Need to use a USB drive for operating system

glic83

Hi all, my hard drive died yesterday so have a laptop with no hard drive and no OS.

I do however have a 32gb USB drive that I was going to put a Linux OS on to keep me tipping over until I but a new hard drive.

I only have the 1 USB drive so is it possible to put a version on the USB drive that all I need to do is keep the USB drive in the laptop and I can boot up straight into that OS and keep any programs installed ie Firefox and maybe an office type program, is it called a live version? I will mainly just be browsing and doing a few documents research etc. I don't need to plug the USB pen into other computers just need to be able to do the above mentioned.

Edit: which version is best to do this?

syklops

Ubuntu.

Johnboy1951

glic83 wrote: »

Hi all, my hard drive died yesterday so have a laptop with no hard drive and no OS.

I do however have a 32gb USB drive that I was going to put a Linux OS on to keep me tipping over until I but a new hard drive.

I only have the 1 USB drive so is it possible to put a version on the USB drive that all I need to do is keep the USB drive in the laptop and I can boot up straight into that OS and keep any programs installed ie Firefox and maybe an office type program, is it called a live version? I will mainly just be browsing and doing a few documents research etc. I don't need to plug the USB pen into other computers just need to be able to do the above mentioned.

Edit: which version is best to do this?

Any Linux distro that suits you.
There is no 'one fits all'

Check out a few such as

Linux Mint
PCLinuxOS
Mageia
as well as the one mentioned above.

Yes you can put Linux distros on a USB stick in 'Live' mode.

Standard live mode is unchangeable, so you could not add or delete applications.

There are set ups such as 'Persistence' mode of booting that will allow you to add and delete applications.

For your particular situation I would consider doing a 'Full' install, rather than a 'Live' install, to that USB device.

It should work quite well as you will only be using it on the one PC and have no requirement for it to be bootable across multiple devices like a 'Live' install.

glic83

Cheers for the replies never even thought about running a full version off the USB pen, would there be any issues doing so?

I will be ordering a new hard drive when I see a good offer on a ssd, I did try the live version of Linux mint 17.2 last night and found it a little bit strange at 1st, but after a few minutes fine to use. I suppose seeing as I've always used windows it's just a case of getting used to it, also there are only a few variants of windows still supported at any given time, but with Linux there is a hell of a lot more. I had only really heard of Ubuntu, linux mint and red hat as OS's. I know most sat/cable receivers use it, smart phones etc but wouldn't know all the variants of Linux and the benefit of 1 OS over another

Johnboy1951

glic83 wrote: »

Cheers for the replies never even thought about running a full version off the USB pen, would there be any issues doing so?

I will be ordering a new hard drive when I see a good offer on a ssd, I did try the live version of Linux mint 17.2 last night and found it a little bit strange at 1st, but after a few minutes fine to use. I suppose seeing as I've always used windows it's just a case of getting used to it, also there are only a few variants of windows still supported at any given time, but with Linux there is a hell of a lot more. I had only really heard of Ubuntu, linux mint and red hat as OS's. I know most sat/cable receivers use it, smart phones etc but wouldn't know all the variants of Linux and the benefit of 1 OS over another

As a generalisation, all desktop Linux Distros are the same under the 'top layer'.

What matters most to users (at least initially) is how the OS presents itself to them.
This varies from distro to distro ..... a lot is down to the developers aims (and how successful they have been in achieving those aims )

There are various Desktop Environments (DEs) and Window Managers (WMs) to aid the developers.

So for your own benefit it would probably be advantageous to trial a distro or distros using different DEs ....... KDE, Gnome, Mate, Xfce, LXDE, Cinnamon ....... etc etc.

Choice is probably Linux's greatest asset ..... but also the greatest barrier for new users who do not yet understand the implications of the choices.

Unfortunately, while under pressure is not the best time to trial Linux.

Good Luck

glic83

I decided to put a full version of ubuntu onto the 32gb USB drive, well its slow as a wet week so the drive must be crap, TBH I think what you mentioned there is spot on, the choice is huge for someone trying to consider which distro to use.

For me I now have a laptop that I can use (slow as it may be ) and thats hugely important right now. I had no wireless driver but was a quick fix to get it sorted and now I'm able to post this so its win win right now. I am in 2 minds about run a live version with persistent v a full version, felt the live version was a lot quicker.

