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What's on your "Everyday Carry" USB stick?

Just picked up a 128GB USB A/C stick that can go on my keyring. What are some things I should put on it to have access to at all times?

I already have self hosted services accessible over my VPN, so this would be for when I can’t access that.

I’m thinking at least Ventoy and some common ISOs, then I’m not sure what else.

ProgrammingSocks ,

Pretty boring. School textbooks and portableapps with a few of my essentials - Firefox, vim, GIMP, and some others I’m forgetting right now.

MonkderDritte ,

Two partitions for a live linux, the second for home and other data. It can come in handy, if you’re on linux.

solidgrue ,
@solidgrue@lemmy.world avatar

I do this. A Debian Live image and an encrypted LVM for home. Came in handy a few times for the odd system rescue

fratermus ,
@fratermus@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

What’s on your “Everyday Carry” USB stick?

  • scans of my DL and other licenses
  • scan of my DD214
  • system rescue ISO
  • a TEMP dir with random things I need in the short term
  • portable apps versions of putty, WinSCP, etc.
rand_alpha19 ,

I don't really carry one anymore, but the one I have at my desk has Ventoy and LMDE on it for when I need to mess with something requiring my system to be down or modify my OS partition. I don't really do much on other PCs except when I have to help my wife with something.

When I was working at my last job I carried 2-3 with a ton of database backups and proprietary software and firmware files for clients' automation systems. Kinda don't miss it at all, but it sure made me feel important, lol.

Jumuta ,

ventoy with some live image, gparted, and arch iso

Cyv_ ,

Yeah main thing is Ventoy and images for windows 10 and 11. I also have some basic tools, and some portable versions of some games I like (OoT, Warcraft 3, etc).

rotopenguin ,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

I have a Debian 12 install on a 5GB partition (btrfs compression is magic), and the rest is exfat. It has rEFInd as the bootloader, should be pretty good at detecting and running other OSes with bootloader problems.

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

Of course Ventoy and multiples ISO, but also a full copy of SDIO, it’s maybe 30-40GB, but absolutely essential for Windows

gencha ,

Before Google Drive and Syncthing I relied on such a USB device. Today, no matter what I put on the stick, it’s outdated or entirely not what I need when I need something.

Having any stick on hand, and being able to flash an image from your phone, that’s nice

JoeKrogan ,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

Tails and another for storing random stuff, like a copy of documents when travelling.

just_another_person , (edited )

The only solid reason I can think carry anything on a USB stick is if you’re going to be in an area without Internet. If you’re in an IT role where you’re interacting with end-user machines all the time, then the answer would obviously be some sort of live environment to troubleshoot or fix issues. In that case, load a Ventoy partition with a few different images, and and be done with it I guess.

If you’re thinking like a Prepper or whatever, keep a copy of Wikipedia, and some survival books maybe? Maps? That’s all I can think of. If you’re going this far, better carry a backpack with portable solar panels, a large battery, and a lifejacket. None of this matters when you don’t have food and water though, so…

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ce915395-fd73-4401-8801-72d1aff87db2.png

narc0tic_bird ,

Well if you don’t have an actual use case for it, don’t try to artificially find one.

The only thing I use USB sticks for nowadays is for OS installs.

For everything else their write speeds are slow (even the more expensive USB sticks slow down to a crawl after what feels like not even one complete overwrite) and they are unreliable.

Sure, if you want to carry around random OS installers and live environments, go for it. I personally don’t have a use case for it.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Kali

smeeps OP ,

Cheers, currently grabbed Ubuntu, Fedora, GParted, and Kali.

johsny ,
@johsny@lemmy.world avatar

I carry an empty one, to make copies of movies I find on work computers.

30p87 ,

Different Linux distros and Windows. Because I regularly need them.

Rogue ,

How regularly do you really need them? Surely by the time you come to reinstall an OS there’s already a later version available, doesn’t it just make sense to create a fresh USB each time?

For example about a month ago I installed Project Bluefin on a couple of devices so that USB is lying around somewhere. But in the meantime the maintainers have rotated the update signing keys so that month old installer is now redundant.

30p87 ,

Windows does not really have a version afaik, so I just update it every few months. Debian live is just for visually editing/moving partition in complex setups, and I can fix my Arch install with an installer/live iso that’s months old. It’s just that I don’t want multiple USB-Sticks, and need multiple ISOs at the same time (eg. Arch and debian live for rescuing my installs, or Win 10/11 for new Installs for more tech illiterate people - Win 10 is the “just functions” thing for my father, when we need a laptop for proprietary laptops, and 11 is for other people who need something set up. Additionally, I use Windows’ installer environment to update my Laptops, servers and workstations BIOS.)

yo_scottie_oh ,

Is there such a thing as a Windows live environment? Once in a blue moon I need to boot into Windows, like when I need to reprogram my gaming mouse or something. I’d love to not have to maintain a separate partition on my OS drive that I use like once a year.

f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4 ,

Hiren’s Boot CD PE

30p87 ,

With the stock installer? Not really. However, technically the installer itself is a very, very minimal windows. Just open up a cmd (with Ctrl + F12 or smth I believe) and you can open notepad from there, meaning you have a graphical file “manager”. And from there you can do things such as executing BIOS installers, which will actually work - even though the WM looks pretty weird, you will be able to use very simple programs just fine - such as cmd, or the Intel BIOS installer.

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