My post will assume you have download the latest rc2 ISO fromm our
testing server.
Here is another option.
You have downloaded the Porteus ISO somewhere in your debian file system:
1) You must login as a root user, if not root user then switch to root user using following command:
$ su -
2) Create the directory i.e. mount point:
# mkdir -p /mnt/porteus
3) Use mount command as follows to mount the porteus ISO file
# mount -o loop Porteus-v1.1rc2-i486.iso /mnt/porteus
Now you have your Porteus data in a read-only state at /mnt/porteus
From here you have a few options, one of which i would recommend copying all the files to a USB and running Porteus that way.
Option 1)
Modify your porteus.cfg file to save changes to your external drive or even to boot from the external drive using the CD as a starter.
Copy the Porteus files to a writable directory first:
# mkdir /tmp/porteus && cp -Rdp /mnt/porteus/* /tmp/porteus
Now you should have two folders (porteus & boot) and a USB install instruction file in /tmp/porteus.
open the porteus.cfg file and point your changes=/mnt/sdx4/porteus (or wherever you want to save your changes on your external hard drive.) Now run the make_iso.sh file found in the porteus folder.
# cd /tmp/porteus && make_iso.sh /tmp/MyHackedPorteus.iso
This will create another iso you can burn to disk and your changes will be saved to your external drive
Option 2)
Do the same as above only copy the MyHackedPorteus.iso to your external drive somewhere (e.g /mnt/sda5/MyHackedPorteus.iso) Now boot from your current Porteus CD and hit TAB at the boot and enter from_iso=/mnt/sda5/MyHackedPorteus.iso which will make porteus boot from your hacked ISO hence saving all changes to your external drive.
Option 3)
When you first mounted your ISO, you could copy the files to your external HD (e.g /mnt/sda5/port) Now when you boot from CD (preferably USB) you can hit TAB and enter the cheat to boot from the external drive files you just copied there:
from_dev=/dev/sda5 from_dir=port/porteus which should find your porteus files and boot from them. You can also read the cheatcodes.txt document in the boot folder which will explain how to use from UUID cheats so you can be sure you will be booting from your external drive.
In any case, if you finally get Porteus running from your external drive, please open a console and type:
psinfo which will dump and information file on your desktop which you can upload to pastebin.com and link to from our forums.
Oh .... welcome to porteus. Our next version will include an installer that should make this process much more streamlined.