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Linux Distro For Use On A Flash Drive

School is starting up soon, and I want to install a stable distro to a 64GB flash drive that i own will remain stable while booting onto at least 2 computers (my home PC for maintenance and my School laptop for, well school).

I was thinking of just using Debian, but wasn’t sure if it would work well in terms of compatibility with my requirements.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

Ventoy + as many ISOs as you want

toothpaste_sandwich , (edited )

Interesting! But will changes made to the OS you’re using be persistent? If I’m reading this right, then probably not, right?

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

correct – you can save individual files to the USB stick but anything like UI customization will be lost

Dotdev ,
@Dotdev@programming.dev avatar

You can you will have to set somethings up for it.

toothpaste_sandwich ,

That’s interesting, I’d be interested in finding out more about that. Let’s see, I’ve always wanted to try this:

@ChatGPT, how do you set up Ventoy for persistent installs of distros? That is, to be able to make changes to the operating system and have them stick?

ChatGPT Bot ,

Hi [email protected],

Creating persistent live USBs with Ventoy is possible. However, keep in mind that not all Linux distributions support this feature. The distributions that Ventoy currently supports for persistent installations are Ubuntu and some of its derivatives.

Here’s a basic step-by-step guide:

  1. Prepare Ventoy: Ensure that you’ve already installed Ventoy on your USB drive. If not, download the latest Ventoy release from its official website and install it to your USB drive.
  2. Prepare the ISO file: Download the ISO file of the Linux distribution and copy it to the Ventoy USB drive. You can just put it in the root directory.
  3. Create a persistence file: Ventoy uses a data file to enable the persistence feature. You need to create this file on the Ventoy USB drive, there is an official utility named create_vtoy_img.sh in Linux or Ventoy2Disk.exe on Windows that you can use to create this persistence data file. Name the file and define its size according to how much persistent storage you need.
  4. Bootstrap the persistence feature: After creating the data file, you should create a JSON file in the Ventoy USB drive to bootstrap the persistence feature. You can create a .json file in the root directory of the Ventoy USB drive with the following format:
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">{
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#183691;">"persistence" </span><span style="color:#323232;">: [
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">            </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#183691;">"image" </span><span style="color:#323232;">: "/your-linux-distro.iso",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">            </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#183691;">"backend" </span><span style="color:#323232;">: "/ventoy-persistent-data-file.dat"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        }
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    ]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">}
</span>

Replace your-linux-distro.iso with the filename of your Linux distro ISO file and replace ventoy-persistent-data-file.dat with your Ventoy persistent data file’s name.

  1. Boot from the Ventoy USB drive: Finally, boot your computer from the Ventoy USB drive. The Linux distro will launch with the persistence feature, so you’ll be able to save any changes you make.

Remember this is a generalized guide and actual steps can vary based on the specific distro, and tools being used.

Hope this helps! If you encounter issues or have further questions, feel free to ask.

([email protected])

toothpaste_sandwich ,

Huh, well, that doesn’t seem very convenient at all. I’m not all that interested in Ubuntu-based distros, for one.

Still, the ChatGPT bot seems to work well, so that’s pretty cool.

Dotdev ,
@Dotdev@programming.dev avatar

Arch and fedora are supported as well.

InverseParallax ,

There are ways, but it’s not standard.

kanzalibrary ,
@kanzalibrary@lemmy.world avatar
  • for Ventoy! more dynamic Linux experiences is one place and functions for one time effort…
ashley ,

They’re looking for a persistent install on a flash drive. To my knowledge it’s not easy to make ventoy do that.

GustavoM ,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

This. Even if I don’t see a purpose to go anything beyond Armbian + Debian + “prebuilt” Manjaro.

vsh ,
@vsh@lemm.ee avatar

I had Manjaro Linux on my 128GB pendrive and it worked completely fine. I guess you can install any distro because thumb drives are only (mobile) disks after all. Just remember that your USB lifespan will shorter because there’s a lot of saving/reading in process

Meganium97 ,

Normally I’d advise you to not use manjaro with a link to the manjarno page but it appears their domain license lapsed so I cannot.

flashgnash ,

Never really got manjaro, never got around to it on my distro hopping spree.

Isn’t it just arch underneath?

illectrility ,
@illectrility@lemmy.world avatar

It is

20gramsWrench ,

it’s arch but they have their own repo and hold back most packages for a week to make sure they don’t break something before deploying them, with moderate success, their main particularity though is to have attracted the hatred of arch users since their creation and even mentioning the name will get you a full lecture about how they’re eating babies and selling their body parts

Meganium97 ,

I mean, on like 3 separate occasions they’ve accidentally ddosed the AUR, so tbh they have a right to be mad.

terminhell ,

If they would just remove access to the AUR it would solve some things. I used it for years before just getting the itch to distro hop. It worked just fine for me, and I only used the AUR for a handful of things. Now, I’ll either compile myself or use flatpak if it’s not in any normal repo for any distro I land on.

Meganium97 ,

That’s the one thing I don’t understand. Manjaro fucked up pamac way more times than necessary and yet they still don’t just ban pamac from accessing the aur.

