Question about: Ubuntu 14.04 persistent USB data

[vailr]

Is there a web site with a sufficiently detailed online guide for configuring a bootable 8 Gb USB thumb drive that completely utilizes the storage capacity of an 8 Gb USB thumb drive? So that system software updates aren't running out of data storage room.
One website mentions making a second partition named "casper-rw" for the persistent data, but doesn't quite give enough information for getting Ubuntu to actually use it.
AFAIK, Ubuntu's built-in "bootable USB maker" doesn't do an adequate job of giving enough storage room for the persistent data.
Thanks.

 

[lxskllr]

You should be able to specify the rest of the drive as persistent storage with unetbootin. I don't know how to do it manually, because I've never had the need.

 

[MrColin]

you could try booting the installer and installing to the thumb drive. To be more fully portable you might need to install some additional packages.

 

[vailr]

Keep getting this error during system update, both with LTS 14.04 and a nightly build of 14.10:

"An unhandlable error occured...programming error in aptdaemon...".

A Google search finds mention of the same error turning up from Ubuntu 11.xx versions of several years ago. Why has this not been fixed yet?
All I'm trying to do is: have a bootable 8 Gb USB thumb drive that runs a fully-updated (and thereafter further updateable, via Software Updater) Ubuntu version 14.xx (64-bit).
Is that asking too much?
Note: the bootable USB drive was prepared using Ubuntu Startup Utility, not the Install Ubuntu Utility. Not sure what differences exist between those two utilities.

 

[MrColin]

I haven't used the Startup Utility but it sounds like maybe it copies the LiveDVD environment to the thumb drive and makes a new rootfs image to handle persistence. Try the normal install with no swap partition and see if it works.