Is there any easy way to install a Linux distribution directly to a USB drive?

BigDotNet , 7 hours ago

Boot from one USB then install into another USB, IDK exactly how the booting will work, I believe you will have to install the boot manager into the USB and then in the machine you want to use your OS you should boot from the same USB.

Never did it but I believe that’s the way it should be.

mycodesucks , 1 minute ago

This works. I ran a linux distro in off hours on my work laptop for years this way.

eugenia , 16 minutes ago

Linux mint will install and run from a usb drive as long as you unmount it upon loading its live version. Then it will allow to install on it during the installation procedure. I have an old Mac Mini and an old Macbook Air running Mint 22 that way.

spittingimage , 38 minutes ago

Fatdog is Debian by way of Ubuntu designed to run from a USB drive. There’s documentation on the website.

ikidd , 2 hours ago

MX Linux and it’s predecessor (can’t recall the original version) is a Debian distro that will run with a persistence cache on a USB stick.

CynicusRex , 4 hours ago

Ventoy.

Magister , 5 hours ago

MX Linux (debian based) works perfectly on a usb drive

sic_semper_tyrannis , 6 hours ago

I used to have a SanDisk Extreme Portable running Ubuntu. If it was unplugged, my computer would boot Windows and when I plugged in the SSD to USB it would auto boot into Ubuntu. I have no idea how I did it though. It was my first time using Linux and I followed a guide online.

Edit: found the video

Pogogunner , 7 hours ago

I installed from one flash drive with the image (on ventoy) to another flash drive that was plugged in to be the boot drive. On a cheap USB2 drive, it’s unusably slow - so make sure you use the fastest drive you can

sndmn , 7 hours ago

Yes

taaz , 8 hours ago (edited 8 hours ago)

So the lower-ish difficulty answer would be to run the iso installer in a VM with the usb stick forwarded to that VM.

Or you can learn what those fancy installers do: on debian you would use debootstrap

Here seems the whole guide on how to install debian manually with it:
gist.github.com/tr3buchet/6407920

Btw, this is also basically how you install Arch. As of until recently there wasn’t any installer and you had to go through each step manually (create partitions and fs, chroot, install the base system with <insert distro specific tool>, update fstab, distro specific finishing touches, voilà)

NaibofTabr , 8 hours ago

PenDriveLinux or rufus or balena etcher (frequently just referred to as “etcher”) or just dd.

Kalcifer , 8 hours ago

without having to reboot to run the installer?

I’m not sure that I understand what you mean. Are you saying that you want to be able to load the OS without having to reboot your computer? Or are you saying that you just don’t want to have to click the equivalent of “try the OS” when booting a live USB? If it’s the latter, you should be able to just select the flash drive as the install point (though, tbc, I have never tried this, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work) (I think you’d need 2 USBs, though — you’d need 1 to be the installer source, and one to be the install point — I don’t think theres any installer that can run as a desktop application. Though, if it’s Arch Linux, you might actually be able to call pacstrap from the host OS — I’ve never tried this after having already installed the OS). There’s even OS’s that are specifically designed to be ephemeral on hardware in this way — eg Tails OS.

some_guy , 8 hours ago

Copy a live cd iso using dd.