pretty much replaced floppies, and CD's as the preferred method of transferring files via sneakernet.

Since you already have a thumb drive in your pocket, why not install Backtrack Linux on that? It is really very simple. The following instructions were taken from PenDriveLinux.com:

1. Download the USB BackTrack version
2. Extract the Boot and BT3 folders to the root of your USB device
3. Navigate to the Boot folder on your "USB device" and click bootinst.bat (click continue if the following error appears)



4. Follow the onscreen instructions to make the device bootable
5. Once the USB install script has finished, reboot your computer and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device.

Could it be any simpler than that? I think not! If you are a Thumb Drive Linux person, let me know what flavor you are using in the comments. If you have never heard of this before, try it out and let me know how it goes!