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If Ubuntu was installed (full installation) on a USB flash memory, and then tried to boot that flash memory on another PC, will it boot?

I am trying to decide whether to use full installation or use a live cd image with a persistent file.

sharp12345
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3 Answers3

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Yes it will boot, the only thing you need to be careful about it installing proprietary drivers, so if you have the Nvidia drivers installed on the USB key and you boot it on a machine with ATI graphics, that likely won't work.

But generally speaking installation to a USB stick should work on most computers out of the box.

Jorge Castro
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Other than Windows Ubuntu will detect your hardware on boot, not on installation. Therefore it is possible to install Ubuntu to a portable drive for booting on another machine:

However sometimes there may be issues when the hardware of the target machine needs additional drivers to be installed, or in case you had installed additional drivers for hardware that are not compatible with the target machine.

Community
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Takkat
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There should also be NO problem if you've got some unique additional drivers. The system will boot anyway.

The only problem (with X) could be when you've forced using some graphical drivers in the OS configuration (e.g. /etc/modules, /etc/X11/xorg.conf).

If you're using common kernel drivers, than there should be no problem at all. I do this regularly.

Rostislav Stribrny
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