[Discuss] Installing LINUX OS on USB Stick or external USB HD

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2014-05-07 09:04-0600 Murray Strome wrote:

> I know many have done this and hope someone can point me to the best way to do it.
>
> I have successfully installed a "Live" version of Zorin OS 8 on a USB stick, and I have used the "Create Disk" utility to create a bootable "Persistent" version on another one. However, these are both very much like a Live DVD, not a normal installation with users, passwords, etc.  I imagine that I could create users and passwords, but just like a Live DVD, it is pretty slow.
>
> I know I could also create something like a Live USB installation using Pendrivelinux, but from past experience it is more like just a persistent Live CD.
>
> I know I could just install it on an external hard drive, but I would want it to have it's own GRUB boot loader (showing only the the one on the HD) and not show anything about it on the HD on my computer.
>
> What I would like is a full installation that behaves pretty much like it does from my HD.
>
> Can anyone point me to a suitable link to some instructions as to how to do this?

Hi Murray:

You should review a vlug e-mail thread started by me a while ago with
the subject line "Using a USB2 pen drive to work around hard disk
problems for an ASUS Eeebox".  I discussed the pen drive special
measures you should take so that it doesn't wear out too soon, and I
also included lots of references.  The end result is still working
well for me.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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