[ale] anyone installed linux on to a flash drive
Michael H. Warfield
mhw at WittsEnd.com
Mon Oct 1 15:32:39 EDT 2012
On Mon, 2012-10-01 at 11:40 -0400, Narahari 'n' Savitha wrote:
> What is the diff between putting a live cd on a usb stick vs
> installing linux on usb stick ?
> The putting live cd is easy since there are tools like pendrivelinux
> or unetbootin which I have done. (Puppy has driver issues with
> Wireless although I like Puppy due to less foot print)
> The installing of Linux on a Flash Drive may work better since the
> data and apps are persisted (example I can put Firefox15 and it stays
> there).
You can do that with the run live usb on a stick as well. Apps are
handled by including an "overlay" and data is providing for a home
image. The home image CAN be shared between multiple boot up distros.
Advantages to the run live on a stick include that you can have multiple
distributions with shared home. In my case, I have that as a
requirement so my USB stick can boot my laptop while still carrying
forensic toolkits and antivirus images for doing diagnostic and analysis
work on other machines.
Another advantage to the run live is that the base OS is generally
running from a squashfs file system (read-only, compressed) so it takes
up less space on the key.
Since software changes are routed to the overlay (if you have one) you
can also reset that overlay and reset your "machine" back to a known
good state.
Advantage to the direct install on the USB drive may be some small
performance improvement but I have my doubts you would see much.
As you update software, there's an advantage on the direct install as
well in that updates to the run live go to the union mount overlay and
don't actually remove the old binaries. So, you'll run out of space
quicker.
Regards,
Mike
> -Narahari
>
> On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Michael H. Warfield
> <mhw at wittsend.com> wrote:
> Wow... And I'm suppose to give a talk on my
> "multiboot" keys sooner or
> later... Reminder to self...
>
> Yeah, I've done this... I have a pair of 64G USB keys
> (always have a
> backup if you are going to do this). It's a multiboot
> key using a
> custom rolled grub2 configuration (which would be what
> my talk would be
> about)...
>
> What's on that key (in order)...
>
> * Boot Images for my encrypted laptop (3 most recent
> kernel images).
>
> * Chainloaders to drive 1 and 2 of the system.
>
> * OpenClient (and IBM customized RHEL image) run live
> and testdrive
> images...
>
> * CentOS 6 desktop run live.
>
> * Fedora 15, 16, and 17 Desktop run lives for i686 and
> x86_64.
>
> * Network Security Toolkit 2.16 (various
> configurations).
>
> * Parted Magic.
>
> * Ubuntu
>
> * Backtrack (another forensic related distro).
>
> * TinyCore (minimalist busybox based distro).
>
> All totaled, probably a couple dozen menu entries
> including sub-menus
> and what not.
>
> Takes a little over 1/2 of that 64G key including
> persistent image store
> and a common encrypted home directory.
>
> Why? It's my Swiss Army Knife. I can (have to) boot
> my totally
> encrypted laptop from the key. No key - no boot. End
> of discussion.
> In addition, I can walk up to any computer and boot
> the computer from
> any one of my boot selections and have a run live for
> demonstration or
> for forensic purposes.
>
> It's actually pretty easy to install a run-live to a
> USB key with a
> persistent store for updates and a home partition for
> use. We typically
> refer to these as a "Computer On A Stick". Building a
> multiboot that
> works like that (ESPECIALLY if you have a common home)
> is a lot tricker
> but grub2 makes it easier than syslinux or the old
> grub.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
> On Sun, 2012-09-30 at 10:02 -0400, Narahari 'n'
> Savitha wrote:
> > Friends:
> >
> > I want to install Linux on to a flash drive.
> >
> > Has anyone in the ALE family done this ?
> >
> > When I install Linux on to a Flash drive, does it
> mean that I can take it
> > from machine to machine or is it specific to the
> hardware that I installed
> > for ?
> >
> > What about taking the flash drive out and plugging
> it back to the same
> > machine, that should be doable right ? I am trying
> to use this as an
> > alternate os at work on the same hardware.
> >
> > What is the diff between installing the OS on a
> Flash drive vs running Live
> > CD (Puppy or Linux Mint that saves data) ?
> >
> > My Flash drive is 2GB and I am not sure if Arch can
> be installed there with
> > XFace.
> >
> > Is it feasible to do so ?
> >
> > I would like all kinds of comments to help out.
> >
> > -Narahari
> >
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
> --
> Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |
> mhw at WittsEnd.com
> /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/ | (678) 463-0932 |
> http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
> NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we
> live in the best of all
> PGP Key: 0x674627FF | possible worlds. A
> pessimist is sure of it!
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
--
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 | mhw at WittsEnd.com
/\/\|=mhw=|\/\/ | (678) 463-0932 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
PGP Key: 0x674627FF | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 482 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20121001/4e6a3b8d/attachment.bin
More information about the Ale
mailing list