Linux on a Stick

[Ben]

What are you guys liking these days for bootable flash drive Linux versions?

I'm looking at using it on a travel laptop instead of a VM for the space savings. Looking for "lean and mean". Just for web browsing, etc. when I'm on a public wireless. If I need other stuff that I want secure, like paying online bills, I swap over to my 4G modem and the host machine, but I have limited data on that.

[lee n. field]

I use PQMAGIC a lot.  Lean and mean, intended mostly for techs, with many tools and such.  Will load itself fully into RAM if you've got 1GB of RAM.

Ubuntu works too.  It can be set up with "persistance".  The latest seems to take forever to boot.  I'd drop back to 14.04, the last long term support version.  Pick your flavor (standard, Gnome, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and now Mate Ubuntu).  For your use, that would be my pick.

I haven't looked at Knoppix for years.

[Ben]

My concern was that Ubuntu has been getting kind of bloated. I'm only running 12 in a VM on my main machine and am kinda "meh" about it. I probably shouldn't overthink it for simple web browsing though. What is "persistence" mode?

[roo_ster]

I have had good results with these USB bootable distros in the last couple years:

Mint.
http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2014/05/how-to-create-bootable-linux-mint-usb.html

Xubuntu.  Never did like original Ubuntu
http://xubuntu.org/

DSL.  Damn, it's small.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

[bedlamite]

DSL.  Damn, it's small.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

From a USB stick? ^this.

[TechMan]

I like Mint, it is my go to.  Ben, I agree with you on Ubuntu, it has become bloated.

[Ben]

I have plenty of USB sticks around. I think I'll try both Mint and DSL tonight. Thanks for the suggestions!

[lee n. field]

persistance if where it keeps docs and changes from one boot to the next -- not all kept in ram. 

[Ben]

persistance if where it keeps docs and changes from one boot to the next -- not all kept in ram. 

Ah, that's handy! Amazing the things you can still learn even after running an OS for years. :)

[lee n. field]

Ubuntu is the only one I know of where you can set that up from the get-go.  And yes, it's bloated.  A boot stick made from the 15.04 iso takes forever, it seems, to get to a desktop.  Which is what I recommended going with the 14.04 version.

[dogmush]

I have a circa 2013 version of puppy Linux on a stuck I use for "clean ps public browsing" it's small and fast,  but I don't use it that much.

[zahc]

Puppy is the most purpose-built thing to put on a flash drive. They have it set up to load fast and run from ram.

Yes, many distros have "persistent"-mode installs. Especially sucky ones like Ubuntu.  But you don't need them to have persistence. Any distro whatsoever can be installed onto a flash drive in the normal way and it will be "persistent". I just did this with Debian 8 XFCE.

1 - create bootable flash drive ("drive A") and boot it. Or burn an install CD, if that's how you roll.
2 - insert another flash drive that you are actually going to install onto ("drive B")
3 - use the installer in the typical way,  but do custom partitioning.  Create a few-gig partition on flash drive B for /, make the rest of it into a big partition for /home, do not make a swap partition. I use ext4 but some people think ext2 is easier on the flash.
4 - after install is finished, flash drive B is a "persistent" bootable flash drive.
5 - optional: set filesystem mount options to "noatime" (only really does anything with older kernels since newer ones are relatime by default typically). Adjust virtual memory settings to batch disk syncs. These things will extend flash memory life.

[BryanP]

Ah, that's handy! Amazing the things you can still learn even after running an OS for years. :)

It is handy indeed. And with the price of sticks so low, I can put mint on a 32GB stick and give it a ridiculous amount of space for persistence.

[RevDisk]

For business or service related, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora or Scientific. All pretty much the same thing. You're out of your gourd if you go any other route. I'm not saying anyone that runs Ubuntu on a production server needs to be shot, but definitely don't take a job at any place that does unless they have a very very persuasive argument (which they actually might).

However... CentOS 7 is the devil. Go with CentOS 6.6 for production. I don't know what will happen when 6.x's light extinguishes and we're left in the darkness that is CentOS 7. The issue isn't 7, of course, it's the cancer of SystemD. Red Hat, Debian and Ubuntu are similarly infected. init needs a replacement, but for as widely spread as SystemD is, it's not the answer. The unix philosophy is "do one thing, do it well" with Byzantine configuration or options being optional but common. SystemD is "Do everything, and do it well enough to hopefully work. If it doesn't work, trash the entire system. MWAHAHAHAA!"


Home or workstation use is down to personal preference. Mint, Ubuntu or purpose built distros are good, but you'll need to look around for what fits your specific taste. I tried using a recent Ubuntu distro on my BeagleBones. In my opinion, meh. If I had to go on that side of the house, Mint or Debian would be my preference but again, it's largely personal taste.

[GigaBuist]

I'm not saying anyone that runs Ubuntu on a production server needs to be shot, but definitely don't take a job at any place that does unless they have a very very persuasive argument (which they actually might).

THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS!

Ok, perhaps not so much.  I'm actually not really keen on running Ubuntu everywhere in my place, and I wanted to go with Debian as I transitioned off MS and into Linux but I found Debian's current stable distro lacking a proper udlfb driver (USB -> VGA thing) which Ubuntu had so I went there and I pushed the servers over to Ubuntu too just to keep versions consistent across the nearly 30 registers and the few servers I run.

But the I do something weird and keep a Debian box as my backup machine slash random crop box so if a worm hits the Ubuntu stuff my Debian box is probably OK and I can still continue on.

What I'm getting at is I just really like Debian and their apt system.  When I tried RH out back in the day they didn't have yum, or whatever, so I never learned it because I went to Slackware for a long bit and when I found Debian and apt (2000 I'd guess) I just never wanted anything else.

[lee n. field]

What I'm getting at is I just really like Debian and their apt system.  When I tried RH out back in the day they didn't have yum, or whatever, so I never learned it because I went to Slackware for a long bit and when I found Debian and apt (2000 I'd guess) I just never wanted anything else.

That was about when, and why, I moved from Red Hat to Debian.  Package management and dependency handling -- if there was a clean way to do it with Red Hat at the time, I never found it.

[Ben]

I like Mint! Really clean, and super fast on the stick. I'm installing it as a VM on my main machine as well and will likely nuke the Ubuntu.