так уж получилось, что нужна система на флэшке. много чего перепробовал, дошел до темы. беда в том, что установка зависает на
O: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
O: mount point ready: /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
/tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
O: installing grub on /dev/sdb
You shouldn't call /sbin/grub-install. Please call /usr/sbin/grub-install instead!
grub-probe: error: Cannot open `/boot/grub/device.map'
[: 378: =: unexpected operator
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm/boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb
O: grub successfully installed to /dev/sdb
O: copying files to /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
`/fll/sr0/boot/message' -> `/tmp/install-usb.KyHZm/boot/message'
`/fll/sr0/boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-5.slh.3-sidux-686' -> `/tmp/install-usb.KyHZm/boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-5.slh.3-sidux-686'
`/fll/sr0/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-5.slh.3-sidux-686' -> `/tmp/install-usb.KyHZm/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-5.slh.3-sidux-686'
`/fll/sr0/boot/memtest86+.bin' -> `/tmp/install-usb.KyHZm/boot/memtest86+.bin'
O: files copied to /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
O: copying files the iso to the /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
934184+0 записей считано
934184+0 записей написано
скопировано 478302208 байт (478 MB), 198,27 c, 2,4 MB/c
O: all files successfully copied to /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
O: Initializing persistent overlay
O: 3462684k free space on /tmp/install-usb.KyHZm
O: creating persistent loopback file, count=1731342

и все. есть идеи куда копать?

какого рамера флэшка ?

:-) флэшка 4 гига, пустая.