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I am new user and want to use complete features of Ubuntu 12.04 without installing it on my laptop that has Windows 7 OS so that I became acquainted with Ubuntu before switching to it. is it is possible through pen drive i.e. my pen drive will become Ubuntu enabled just like my computer work with windows.

Warren Hill
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user269081
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2 Answers2

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First you have to download the iso image for a flavour of Ubuntu at your choice. I recommend Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS iso image. Next you need to burn the image to some DVD (it has 731MB in size so it won't fit on a regular CD). If you run windows 64bit, try to burn the image using a 32bit machine, ask some friend for help.

Next you can boot the Live DVD with Ubuntu, choose Try Ubuntu instead of Install Ubuntu from the boot menu. Once you are in the Live session, you need to setup your Internet connection, and then plugin your USB pendrive.

You can start ubuntu installer from the desktop icon present there. Choose the 3rd choice for installing Ubuntu when presented with 3 choices. The 3rd choice is Something else. You will be getting to the partition table for both your HDD and your USB pendrive. Select your USB pendrive from the drop down menu, delete all partition present on it, and create 2 new partitions, one for root formatted as Linux etx4 with foreslah / as startup-mount point which should be a large partition, and the other one up to 2 GB in size for linux swap.

You can now select your newly created root partition and press Next to begin installing Ubuntu. Very important, while still facing the partition table window, choose to install bootloader on your USB pendrive (select USB and not HDD from the drop-down menu for bootloader). This way you'll be sure your USB will be bootable, but you also have to change BIOS settings so you'll be able to boot from the USB or press the boot menu key when you startup your computer and choose USB for boot-up instead of HDD.

Taz D.
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I would skip using DVD and recommend using another USB for liveCD booting and installation. Much easier.. I guess You may need two USB keys though, but I am not sure. I did.

I see no reason to choose 32-bit version of Ubuntu. I did use 64-bit and had no problems at all (except very old eePC with 32-bit only Atom cpu)

I strongly recommend to avoid using swap of any kind on USB stick or SDcard, perhaps even SSD. Even if my usb is usb3.0 and really gets upto 180MB/s read, it is stil much slower at write = what a great waste of time, if wear of flash abuse is not important for you. In case of You really need swap, you may create file for it later, and perhaps mount it (swapon) in case it is really necessary (not probable at all). Moreover, You may benefit from mounting /tmp and some other temporary, cache and log directories into ram using tmpfs in /etc/fstab. Or disable disc cache in web browsers completely..

A note about UEFI booting - It works with USB as well. You must boot Live using uefi mode, to be able to install uefi boot, and I think You must use GPT instead of MBR partition scheme. An USB installation with UEFI booting, do work well in legacy mode (in older PC), and I think nothing special was done to enable that.

coro
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