Bootable vs Portable

[andygates]

Yesterday's overtime was made bearable by building and tweaking a bootable Ubuntu Linux setup on my shiny new 8Gb USB stick.  It was alternately straightforward and vexing: when I tried to be clever, it all went titsup; when I left it alone it was great - and I mean really great.  Example: "full visual effects" was a sumptuous bouncy delight out of the box, but when I updated the graphics drivers, it died.  Bah!  I broke it three times, the last one downloading "all system updates" and choking the reserved disk space; even deleting the junk left me with a crufty interrupted mess.

The lesson here is that there's more than one way to skin a snuffleupagus:  Ubuntu Live Peristent on a stick is not a full desktop install, kids, don't treat it like one - it's a demo CD with a memory.  Portable Linux looks like a much better way of doing it, this time it's a 'proper' install, no reserved faux diskspace to run out of while your phonebook wiki is tapdancing next door in a 4-Gb empty ballroom.

Question is, is a bootable stick anything more than a geek toy?  Most of my world is Windish - I'm only exposed to other stuff when I choose to be.  Perhaps just a big ol' encrypted bucket and a stack of portable apps is the way forward instead. 

Comments

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

I think it's more than a toy, but only because I haven't used Windows in so long that I can't get anything done on it. So, having a Linux system on my keyring (I mean, when are you ever at a house where nobody has a computer you can borrow?) could be handy in case, say, work calls and needs me to get on the mailing list server and figure out why the Student Life Newsletter is suddenly busted. On a Windows box, I'd have to find the local SSH app and, if there wasn't one (does it come as part of a standard install? I wouldn't even know), figure out where to get one and how to install it. Much quicker to plug in the drive, reboot the box, and be in an environment I already understand and which has all the tools I need.

[shifty-176.livejournal.com]

SSH is not installed as part of XP, or at least I've never found it. I once had my Linux box stop responding, and had to download PuTTY to a Windows machine and use it to login via the network to shut down cleanly. That made me feel I'd finally achieved something in the learning curve.

Still, I know what Andy means. Most of my home stuff is Linux, but at work I'm just a user, so I get no choice. At home, I'm running a hybrid network of XP/Mac/Linux, with occasional IRIX thrown in for fun. There's no accounting for that in a work environment. I've never bothered with the bootable USB stick since the most I do on a pc at work is giggle at the corporate website, answer a few emails, and write the odd programme tech requiremets or a simple spreadsheet. Nearly all of my real work involves embedded/dedicated systems which bear no resemblance to pcs at all. Ubuntu onna stick would only ever be a toy.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Well, after a few tries, I've got cross: Ubuntu keeps downloading drivers that degrade performance (wut?) and persistence is patchy. But the killer is how badly-behaved it is with USB sticks: TrueCrypt will die and permanently lock one of its limited number of mounting slots if you close the lid of your laptop. It "just works" under Windows, and it's how I encrypt my stuff.

I've ended up splitting an 8Gb stick into half and half, encrypted and not: the good stuff is scrambled, the rest of the space is there for work drivers and the like.

I still want to do a bootable Linux stick, but it's now relegated to a curiosity and a way to keep at least a minimal hand on those skills. Ubuntu has me cross. Any recommendations for a lightweight USB-installable that won't make me turn green and burst my shorts?

[shifty-176.livejournal.com]

All I can suggest is that you head over to Pen drive Linux (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/) and have a look around there. 'Damn Small Linux' was based on Knoppix, more or less the first of the widely available 'live' systems. Pendrive has a page for a version here (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/all-in-one-usb-dsl/). Ubuntu is meant to be bells'n'whistles easy windows replacement, but I suspect you need something more customisable, and a lot smaller. Good hunting.