Usb Live Boot

[Cesar Sergeantson]

Livelinux boot is helpful when you have to do recovery tasks. Anything you do will not be persistent and will vanish after you shutdown like you install a package or updates it will not stay. But any other work like you create documents, spreadsheets or presentations then you can mount another file system and store it there. Usually you have few disk space in that because USB, DVD and CDs are very small. It works entirely from RAM. Performance issues aren't that much. Live boot is usually slower than booting installed linux.

There is another kind of live boot with persistence. It creates a persistent file in your boot media and all work is stored in that file. The file has casper-rw file system. It also doesn't touch your hard disk and works like internal SATA connection. But if you have smaller disks, your disk space is low.

Installing linux in hard drive is the full meal deal. You can take full advantage of the partition in hard drive. You can save and work more. The only reason I see to not install it is you don't want to (re-)partition your hard disk.

I ran the kernel install anyway (on two separate tries using both methods in posts above), and while it completed successfully, there were a number of error messages during the installation - these errors were also present when I tried to install kernel v6:

On a side note: it is good practice to more than one kernel installed, exactly in cases like those when the newer kernel does not work as intended. Installing a newer kernel does not require you to remove the old one (unless the latter is EOL).

That was perfect, many thanks for the help throughout - I had not backed up the most recent config files for my i3wm and Polybar, and had the issue with no boot required a reinstall, a lot of configurations in those would have to be remade. I appreciate your time very much.

A Live USB will let you run an operating system off of a USB drive, so you can try a operating system without a partition, or carry a favorite one with you, or have an emergency backup in case your computer crashes.

In this Instructable, I will be showing you how to create such a USB drive. It's a beginner friendly tutorial, and assumes you know the basics of computer navigation, but if you are familiar with computers, you should be able to follow the abridged version I have at the second to last step.

There are a lot of different softwares out there to do this, so I've tried out a bunch and I'm bringing two good ones to you. I will also be showing you some notable Linux operating systems you can get for free. Finally, I will be showing you how to actually use the USB Drive to start the computer and run your new operating system.

If you need a free and reliable operating system, a version of Linux is the way to go. There are a lot of different versions of Linux (dubbed 'Flavors' or 'Distributions', often shortened to 'Distros').

We will need some software to actually extract the operating system onto the flash drive. You've got a bunch of options out there- here are my favorites based on the ones I've tried. These are both Open Source tools that will allow for the extraction of the data onto the USB drive.

This one is my favorite. It is simple and easy to use, and allows you to download from a drop-down list rather than browsing and downloading the software online (although you can do this as well, if you want). I have only tested it on Linux. However, it is a much larger and better developed tool, and is actually a default program on some Linux flavors.

This one has a lot of the same features UNetBootin has, but it allows you to have more than one OS on a flash drive, which I really like. However, the Linux version doesn't seem to work on my Ubuntu (a type of Linux) laptop, so it doesn't seem to work for Linux. I have tested it on Windows and found it to work well.

This is another great tool worth considering. It was recommended by rowilsonh, and seems to be a very efficient and easy to use alternative to the software I've listed. Quick and easy, it has a lot of great resources, like a list of their supported linux distros (although I have a list later for those searching), and a lot of other great features.

So, in order to run an operating system, we need to know which one to use. If you have one, skip this step (or don't, whatever). I grabbed the list of 3 of the some of the most popular Linux flavors, as determined by DistroWatch. Here'sa link to that list.

So that's the top three most popular, but here's a few that are worth a mention because even though they aren't as popular, they still have a large follower base and have something that sets them apart. If your favorite isn't here, convince me of its uniqueness and I'll add it.

Before we begin, lets plug in our USB Drive. We need to see that the computer recognizes that there is a USB drive plugged in. On windows, I know this is true because a dialog opens up asking what to do. On Ubuntu, the USB drive will open. That's good- it means the computer is recognized the USB as a USB and that it's plugged in.

Check where your USB is located- it'll make it simpler if you only have 1 USB device plugged in. One way to make sure in Windows is by going to the Computer folder and seeing what device is your USB drive. If it's not immediately obvious, click around until you find it. Be sure to double check that this is the correct device- if you write to the wrong one, you aren't getting that data back.

You'll notice it is given a letter on windows (for me, its usually G: or H:). In the program, select this as the device you want to write to. You may have to select 'Show all devices' if you can't see it in the list there.

This is a pretty simple step. Once you've found the operating system you are happy with, you just need to download the .ISO file. Pick the type you want- the internet is your friend for researching the differences here.

It's easy to find out. You can just restart the computer and look for the text that says something along the line of "To bring up the boot menu press [key]". That's what you see in the first image. You'll have to be quick- it'll only be there for 1-4 seconds.

Once we know what key we need to open the boot menu, plug in your USB stick. This can be done when the computer is on or off- it doesn't matter. Then, either restart your computer or turn it on (if it was off before). As the computer begins to start up, start pressing that key to bring up the boot menu. Ideally, you will press the correct key as soon as the text "To bring up Boot Menu, press [key]" (or whatever your computer's equivalent is) appears. If this happens, then you will be brought into the Boot menu.

Once in the Boot menu, you should see something like what I have in the photo above. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate up or down to the USB device you plugged in. Select it using Enter.

By doing this, you are telling your computer that rather than getting started by using the already installed operating system, you want the computer to look at the USB Drive you selected and use the operating system there.

In YUMI, the actual location is most likely in "Linux Distros", but some may be hidden in "System tools". From there,, you will want to select the "Live" option. With UNetBootIn, it's quite a bit simpler- just select the "Live" option and it will start right up. With some systems, such as Debian, you may find only the default option. That's fine, unless you've accidentally installed a downloader.

If the distro has its own menu for you, select the Live option to start as a Live USB. If you can find a Persistence option, use that instead. It's the same thing, except it makes file saving easier. After hitting enter, wait for it to complete.

You could just yank the USB drive out if anything goes wrong, but you don't really want to crash your computer, so let it shut down. If you like the distro, then you can download it or keep it on the flash drive to use wherever you want. If you don't, no harm done- just delete the files and you can get a new distro or use it for storing other files.

So, there you have it! That is how you create a USB device that allows you to carry an operating system in your pocket. Hopefully this encourages you to try out a different operating system, or gives you the opportunity to try out an operating system without having to risk damaging, a partition, or a change for your computer. That's the real advantage this has, I think- not affecting the computer you are on opens a lot of doors for people. You can walk up to any computer, do your thing, unplug and be done with it.

I created an Ubuntu 10.10 live usb with persistence feature. And it works well on my PCs. But one thing annoys me is that each time I boot from live usb, I have to choose between "Try Ubuntu" and "Install Ubuntu". Is there any way to dismiss that dialog and boot directly to the live Ubuntu system?

I wouldn't do it the way you have, but it kinda depends what you want to use the USB key for. If you want to use it to do installs on computers then the way you set up the key is right. If you want to use it as a standard desktop install, that you can use on any random (or even just a few specific) machines then use this method instead:-

There's one more way: on boot of live USB there's a purple screen with keyboard = accessibility symbols in the bottom. If you press any key while it's shown, you'll get another boot menu, which allows to boot directly to the desktop, bypassing the switcher. It doesn't remove the switching completely, but at least works much faster.

default live

label live

menu label ^Run Netbook Remix from USB

kernel /casper/vmlinuz

append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-netbook.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz splash --

open syslinux.cfg, & change it's content with the code you've copied before. You can delete menu label ^Run Netbook Remix from USB or you can change it like this say Run Netbook Remix from this USB(basically you can put any line as long as you use say in front of it)

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