Live USB with persistence

Vrai

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2019
Messages
1,085
Reaction score
1,050
Credits
4,227
Testing out a Live USB with persistence of Linux Mint 19.3. People seemed to be having issues with USB's so I decided to give it a test.

I downloaded UNetbootin from their downloads page and ran it from the Terminal.
I had to change the name to match what the command was (./unetbootin-linux).

The application looked very Windows 95ish on my desktop PC running Linux Mint 19.3.
After some poking and prodding I got the correct info loaded. I had an .iso of Linux Mint 19.3 already in my Downloads folder so I used that.

One issue which appeared right away was the USB drive already had MX 19.1 on it and UNetbootin was seeing only the second partition on the USB drive. It did not appear as UNetbootin would format the USB drive for me. So I simply used the Linux Mint USB disk formatter to re-format the drive as FAT32 and the restarted the UNetbootin app.

After that it was pretty straight forward. There were a couple of times where I thought the installation had 'stalled' but even though I was somewhat impatient I LEFT IT ALONE and it finished its' tasks.

The USB was created with an .iso of Linux Mint 19.3 in Live mode with 4 gigabytes of persistent storage.
I then plugged the USB into my 'test' machine - a Dell workstation - and booted it.
Booted up fine :)
Then to test the persistence I installed a couple programs from the Software Manager, made a few text files, downloaded and saved an .mp3 (Jazz), downloaded some images (wallpapers), installed some Firefox extensions and customized Firefox, tweaked my desktop and panel, and rebooted.

All files and changes were saved! :) Yippee!

Then I did a complete shutdown and start-up - just to check. All worked fine. Changes saved.
Then I tried the USB drive in my laptop to see if everything worked.
Yup - it works! I am using it right now to post this.
Wi-fi, bluetooth, touch-pad, everything is working and all files and changes have been preserved.

This is just a really long way of saying - For a bootable Linux USB with persistence - try UNetbootin! :)
 


Here may be another way. I don't do the persistence thing, but I understand the usefulness under certain conditions.
 
Here may be another way. I don't do the persistence thing, but I understand the usefulness under certain conditions.
I saw that. But I looked for another way as I don't like adding PPA's to my repositories. (although mkusb seems to be a fine application.)
I also noticed that there seemed to a lot more user friendly apps for Windows users than for Linux users to make bootable USB images with persistence. Disappointing that.
 
Testing out a Live USB with persistence of Linux Mint 19.3. People seemed to be having issues with USB's so I decided to give it a test.

I downloaded UNetbootin from their downloads page and ran it from the Terminal.
I had to change the name to match what the command was (./unetbootin-linux).

The application looked very Windows 95ish on my desktop PC running Linux Mint 19.3.
After some poking and prodding I got the correct info loaded. I had an .iso of Linux Mint 19.3 already in my Downloads folder so I used that.

One issue which appeared right away was the USB drive already had MX 19.1 on it and UNetbootin was seeing only the second partition on the USB drive. It did not appear as UNetbootin would format the USB drive for me. So I simply used the Linux Mint USB disk formatter to re-format the drive as FAT32 and the restarted the UNetbootin app.

After that it was pretty straight forward. There were a couple of times where I thought the installation had 'stalled' but even though I was somewhat impatient I LEFT IT ALONE and it finished its' tasks.

The USB was created with an .iso of Linux Mint 19.3 in Live mode with 4 gigabytes of persistent storage.
I then plugged the USB into my 'test' machine - a Dell workstation - and booted it.
Booted up fine :)
Then to test the persistence I installed a couple programs from the Software Manager, made a few text files, downloaded and saved an .mp3 (Jazz), downloaded some images (wallpapers), installed some Firefox extensions and customized Firefox, tweaked my desktop and panel, and rebooted.

All files and changes were saved! :) Yippee!

Then I did a complete shutdown and start-up - just to check. All worked fine. Changes saved.
Then I tried the USB drive in my laptop to see if everything worked.
Yup - it works! I am using it right now to post this.
Wi-fi, bluetooth, touch-pad, everything is working and all files and changes have been preserved.

This is just a really long way of saying - For a bootable Linux USB with persistence - try UNetbootin! :)
I didn't know about UNetbootin. I used Rufus to put mint 19.2 on a 128gb usb with persistence. Same level of joy from me. It allowed me to set up programs I use for testing laptops without drives. This way I can run some tests and generate and save reports without having to install the same programs every time.
 
Understand your concern about PPAs. The mkusb object is included in a lot of CD/DVD burning packages, so it's probably not a bad choice, but there are always a lot of ways to do things in Linux.
 
I didn't know about UNetbootin. I used Rufus to put mint 19.2 on a 128gb usb with persistence. Same level of joy from me. It allowed me to set up programs I use for testing laptops without drives. This way I can run some tests and generate and save reports without having to install the same programs every time.
Does Rufus work in Linux?

I made this Linux Mint 19.3 Live USB with persistence just for testing and for fun but I am liking it quite a bit and am thinking I will keep it handy for testing and troubleshooting. Time to add some utility apps to it :)
 
Understand your concern about PPAs. The mkusb object is included in a lot of CD/DVD burning packages, so it's probably not a bad choice, but there are always a lot of ways to do things in Linux.
The Ubuntu Community Wiki recommended it so I figured it it was probably O.K.
( still don't like adding PPA's though)

 
Does Rufus work in Linux?

I made this Linux Mint 19.3 Live USB with persistence just for testing and for fun but I am liking it quite a bit and am thinking I will keep it handy for testing and troubleshooting. Time to add some utility apps to it :)
I can't speak to that as I used it in win10. I know it is dated, but gurgle produced this article https://www.techybugz.com/rufus/rufus-for-linux/
Now I am going to have to see if it does work.
 
I went to rufus.ie to see what the developer has in mind. Rufus is open source, so you may think it could be easily ported to Linux, but this is what the developer says at his github site. Not saying it can't be done, and I'm sure someone will try or has done it. Take it for what it is worth.
 
I went to rufus.ie to see what the developer has in mind. Rufus is open source, so you may think it could be easily ported to Linux, but this is what the developer says at his github site. Not saying it can't be done, and I'm sure someone will try or has done it. Take it for what it is worth.
That is what I thought. I have a couple machines running Windows but I preferred to use Linux. When I searched for ways to do this I was surprised that there were not very many ways to do it in Linux but many ways to do it in Windows.
 

Staff online

Members online


Top