Running a distro from an external usb harddrive ?

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by chrome_sturmen, Dec 9, 2019.

  1. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    wondering about experiences regarding this *puppy*
     
  2. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Perfect experiences.
     
  3. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    truly?
    mine seems running well as well
    i made 3 partitions, a dedicated boot partition, home, and root (no swap)
    kubuntu installer had no problem with this setup, and it seems running fine
     
  4. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    MX-19 on a USB with persistence, where I can choose to save or not upon shutdown or reboot. No problems at all.
     
  5. login123

    login123 Registered Member

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    Yes to good experiences with many of them. They are fast.
    Ran Slitaz from a camera card, tried that just for fun. Worked. :)
    Puppy linux & some others run in RAM.
    Fatdog 64 works here on a 64 bit win 7 UEFI / GPT system.
    Got it to boot from a cd & run in RAM. Couldn't get it to boot from a USB stick, but didn't try very hard.
    Many (but not all) of the office files created will open in windows office software.
     
  6. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    PartedMagic & GParted spring to mind. Cause I just used them a couple hours ago. Perfect as per usual.
     
  7. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    How did you guys approach your partitioning?
    I made 3 partitions, a dedicated small boot partition for the bootloader, a home partition, and a root partition.
    It's just an old 5400 rpm drive, running through usb 2.0, but it seems to run pretty well
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    One partition. Root.

    Grub is in this partition in MBR systems. In UEFI/GPT systems, Grub is in the ESP.
     
  9. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    Brian - I just had a bit of a peculiar experience. I got brazen, and decided to try installing kubuntu alongside windows on my internal harddisk:

    I was only able to create 1 partition (mbr limits) so I installed kubuntu to it along with it's bootloader. This was such that when I rebooted, it went to windows as normal. I then edited the bcd to point to the linux installation and added a boot entry. When I rebooted and selected to boot linux, I got a prompt to unlock my bitlocker c: drive, then it went to linux, but the boot failed. no success

    I formatted the linux partition and tried again - this time I installed the linux bootloader to the same small partition that the windows boot files are on, I figured it'd be ok. This time I got the linux menu, but it had no windows boot option - maybe ubuntu doesn't recognize a bitlockered partition as a windows install?
    So at this point I had no way of getting back to windows, so I formatted the linux partition, installed windows to that partition, from there edited the boot menu entries, and got myself back to my main windows install. fun times

    If I installed linux into 1 partition only, then in windows created a boot menu entry that pointed to it (used easybcd) shouldn't it have booted properly?
    thoughts appreciated
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    chrome_sturmen,

    I'm out of touch with installing Linux that way. You have to install Grub into the MBR and I can't recall how the Boot Menu works.

    I use BootIt BM for Win/Linux multi-booting. There is no 4 primary partition limitation. You can have dozens of Win/Linux OS. Grub is installed into the Linux partition, not into the MBR as this would inactivate BootIt.

    BCD Edits aren't needed.

    The BootIt way...

    https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=281

    https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=279
     
  11. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    Brian - a year or so ago I tried using bibm to create more than 4 primary partitions on a mbr disk.. worked great - then for fun opened the disk in a different partition manager, and the partition table looked like an artist had splattered paint all over a white canvas :isay:
    Sure like the idea of endless primaries on an mbr disk tho..
    Ended up using an external 2.5 drive with yumi, endless live distros at the ready :eek:
    BIBM is a bit too powerful :eek:
     
  12. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Yes it is installed to the MBR. In my case after installing MX-19 on separate partitions next to Windows 10, I just had to run from a terminal: "sudo update-grub" in order for the Windows installation to be added to the boot menu. You just use the up/down arrow keys to select which O/S you want to boot from. Linux will be placed first in the boot order, but it's easy enough to move the Windows O/S to the top so it's selected first by default.
     
  13. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    chrome_sturmen,

    When you are running BIBM with Unlimited Primaries you must not use other partitioning apps. You could easily create disaster.
     
  14. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Thanks for that.
     
  15. shmu26

    shmu26 Registered Member

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    The update-grub command is usually only needed after a fresh install of MX Linux, because MX uses a unique and super-fast tool for grub installation. In some cases it misses Windows, when MX is installed for the first time.
    Whenever grub gets messed up, I love the MX grub-repair tool. It is so good and so fast. On a multi-boot system, I will fix the MX grub, by using a live MX USB stick, thus allowing me to boot into other installed distros, and run install-grub from within that system itself, if I want it.
     
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