20gramsWrench , (edited )

there should be an authentication system certifying that your computer is using the right set of software before getting acess to the aur, it would be called the “os integrity api” and prevent the use of the aur from unapproved 3rd party software, all you would need to do is to log in to your verified arch user account and request a monthly aur usage token to be created and used by your registered system for the low price of 9.99

flashgnash ,

Arch users gonna arch

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

somebody snapshotted it on Github – Manjarno

20gramsWrench ,

Would have been funny if they forgot to renew theyr ssl cert

KrimsonBun ,
@KrimsonBun@lemmy.ml avatar

Tails!

ilickfrogs ,
@ilickfrogs@lemmy.world avatar

Although I think tails is great, this isn’t the ideal use case

Qkall ,
@Qkall@lemmy.ml avatar

somehow no one said puppy linux. it’s small, fast and functional. there is an compatible debian version here - vanilla-dpup.github.io

Beatlesandworms ,

I use puppy Linux all the time. Works great, on a fairly crappy USB stick. It saves files to the stick and saves user preferences and everything. Very recommended from my end.

terminhell ,

Honestly I’d go with something that supports booting in secure boot mode like fedora or Ubuntu(direct derivatives maybe). And yes, install to am external drive if you plan on having persistence.

GrumbleGrim ,

YUMI is a great USB tool that can install multiple bootable ISO’s onto one multi system flash drive. Pendrivelinux.com

SethranKada ,
@SethranKada@lemmy.ca avatar

You could try Tails, it’s specifically made for this purpose. It’s ui is a bit old looking though, and it’s not that user friendly. If you can stand xfce or kde though, you’ll feel right at home though.

abuttifulpigeon OP ,

No, I meant I need a mobile workstation. Anonymity is not my primary goal here, but I will have Mullvad on.

warmaster ,

I had the same need, and tried Tails thinking it would serve me well as a mobile workstation, but it ended up complicating things. Almost nothing is persistent.

Tails is good for other use cases.

KrimsonBun ,
@KrimsonBun@lemmy.ml avatar

That’s what I use tails for. Persistent storage for files and software make it really convinient to travel around with.

52fighters ,
@52fighters@kbin.social avatar

Do yourself a favor and get an external hard drive. You'll get much better results and can run almost any distro with it.

jollyrogue ,

Definitely this.

I gave up on thumb drives as they are kind of trash. External NVMe drives are affordable, and the speed difference is BIG.

vsh ,
@vsh@lemm.ee avatar

Not really. If you only need to use a browser and some text editors you don’t need anything better.

nathris ,

Even better get a NVMe enclosure and an internal NVMe drive.

Enclosures are $20 and you can get a 500gb Samsung 970 Evo for $35.

Smaller, lighter, cheaper and faster than any off the shelf portable drive you could get. I have one and it fully saturates the USB C 10Gbit port on my motherboard.

signofzeta ,

It can be done. Just don’t cheap out. A USB4-attached NVMe disk will be faster than a run-of-the-mill USB 3.0 flash drive, and that will run circles around some cheap $10 USB 2.0 drive.

Not all flash drives are rated for constant use, so be sure to have a backup plan.

Other than that, it’s a cool idea! Go for it!

TerkErJerbs ,

Bunsenlabs is Debian-based, but doesn’t have a classic desktop environment. Instead it uses super lightweight Openbox window manager and some other tricks to emulate one. It will run very well with 20gb disk space (you have triple that at your disposal). If you remove the programs you don’t use (the office suite, etc etc) you can trim the install down even more.

abuttifulpigeon OP ,

Very helpful, thank you. I will definitely give this a try!

TerkErJerbs ,

No worries. It’s been my daily driver for a very long time at this point across many different machines. If you do go with Bunsen, it’s still on Debian 11. You can safely do an apt dist-upgrade to 12 and it will keep the Bunsenlabs flavor without issue. I often run Sid repo as well, no issues for me.

Bleach7297 ,
@Bleach7297@lemmy.ca avatar

Solid consumer advice

spacedancer ,

Wow Bunsenlabs. Now that’s a distro I haven’t heard in a while. lol. I used to have it on an old laptop many many years ago.

TerkErJerbs ,

I’ve tried so many others out and I keep going back to it! I put it on everything haha.

buwho ,

I loved Crunchbang was sad to see it go

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar
buwho ,

😮

only0218 ,

Check out the Immutable Versions of Fedora (Kinonite and Silverblue especially)

jollyrogue ,

It’s more about your software requirements then anything else.

Stable distros can be a pain when run as a desktop, so that might need to be rethought.

OpenSuse Tumbleweed is a rolling distro which deserves a look.

Endeavor OS for something Arch based.

Debian Testing is rolling for something Debian.

Fedora is semi-rolling for something in the red hat ecosystem.

OpenSuse Leap is a stable distro which gets bumped once a year, so that might be an option.

jsnc ,

If you’re using the flash drive as a block storage device with a root partition, I think just about any distribution would fit your requirements. Just try experimenting with it and make sure that both your machines can boot into the flash drive.

abuttifulpigeon OP ,

Ok, thanks. I just wasn’t sure if there were compatibility or stability issues with certain distros from switching machines so much.

jsnc ,

The only trade off here is that read/write operations are going to be throttled by the speed of your flash drive which will be very noticeable compared to NVME internal storage.

kanzalibrary ,
@kanzalibrary@lemmy.world avatar

The only trade off here is that read/write operations are going to be throttled

I agree with this, definitely noticeable with FD and maybe the better solution imo is buy SSD SATA 128gb, installed Ventoy on that, move all your ISO linux to Ventoy, and you can boot all Linux in one page without any flashing one by one again.

Very convinient, less effort, and more flexible according to your needs in instant. Start with FD 64gb is fine (as I started from that too), but in the end, I need to buy external SSD for not compromise the speed and storage (minus the size though than FD)…

jollyrogue ,

There might need to be some extra firmware packages which need to new installed, but they’re shouldn’t be any problems from switching hardware.

Starfish ,

Maybe MX linux or AntiX Linux. They are very thumb drive focused

Ew0 ,

Alpine works great off a usb, I run sway and quite a few other bits off it on a run-from-ram/encrypted config.

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