Installing on a USB Drive

[Giuseppe_Chillemi]

Hi,
as we use old Clients whose hard drive is the most faulty component we would like have a USB installation we can move to a different PC anytime.

We have a few questions:

Is it possible to install on a USB KEY and have writeable for normal operations as a regular partition ?

Is the Linux Lite installation hardware dependent in some way ? Lets us explain better: we don't know if drivers are dinamically loaded at boot or they are "fixed" during the installation.

Thanks in advance
    Giuseppe Chillemi


    Giuseppe Chillemi

[gold_finger]

Hello Giuseppe,

Welcome to LL.

Are you trying to make clones of systems that can be easily installed on to new hard drives if the old ones fail?

Or, are you just wanting to know if it is possible to install on a USB key?

Answer is "yes" you can make clones to a USB if it is large enough for that.  Here are two programs that you can use for that:  Redo Backup & Recovery and Clonezilla.  Redo is available in the repositories, so you can use Synaptic to install it to your live LL installation CD/USB.  Clonezilla must be downloaded and made into a bootable CD/USB.  Either way, you need to operate them from a live CD/USB because you can not be using the drive that you are trying to clone.

And ...

"Yes" you can do a regular installation to a USB key just like you would to an internal hard drive.  Your best bet is to make partitions on the USB ahead of time with GParted.  Then boot computer with live installation CD/USB, plug in the USB you want to install to, then run the installer.  When you get to "Installation Type" screen, choose "Something else".  Next, select each partition you made on the USB, click "Change", set Mount Point and File System type for each, leave size as you made it in GParted.  If USB is not very large, make Swap partition only 1-2GB.  Then, most important -- set "device for boot loader installation" needs to be changed to the USB key.  Just pick the device without any partition number.  For example, /dev/sdb -- not /dev/sdb1.

Is the Linux Lite installation hardware dependent in some way ? Lets us explain better: we don't know if drivers are dinamically loaded at boot or they are "fixed" during the installation.

As long as you do not install any proprietary drivers for graphics or wireless cards, then it will adjust itself for whatever computer you boot into.  As long as the computers you use it on can run from one of the default graphics drivers you should be fine using it on them.

[N4RPS]

Hello!

Just thought I'd mention that with Redo Backup, the destination drive must be larger than the source drive...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Giuseppe_Chillemi]

I wish to create an USB installation wich is hardware indipendent.
When created I will install all the packages needed for us.
Then the key should work on any PC which has compatible hardware.

for example: If the destination machine supported Webcam, or soundcard they should be recognized by the OS without asking the user anything.

Regards,
  Giuseppe Chillemi

[colinkx250]

There is a good YouTube video here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLoYBobVpO0

I have followed this guide but using LinuxLite 1.08 instead of peppermint,and I can move my Usb ScanDisk Extreme 3.0 memory stick from laptops to desktops and it installs drivers needed for each machine and works on all of them.
I hope this helps you.

[gold_finger]

Okay.  In that case just install to USB like described above.  Do updates to system like you would on normal hard drive installation.  Then install extra software you want on it.  As long as hardware on all machines does not require proprietary drivers the USB should work on all of them.  Over time, run the Update Manager occasionally just as you would a hard drive installation.  You should be fine.

P.s.  colinkx250 posted the video link while I was typing this response.  Just took a quick look and it is good video showing install steps.  Only thing to be careful of is to make sure that the "device for boot loader installation" is set to the USB.  In the video above it showed that as pre-filled correctly with the USB; but in my experience it usually pre-fills with the internal hard drive designated.  Make sure you check that.  Other than that, the video shows exactly what you need.

[Giuseppe_Chillemi]

Hi,
  here is an update.
  I have installed LinuxLite from inside a Virtual Machine to the USB Pen Drive (live boot from .ISO and then install).
  Putting the Pen Drive onto another PC boots Linux Lite up to the boot bar is half filled. Then the system stops booting.
 
  Regards,
    Giuseppe Chillemi

[N4RPS]

Hello!

Are the two machines identical to one another, or are they different from each other in some way - for example, trying to run a 64-bit install on a 32-bit machine?

The machine I'm using now runs LL from an SD card, so I'll stick it in another machine, and see what happens. Something could be wrong with the ISO...

Update: I plugged a 16GB SD card with a 2.0 beta 64-bit install, with GRUB in the master partition of  the SD card (sdX), that I created on a Toshiba laptop into a netbook made by HP and turned it on. Everything is working flawlessly. It even detected my Broadcom wireless card! And I thought things with 2.0 beta couldn't get any better...

I didn't use Relinux to create my SD card-based system, but you might want to look into the Relinux posts elsewhere on here to help you achieve conformity between your PCs...


73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Giuseppe_Chillemi]

They are different.

I have installed from inside a Virtual Machine-

Regards,
  Giuseppe Chillemi

[N4RPS]

Hello!

I'm glad you got it figured out!

Of course, you know what that means. You'll have to create a separate install for every machine you have that's different from the others...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob