Blackboot

Blackboot is a combined installer, rescue system and bootstrap for Debian GNU/Linux. Unlike the traditional installer and bootscripts Blackboot install onto and boots from USB devices and at the same time employs heavy weight encryption to ensure the integrity of the system and the privacy of the system should it get lost in the wild.

Blackboot was produced as my final year project at The University of Plymouth. Usually the university would retain ownership of code, taking this into consideration I've made sure that it relies on and includes GPL software and thus has to be GPL itself.

Machines can I use this on?

• i386+ i86 boxen only for now, the build system will allow alternative architectures but I don't have anything to use to test it on.
• Native USB booting is supported on most BIOS that have a USB-ZIP or USB-HDD boot method, weird Intel based machines that just have a vague 'USB' method need fixing.. If anyone knows how these things work give me a shout. The USB-ZIP boot method requires a device to be formated using the correct block sizes and partition layout, this is not as standard
• Indirect booting is supported from any BIOS that can boot from CDROM using the installation CD to start the process.

What USB devices work?

• Most if not all USB Mass-Storage devices work out of the box, including pendrives, digital cameras and harddisks connected to a USB bridge.

The installation CD comes in at about 150 megabytes, which is actually the total size of my hosting thus I will not be offering ISO images for download anytime soon. I will be publishing the source tarball in the next couple weeks with build instructions, look out for it. ;)