Ubuntu
ubiquity package

Using Ubuntu on a memory stick

Asked by IsidoreSparkle

I wish to use the latest Ubuntu on a memory stick (in essence as the hard drive) so that I have a portable operating system. I could install Ubuntu on a (large) memory stick and ask a PC to boot from that stick. But I wish to avoid this bother (and some PCs may not boot from a USB stick). Is the "trial" version (which is portable) simply a "taster" of the Ubuntu world? Does it do everything that the installed Ubunutu does? Why is it called a "trial?" I would simply like to use the "trial" stick forever (as I assume one does not have the bother of booting from the stick - which some PCs do not like). What I want to do is take my USB Ubuntu trial stick, put it in the hole and run my operating system wherever I want to (or can) without messing up the boot process. So basically (to repeat) what is "missing" from the trial stick and what is the advantage of actually installing? The USB memory stick of course can save files, new applications etc.etc. - is this allowed in the "trial?" Or is that it is called trial because you are not overwiting (or creating a partition) and deciding on Ubuntu as your sole OS?

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

You can do anything in the live CD which you can do in an installed OS. You will simply need to tell the BIOS to boot USB and you will be in a full Ubuntu desktop running in a RAM drive. The advantages are speed (USB is SLOOW compared to internal drives) and the capacity of apps you can install as you are using the system RAM to hold the apps you install. Also, the changes you make whiilst booted to the live USB are not saved. You also cannot reboot to a newer kernel.

You can alternatively go through a bit more effort and the USB can be a USB bootable OS and the changes will stick and files you create will also be kept. It takes a lot more effort but can be done.

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Ubfan (ubfan1) said : 		#2

The "trial" stick is called that because it may be run without altering anything on the hard disk of the computer.
However, it runs by booting, so you don't avoid that issue.
These sticks may be easily created from the downloaded iso from the menu choice System/Administration/Startup Disk Creator.
When created, you have a choice of making a writeable part. You can try making a large writeable part (which is just a file on the stick), but I have heard of boot problems when you do that. The way I suggest is to partition the stick into 1.2G and the rest, install to the 1.2G partition with a 500M writeable part, make a filesystem on the rest of the stick (I susggest ext2), and label the second partition "casper-rw" (without the quotes). Then delete the file named casper-rw on the first partition.
  I have run this way on a 4G stick, and successfully run update. This will take several hundred meg on the writeable part, but the stick seems to run just fine. The only drawback over a native install to the stick is the 3 min boot time (vs about 1 min).

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IsidoreSparkle (julianmyerscough) said : 		#3

All this is very helpful. I shall experiment with or do what you have kindly suggested.

Just an observation. It is said that USB sticks used in essence as the hard drive are so slow (see above) yet I have found on low end PCs memory sticks can produce quicker performance. And remember knoppix? On a live CD/dtivk this used to race along in some respects - but the DVD bigger version was slow.

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