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So I know I can make a persistent LiveUSB whereby there would be anywhere up to 4GB (I think that's the max) of persistent storage for downloads, etc.

I am asking the opposite, in a sense. I'd like to configure a USB install to have the platform adaptability that a Live OS offers while fully utilizing the 120GB of space I have.

In essence I'm hoping to have a boot up install that reconfigures most/all the hardware/drivers as necessary every boot as I'd like to be able to boot off of it on nearly any machine. (Within reason - they will all be 64-bit)

The biggest gripe with doing multi-platform booting is the video driver stuff. Sometimes the system I'm booting off of is AMD, sometimes Nvidia, sometimes Intel.

Alternatively, a usable answer may be a way to better configure the LiveUSB setup for more storage utilization and customization.

Fabby
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Enigma
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1 Answers1

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No problem whatsoever! (I've got a USB disk just like that but I've never tried anything but BIOS machines, as I rarely encounter UEFI machines and if I meet one, I put them in BIOS mode and revert back when I leave)

Procedure is exceedingly simple:

  1. Buy a decent USB 3.0 SLC USB disk. These are normally advertised as 200-300 Mbps USB 3.0 disks, but your mileage may vary. Read the specs

    Why? SLC is vastly superior in speed to MLC or TLC drives and lasts about 4-12 times longer. This outweighs the cost of these things... (2-3 times as expensive as other "fast" USB disks, 3-4 times as expensive as a low-end one)

  2. Use Lubuntu (in your case: 64-bit)

    Why? Lubuntu is the most compatible of all of the Ubuntu family and you're not going to use this as a high-end server, so Lubuntu will be snazzy even on a 1GB USB 2.0 machine. I use the 32-bit version with PAE extensions forced as I run this thing on a variety of hardware (mainly to resurrect Windows machines, but I've been told already to wipe the F|@#§g Windows and install this nifty, fast, free OS!)

  3. Install like you would install any other machine, but treat the SLC as a simple hard disk and install grub, swap, / and /home.

  4. Optimise fstab as you would for an SSD drive

    Why 3+4? Obviously ;-) you basically have an SSD on a stick!

  5. Set the sysctl.conf parameters as follows:

    # Prevent USB wear out due to excessive swap usage.
# Only start swapping when the memory is 90% full
vm.swappiness = 10

# This percentage value controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim
# the memory which is used for caching of directory and inode objects.
#
# At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to
# reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and
# swapcache reclaim.  Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer
# to retain dentry and inode caches.
#
# Basically, once something is swapped it's probably not immediately needed
# any more, so increase the kernel's resistance a bit more trying to build up
# a large cache again.
vm.vfs_cache_pressure = 75

# Good to improve sequential reads (stop stuttering background music)
# Can also be implemented per disk using udev rules
# in KB, so only 3MB lost, so who cares nowadays?
vm.max-readahead=2048
vm.min-readahead=1024

    Why? Read the comments above...

  6. Install as many command-line tools as you want, but stay away from huge memory-hungry programs as you won't know what kind of machine you'll be running this on. (OK: I confess: I've got LibreOffice running, but that's about it. Nu MySQL, no GIMP, no 3D-rendering, ...)

  7. Stay away from any proprietary modules (aka drivers), just standard Linux kernel modules... And these are extremely good at adapting to their environment! They're like mongrels: they'll eat anything, drink anything and ... well, whatever. ;-) It just works!

That's it!

Fabby
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  • Don't thank me! ;-) If you like my answer, just click the little grey ☑ under the "0" now turning it into beautiful green. If you do not like my answer, click on the little grey down-arrow below the 0, and if you really like my answer, click on the little grey checkmark and the little up-arrow... If you have any further questions, go to http://askubuntu.com/questions/ask – Fabby Mar 28 '15 at 14:42
  • What part of this gives me boot up adapting? My main concern is video driver compatibility. When I boot up a live os it basically creates a fresh environment with regard to input devices and video drivers. That's what I'm trying to obtain. – Enigma Mar 28 '15 at 15:38
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    You do that by avoiding it altogether: no AMD modules, no NVidia modules, just kernel modules... And these are extremely good at adapting to their environment! They're like mongrels: they'll eat anything, drink anything and ... well, whatever. ;-) It just works! As long as you stay away from anything proprietary – Fabby Mar 28 '15 at 22:46
  • Unfortunately for my needs (steam/games/3d), I need the proprietary drivers. – Enigma Sep 03 '15 at 18:16
  • Then you sacrifice portability: you'll need one USB stick per computer; or one boot partition per computer, but that would be an entirely new question – Fabby Sep 03 '15 at 19:25
  • I was hoping to have the best of both worlds (Portability & Performance) but I think my phrasing wasn't quite accurate. New question: http://askubuntu.com/q/668964/89202 – Enigma Sep 03 '15 at 19:28