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Can ubuntu be installed on a flash drive and booted from a flash drive, or does it have to be installed on a hard drive>

Tom Smigiel
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  • This question doesn't show much effort in looking for an answer. A quick internet search of 'ubuntu run from flash drive' already points to various websites, including the main Ubuntu site: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install – ph0t0nix Nov 07 '14 at 10:02

2 Answers2

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yes, you can run Ubuntu from flash drive. To do that, just download the .iso file of Ubuntu and make your flash drive bootable by:

binodsh
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  • That's not installing Ubuntu on a flash drive. It is possible to add persistence to an Ubuntu install bootable USB. People sometimes do this so they have a "rescue disk" to boot from if they experience problems rendering a system unbootable. You can have a few utilities on it like gparted. – Marc Nov 07 '14 at 03:47
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It is possible to make a "persistent Ubuntu" using unetbootin, but I haven't had much luck with it.

You can install Ubuntu on a flash drive just like you install it on a hard drive. Just boot from that bootable Ubuntu flash drive, plug in a secong flash drive, and install Ubuntu to it rather than to your hard drive. However, there are a couple of down sides.

  • It will be very slow, because USB flash drives are slow. (USB3 might be better.)
  • It will not be very portable. When you perform the installation, configuration files get set up for the target system. Trying to boot another radically different computer from that USB drive will likely lead to problems.

I don't know what your needs are, but every time I've tried this, I ended up spending a lot of effort for something that just can't be a solution to any of my problems.

Marc
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