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so I’ve had problems getting linux to actually setup properly but the functional preview on the boot USB stick itself works without issue, so can I just run it that way, or is that going to limit functionality in some way?

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    0·
    27 days ago

    I’ve run systems directly from USB (installed there, not live distro) and here’s the hiccups I had:

    • Slow: USB drives aren’t anywhere near as fast as an SSD. Even USB3 drives are far slower than an a SATA SSD. USB3 is 5 Gbps while SATA-III is 6, but the thumb drive controller is often the bottleneck.
    • Heat: To get better performance, I bought a higher-end USB flash drive. That increased performance a bit, but the thumb drive ran very hot.
    • Durability: USB drives aren’t really meant for sustained operation like an SSD. Every time I’ve tried to run a system full time (granted, that’s only been twice), the USB drive eventually crapped out. See also: heat. -Fragile: May not be an issue for a desktop, but with a USB sticking out of a laptop full time, it’s going to have very high chances of getting knocked around potentially damaging the drive and/or the USB port.

    If the thumb drive is just going to be a temporary / rescue system, that’s one thing. I keep several of those in my bag. But for a (semi) permanent install, you’ll probably want to have it installed to a real disk.

    Edit: I do have some hardware that boots its OS from a flash drive (Ubuquity router for example) but it’s configured to not make a lot of writes to it and is mostly read only. So for an embedded system, a USB drive could work fine, but for a general purpose workstation, not so much.

    • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
      0·
      27 days ago

      You could install an SSD into an external enclosure and use that as a bootable USB drive.

      I did that when I upgraded my M.2 to a larger size.

      • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        27 days ago

        Can you install software on it? Kernel updates etc.?

        I feel it’s the future, keep your data in your pocket, don’t care about hardware.

          • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            25 days ago

            I have been so used to windows where you almost have to reinstall the OS if you add a stick of RAM…

            I like the idea of having “it all” just on a stick. They are getting big/cheap enough and easy to duplicate for backups too…

            • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              1·
              25 days ago

              I don’t think that’s been true of windows since maybe 7 onwards, I’ve swapped windows installs between completely different hardware (Intel > AMD and several generations newer) without any issues, other than licensing freaking out, but that’s why other solutions exist lol.

              But yeah a USB-C SSD enclosure works fine as a bootable device, so you can have a portable OS with you.

  • Cenzorrll@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    27 days ago

    I’d recommend trying to figure out what doesn’t work right between install and liveUSB. 95% of the time in my experience that’s due to non-free packages being available on the liveUSB, but not being enabled during or after install. If your issues are related to a specific component (Wi-Fi, graphics, etc.) then it’s probably something that needs third-party or non-free sources enabled.

    There’s some sort of deal where a distro can’t just install non-free drivers due to licensing without you agreeing to use them, so they add a question or option to enable those during install in order to use them. They can have them enabled in the live USB for some reason. You can also do that after install by poking around in your repository selection.

    These are pretty simple things to investigate once you’re used to using Linux, but certainly a bit overwhelming for someone new.

    What distro are you trying out and what are the issues you’re seeing between preview on USB vs install?

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      27 days ago

      Been trying to install mint on an old laptop and it just gets into a crash/boot loop after installing. The USB preview on the other hand appears to work perfectly.

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        26 days ago

        Well, there’s this which was the first result in a search for me. I would also make sure that you’ve allocated at least 500mb to a uefi boot partition, depending on what you meant by “old”. I have found that sometimes there’s a “secure boot” bootloader and one that just has the distro, but it doesn’t mean the one you expect it to be will work. When you boot up at first I would mash the boot options key and see what shows up, if there’s multiple options try them one by one. I suspect there’s a boot setting in your BIOS that’s not letting it boot properly.