One of our new tools is technically software, but it’s not a single software package, and it needs to be installed on hardware that is not part of the normal kit.

We now have a bootable USB thumb drive image for use at MAST events. This drive boots to Linux (Peppermint 9, with modifications by Tech Advance) and contains installations of translationStudio and Autographa Lite. There are also a number of software tools installed for technicians to use in supporting the technology at MAST events.

A link will be included in this post once we have a set location for the download of this image. When copying the image to USB, remember that it is not a partition format used by MacOS or Windows, so your program to make the copy needs to be content-agnostic. I have used the command-line Linux tool dcfldd to copy the image to multiple flash drives simultaneously, connected to a USB hub. Because the drive uses a read-only compressed partition, as well, Clonezilla is not able to successfully make a copy of it. HDD Raw Copy Tool for Windows is a free tool that also does a good job very quickly, and can even make a compressed image in one step.

Once you have booted from the flash drive, changes made should be preserved across multiple reboots. As a result, we should be careful what we do to them before we convey them to the end users.

There are two accounts on the drive. A MAST Tech account is the administrator, in case system changes need to be made. A Translator account is available for the translators to use, without the risk of damage to system software.

The Translator account has no password required to log in. The Tech account uses the password 34roodWA. (door43 backwards, then WA).

Both Chromium and Firefox are installed, which can be used with V-MAST. Syncthing is installed, but further testing is needed. You may need to regenerate the key for Syncthing on each drive, and the server doesn’t always seem to restart at boot. Feedback on this element is welcomed.