There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

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.

JackbyDev ,

I’ve got a USB stick on my keys but I don’t remember what’s on it because I’ve never used it lmao.

ExtremeDullard ,
@ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

My “everyday carry” isn’t a USB stick, but it can act as one - and much much more: I always have my trusty Flipper Zero with me, and the image I carry in the mass storage emulator is the Linux Mint installer, with extra space in the image to store small files.

To be honest, the Flipper Zero’s mass storage emulator turns it into the slowest USB stick you never saw. But in a pinch, it’s there and it’s usable. I use my Flipper for a variety of other things all the time - including, with my laptop, as a presentation remote and secondary mouse - and I almost never need a USB flash drive. So slow though it is, it’s enough for when I do need one.

JackbyDev ,

Flipper zero seems fun but idk if I can justify that price. I don’t think I’d use it much.

nossaquesapao ,

I used to leave some usb device with multiple bootable isos lying round my table, but I found out that every time I needed something, none of them would serve me, and I had to download something else, so I don’t do that anymore and just download and write isos as I need them. Oh, but I still keep an old 4gb usb stick with some random distro on it, just in case my pc becomes unbootable and I have to do some maintenance/data rescue.

JackbyDev ,

Sameeee

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).

Asudox ,
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

Some useful files I might need someday (of course encrypted), bootable linux rescue distro and of course tailsos just in case.

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.

ProgrammingSocks ,

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

Coreidan ,

What are you doing with your life that necessitates carrying a USB drive everywhere you go?

wheeldawg ,

What kinda question is that? Seems pretty judgemental to me.

Some people are “the computer guy” for a BUNCH of people, and if your usual pocket arrangement allows them there are a bunch of tools you can use for different jobs.

It’s just a different kind of pocketknife at the end of the day. I don’t interact with nearly enough people to need one, but I can definitely see the possibilities.

This seems like a question that 90s people would ask. “What are you doing with your life that necessitates carrying a globally-connected supercomputer in your pocket?”

In different use cases I can see plenty of times where a bootable USB drive can mean you can use your own computer from any other machine. Which is super cool. It’s gonna be a much slower version of it, obviously(because of USB read/write, but pretty cool that you can carry a full copy of your system, settings, documents, and programs than can sync to/from your regular backups. Or another with copies of other boot level tools to have on hand. If you help a bunch of people with covering from microshit to Linux, then keeping a LiveISO on hand for them to try out and install seems like a good idea to keep around.

There’s just so many reasons why you would ask this. Personally I don’t, but if I did I would like to think I could ask the question.

If nothing else, it’s interesting to think about for sure. Now I kinda wanna imagine what kind of stuff is even possible to run like this that would be useful to me.

I only own one such at all, and I’ve only used it a very few times. Once to install my own OS, once to install a different one I leave at my brother’s house because his laptop is having issues and I go over there to watch movies with him, and once to install that same one (Mint in those cases, Pop for mine) on my parent’s computer.

If I find a good enough use case, I would start carrying at least one. But for now I just rewrite this one for whatever things I need at the time.

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

Deniable Encryption

BigMikeInAustin ,

Sorry about the negativity from so many people.

You do what works for you.

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.

Ooops , (edited )
@Ooops@feddit.org avatar

Ventoy and…

Clonezilla, (custom) ArchISO, Tails

the stuff you might need to safe other people’s PCs sigh …

HBCD_PE, Windows 11

If I hadn’t included those in my ArchISO already I would probably add…

one of the usual Rescue ISOs, GParted Live.

Bonus points for Ventoy’s ISO partiiton doubling as simple storage.

PS: Thanks for the reminder to update some of them again.

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

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

CapillaryUpgrade ,
@CapillaryUpgrade@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Lots of people have already mentioned Ventoy.

MediCat is Ventoy with a ton of images and a config file. It seems great, although I chose to roll my own as MediCat had a lot of Windows-centric images i have no need for.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •