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I've got a 120GB USB 3.0 SSD and I would like to configure it as a Live USB with as much persistence as possible with regards to updates and also storing Steam games and misc system configurations.

If I recall correctly, the standard methods of making a persistent Live USB are limited to approximately 4GB of persistence. Is that for things other than /home? Can I partition the rest of the USB as an ext4 mounted at /home and use that instead with approximately 100GB+ of space for Steam games?

Enigma
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    If it's an SSD, why make a live USB and not a full install? Also: http://askubuntu.com/questions/397481/how-to-make-a-persistent-live-ubuntu-usb-with-more-than-4gb?rq=1 – muru Apr 14 '15 at 14:26
  • Well the goal is portability and I'd like to be able to leverage the hardware independent nature of a Live USB + the refresh/reset on each boot for things like video drivers as I'll be booting on systems with different GPU's. – Enigma Apr 14 '15 at 14:40
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    A full install is just as portable as the .iso / live USB (the drivers are in the kernel) and is more reliable. For /home use home-rw . See http://live.debian.net/manual/1.x/html/persistence.html . Although the link is for Debian, it works on Ubuntu and is not (yet) documented well in the ubuntu wiki. – Panther Apr 14 '15 at 15:09
  • @user68186 - it may not be a duplicate as a persistent /home is a bit different then all the methods I glanced at in that link. – Panther Apr 14 '15 at 15:10
  • The question is not really a duplicate but the answer in that thread is what I was looking for. – Enigma Apr 14 '15 at 15:18
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    I agree with @bodhi.zazen a full install is much more stable. As I have explained elsewhere, updates to Live USB does not really replace the versions of apps it originally came with. Things can get messy with kernel updates. Installing into another drive using a persistent Live USB won't install the updated version. – user68186 Apr 14 '15 at 15:29
  • @user68186: Is there a way to merge the updates into the original iso space? Also I won't be doing any installs with this. – Enigma Apr 14 '15 at 15:31
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    You can only do that if you remaster the .iso which takes more work then an install. – Panther Apr 14 '15 at 15:32
  • Will I be unable to update the kernel? – Enigma Apr 14 '15 at 15:33
  • AFAIK there is no way to merge the updates into the iso in the persistent Live USB context. One can create a new modified ISO and create a new Live USB, but that will defeat the purpose. My experience with persistent Live USB is now a bit dated. There was a bug that prevented kernel updates. It may be fixed now. – user68186 Apr 14 '15 at 15:33

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