Live Linux flash drive

[Fritz Hastreiter]

Wondering if anyone has advice of trying a live linux distro for my netbook with a dead hard drive.  I did not realize such a thing existed and it seems useful as a diagnostic tool and for giving a linux distro a test drive without messing with a working operating system and the hard drive that it resides on.

Thanks,
Fritz

[Charles Allhands]

Fritz,

There are specialized versions of linux specifically for doing diagnostics on your computer that can be run as a live usb. Are you asking for recommendations on one of those or are you just looking for a general purpose linux distribution to play with as a beginner?

      -Charles

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[Mindy Preston]

Hi Fritz,

If you come by with a flash drive >=1GB, I can get you set up with the latest Ubuntu for live-booting.  It's pretty simple to get working.  If you decide you want to run your netbook off of the flash drive normally (i.e. with some space carved out for persistent storage, so you can keep config/files between reboots), that's a little more complicated, but still nicely supported by Ubuntu's little wizard.  Do you know what the processor type on your netbook is?

(not Ubuntu-partisan, that's just what I've worked with)

Cheers,

Mindy

[Peter Novotnak]

FYI, Ubuntu is hands down best right now as far as out-of-the-box experience, and you can install basically anything that makes a distro 'specialized.'

If you are looking for a lean/mean pre-built liveboot image and you're not a linux novice- my personal favorite is Finnix.

-Peter

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[Daniel]

Greets!

One source of potential confusion is that there are two ways to do this:

Case 1: You download a LiveCD image and write it over the thumb drive in
question. When you boot this up, it will load the system entirely into
RAM and never write any changes back to the drive. So you might boot it
up, create some files, set a password, install bsd-games, whatever, but
the minute you turn off the machine, all those changes disappear. This
is useful if you want an essentially immutable system that will only
ever be used for troubleshooting/installing Linux on other machines and
will never itself change (and in particular will never break).

Case 2: You properly install Linux on a USB drive just as you would
install linux on any other hard drive. There are a few potholes to
avoid when executing this, but upon success, it ends up the same as
running off a hard drive: you can update the installed system, edit
files, etc. as usual, except that this hard drive is not tied to a
particular computer (even if just by a couple screws). In this case, if
the distro didn't originally come with some package that you end up
needing to do some diagnostics, you can merrily install it on your USB
drive system for future use. The risk here is that updating things, if
not done with some care, can [1] render your system unbootable, and if
this in turn means you've broken your recovery system, then, well...

There are of course hybrid approaches, where the system is essentially
immutable but you can store changes to at least your user files. Or if
you have a big enough flash drive you can install a liveCD Linux and a
normal Linux on separate partitions of the drive. Or really anything
else you can imagine.

I use Arch, whose procedure for setting up case 1 is at
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_Installation_Media, and is
pretty much cat in a box. The procedure for setting up case 2 is at
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_a_USB_key
and is more involved. Having said that, every trouble I had with this
latter process turned out to be a result of my ignoring/missing
something in the directions. If you'd be initially less happy being
presented with nothing but a terminal prompt, I'd hop on the Ubuntu
bandwagon--it isn't fundamentally less capable or anything.


[1] This paranoia might be an artifact of my Arch habit--I've not had
this happen with any other distro.

[Fritz Hastreiter]

I am a linux beginner and should probably start with some general purpose version and go from there. 
My netbook is Toshiba, N450 processor.
If Mindy or someone else is at sector today or tomorrow, willing to put a distro on a flash drive, that would be great.  I'm also aware I could buy a 8G flash drive with Linux distro installed, for $17.  More than a hundred flavors to choose from?
Daniel, thanks for the explanation of the different modes to operate linux.  I spent most of the day yesterday reading different sources and have some sense of the differing operating modes.  Probably need some hands on time to keep my head from spinning with all the variables.
Thanks for all the input,
Fritz

On Tuesday, June 4, 2013 11:05:35 AM UTC-5, Fritz Hastreiter wrote:

[Charles Allhands]

Fritz,

Besides Ubuntu, you may also want to look at Linux Mint. It is very beginner friendly, is based off Ubuntu, and is now more popular than Ubuntu (at least on Distrowatch). Mint has a desktop layout that will probably be more familiar to you however since you're on a netbook Ubuntu's layout may be better for you in the long run. If no one can help you install it out at Sector there are plenty of easy to follow tutorials online as well. Good luck!

       -Charles

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[Bob Baddeley]

I second Mint over Ubuntu. Ubuntu has gotten all touch/mobile screen-y and pissed off a lot of users. Mint is nice. Got the girlfriend converted, too, and she's a Linux newb, too.

[Joe Kerman]

We have a few mini pci-e drives in the flash memory bin too.  Unknown status,  but I think they are 4gb.  (Most net books use this type of drive 

[Fritz Hastreiter]

Update- Thanks to Mindy for putting a copy of Ubuntu on my 16G flashdrive.  A slight false start with the F12 key, but with a restart and F2 to get it to boot from flashdrive, it works good.  So rereading Daniel's advice, I will try partitioning the flash drive so that I can have Ubuntu installed so it retains changed settings and files between sessions.  Maybe I should just get another flash drive and install on it?  There are 3 USB jacks.
Waterfront Festival is this weekend.
Fritz