http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/USB_Booting
Your MyDSL applications (*.dsl files) should be saved into the /cdrom directory if you would like them automatically booted off of the USB device upon bootup.
Debian page about booting USB http://wiki.debian.org/BootUsb
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_to_a_USB_Flash_Drive
Download the dsl-embedded zipfile
Create a FAT16 partition on the pendrive. Mount it.
Unzip the dsl-embedded.zip file onto this.
Unmount the pendrive
run "syslinux -s /dev/sdX1" (without the quotes) to make it bootable.
You can now boot via QEMU (from within Linux or windows), OR as native from the USB drive.
You can also run DSL from a GRUB bootloader menu on your USB key. This is very useful if you're using DSL as part of a data/system rescue toolkit, as you can include multiple preset configurations of DSL as well as other utilities.
Note: syslinux needs the package "mcopy" included in the package "mtools".
Note: Unfortunately, this method does NOT give a 50MB Linux Distribution because qemu dir and method is (comparatively) big. You will end up with a 110MB distribution.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Imprinting_Bootable_Images_to_USB_Devices_%28Windows%29
This is how to install DSL to a USB Key from Windows XP (98,NT,2000?) workstation without burning the ISO and without having to boot into DSL from the CD and partition the USB key (of course if you want to partition it you'll have to use a partitioning tool, cfdisk, or something else like that).
documented on: 2007.01.12