Johnboy1951

glic83 wrote: »

I decided to put a full version of ubuntu onto the 32gb USB drive, well its slow as a wet week so the drive must be crap, TBH I think what you mentioned there is spot on, the choice is huge for someone trying to consider which distro to use.

For me I now have a laptop that I can use (slow as it may be ) and thats hugely important right now. I had no wireless driver but was a quick fix to get it sorted and now I'm able to post this so its win win right now. I am in 2 minds about run a live version with persistent v a full version, felt the live version was a lot quicker.

The difficulty with USB flash drives is that they have a finite life when there are lots of read/writes, as happens with a full install.
Simply reading a file will cause a write of its related information .... last time accessed for instance.

So a Live session is much easier on the drive because all the action happens in memory rather than the physical drive.

There are mount options that might help such as noatime, relatime ..... I have not used them in your particular set up (full install on flash stick) so have no experience there, sorry.

I have been using LiveUSB since about 2006 (definitely 2007) and never felt the need for a full install on a flash stick.

Good to know you have tried both live and full installs and can therefore make an informed choice that suits your circumstances

EDIT:

Something that will seriously affect your experience with the flash stick is which DE you use.
The lighter the DE the more responsive it is likely to be ..... so LXDE would be a good choice.
Also for a live session you can, providing the PC has sufficient memory, load the whole OS into memory during boot, and have a much more responsive experience ..... not depending on reading from the flash stick during operation.
It does slow the initial boot considerably as the full read is done into memory.

glic83

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

The difficulty with USB flash drives is that they have a finite life when there are lots of read/writes, as happens with a full install.
Simply reading a file will cause a write of its related information .... last time accessed for instance.

So a Live session is much easier on the drive because all the action happens in memory rather than the physical drive.

There are mount options that might help such as noatime, relatime ..... I have not used them in your particular set up (full install on flash stick) so have no experience there, sorry.

I have been using LiveUSB since about 2006 (definitely 2007) and never felt the need for a full install on a flash stick.

Good to know you have tried both live and full installs and can therefore make an informed choice that suits your circumstances

EDIT:

Something that will seriously affect your experience with the flash stick is which DE you use.
The lighter the DE the more responsive it is likely to be ..... so LXDE would be a good choice.
Also for a live session you can, providing the PC has sufficient memory, load the whole OS into memory during boot, and have a much more responsive experience ..... not depending on reading from the flash stick during operation.
It does slow the initial boot considerably as the full read is done into memory.

I just downloaded ubuntu desktop, I'll have another look, I think live might be the best option at the moment, or a very light weight distro. I only need a few applications really at the moment. I can survive with that until I get sorted properly.

bonzodog2

I sometimes use a linux live from a micro SD card in a USB adapter, with a second partition on the card, to allow writing to it - the booting partition is mounted read-only. A fast card, say class 6 or 10, is an aid to responsive running, also have enough RAM.

glic83

Put on a live OS tonight, I just loaded Porteus KDE and so far so good, light weight, about 350mb iso size, and has built in persistence. will report back but have to say its really fast to use so far.

niallb

Looking forward to hearing how Porteus works out for you.
If it leaves you needing more, you might look at Knoppix.
I used it in a similar situation a few years ago and was very pleased with it.
It uses compressed RAM effectively and there's a huge amount of software on the image.
You can actually move the install to disk later if you like, and apt-get was available for adding packages.

If you're lucky enough to have it work with your laptop though, take a look at ChromiumOS.
It'll basically turn your laptop into a chromebook until you get a new drive, so any work you do
will be cloud saved if that suits you.

This build is a snapshot with support for lots of extra hardware and would be a good place to start:
http://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/2015/10/31/chromiumos-special-build-r48-7549/

riclad

i would never use basic ubuntu as it has loads of apps, like libreoffice, editors i never use .
I used mint 17 boot from a live cd for 2 months ,works fine .
AS my drive broke down.
now i have a new 500gig drive ,so its quieter and faster to load than loading from cd.
Make a new folder on the usb drive .
Use firefox browser,it allows you to download to usb or download to user home music .
So i have mint 17 installed on the hard drive .
i tried porteus ,was a bit slow when loading from cd on my laptop,