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Linux on a flash drive

todpod

todpod

Golden Member
I am creating a small computer lab and will be running a flavor of linux. I am familiar with Ubuntu. I am getting donated Computer with no HDs, so I either need to get hard drives or I can by flash drives for about $15 each. Anything I need to know about doing this. The computers will mainly be web surfers and maybe Libre Office for word processing and thats about it.
 
UNetbootin is a very easy to use, open source, bootable, live Linux USB drive creator that loads distributions either by downloading the ISO (CD image) file for you, or by using an ISO file you've already downloaded.


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The new Ubuntu 12.04 installer is very flash-drive UNFRIENDLY. In prior distro versions, you could boot off of a bootable LiveCD/USB, and plug in another USB stick (larger), and select the USB drive, and install onto it, and the installer would do the partitioning and filesystem mount points automatically for you.

12.04's installer, basically, detects that the PC has a HD containing Windows, and asks you if you want to install alongside windows, install instead of Windows, or "expert mode". No drive selection until you get to expert mode, and then I get lost, not knowing how big the various Linux FS mount points are supposed to be, etc., and even what they are.

It is IMHO a serious defect in the installer, a loss of features in order to "Simplify". Personally, I dislike that. (Along with Firefox getting rid of the Menu Bar by default. That's the first thing I turn back on during an installation.)
 
(Along with Firefox getting rid of the Menu Bar by default. That's the first thing I turn back on during an installation.)
Click to expand...

I dislike browsers with menu bars now, I use chrome exclusively and I love the clean look of it. Zero clutter.
 
Paperlantern said:
I dislike browsers with menu bars now, I use chrome exclusively and I love the clean look of it. Zero clutter.
Click to expand...

Clutter, glorious clutter :^D

nx9v6.png
 
Unetbootin will create a portable install with or without persistent storage. I think you'd be better off running the installer and installing to the flashdrive will treat the flashdrive like a regular HDD or SSD. There may be some post install optimizations you can do to make it a bit faster & more stable.

I would partition a 16gb drive like so:
/boot 500MB ext2 (or ext4 may be more flashdrive friendly)
LVM group on the remaining space ext4 +/- encryption (I've heard that full encryption on flashdrives may shorten the lifespan, not sure though, your call)
volume1:
/ 6GB
volume2:
/home 6GB
*note that there is free space left over. The beauty of LVM is that you can resize the volumes later and also take snapshots of existing volumes before trying anything risky and revert back later. You might also want to add a swap volume/partition (there's a warning if you don't but its not required unless you plan to use hibernation, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. Its comparable the pagefile in windows.)

Alternatively, you can just tell the installer to use all the space but the default seems to make a too large swap partition IME. A 2GB swap should be plenty, no larger than the amount of RAM you have. For just a quick and dirty you can make a swap and / as ext4 partition and skip the LVM business. I personally find LVM to be a very badass feature albeit a bit more complicated than unmanaged partitions. You can encrypt everything but /boot as that's where the kernel(s) live and they are required to decrypt the rest of the OS. also, with file system encryption physical access is required to boot the system. There is also per user home folder encryption if you want it that doesnt require a password to boot the system. I would choose one or the other, or none. Both is overkill IMHO.
 
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