Using a USB device to boot, and run a Linux OS from

TheEyesArtist

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Hi

I have a very low-fi laptop; an HP Mini 5103, that I intend for casual use (internet, Word, and Excel at the most). The current OS that is on it is Windows 10, and whilst I don't really mind Windows 10, I am afraid that it might be a bit too resource heavy for the 5103. From what I have been able to find out on my own, then Xubuntu is a rather low-resource Linux OS, and so has caught my eye. However I am a bit sceptical about deleting Windows 10 or dual-booting off of the harddrive in the laptop, and so have been looking a bit into the possibility of using a USB drive as both a boot device, but also for continuously running the OS, is this possible? Also, would I have access to the harddrive on the laptop whilst running off of a USB drive, or would I be restricted to the USB drive alone?

Sorry if these are rather redundant questions, I am very new to Linux OS'

Sincerely

Jonas P.
 


well basically for Linux on a usb i would go for knoppix , it would then just be the case of booting that from boot menu. Now if you already had Linux its would be just the case of using dd command to put knoppix iso onto a usb.
 
well basically for Linux on a usb i would go for knoppix , it would then just be the case of booting that from boot menu. Now if you already had Linux its would be just the case of using dd command to put knoppix iso onto a usb.
Okay, since I don't have Linux already installed, would just have to burn the ISO onto the USB, or would have to do something else?
 
Okay, since I don't have Linux already installed, would just have to burn the ISO onto the USB, or would have to do something else?
Yes you put an ISO image onto usb but it's done using DD command.once it's on usb you power down pc ,power up hit F9 or equivalent to see boot menu.you should see usb in menu by name eg SanDisk or equiv. Select ,then you see boot: which might confuse you.just hit return button pc and sit back
 
Yes you put an ISO image onto usb but it's done using DD command.once it's on usb you power down pc ,power up hit F9 or equivalent to see boot menu.you should see usb in menu by name eg SanDisk or equiv. Select ,then you see boot: which might confuse you.just hit return button pc and sit back


Okay, what about the harddrive in the laptop, would that still be accessible through Knoppix, or would I be restricted to the memory on the USB drive?
 
when you have booted up from the usb , attached to PC , with knoppix on it looking in the file system you will see the hard drive , also if you attached another usb stick to PC koppxi will see that also. You can connect to internet via booted knoppix and transfer files .Now some people say they have installed knoppix but i think the creators intention was mainly for a live OS. Now if you can get over this hurdle, then you use the same approach to other Linux ,eg Slackware which come in live versions and versions meant to be installed. Now here's the point , you can try out versions of a distro to see if you like it. If you do then you could then install to HD. Now i've installed previously linux on lower spec than yours eg anti-x onto a laptop with only if my memory serves me correctly 512MB ram.
 
if you can get knoppix on to usb its worth keeping for tools . For instance there are programs that can edit config/SAM (unless i'm out of date) to change forgotten password. testdisc , virus scan etc. Another OS for usb which i'm using to access this site is Slax https://www.slax.org/ its only 270MB. I put it on one of my sticks that Knoppix on it, since for some reason knoppix was slow. Again its just a matter of dd iso to usb. Using
apt search chntpw
// apt install chntpw
i'm now installing programs that i find useful


chntpw is already on knoppix 8.6
 
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Are you able to install new programs to Knoppix 8.6? I did not find a way to do that.

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knoppix
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I've been playing around to clarify for myself the options. For some reason on one stick dd command it looked like i got a bootable iso file only, i may have done a isohybrid command on it ?

When i booted up knoppix from install on using install icon to flash, i got dir structure ist level is: KNOPPIX boot efi index.html ldlinux.c32 ldlinux.sys

i can't see Reiserfs anywhere
with this second install i did a manual install of clamav sigs using #freshclam which downloaded. On one HP 14 gig stick i got no joy with Knoppix, so as a backup had another look at
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Slax.
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Unetbootin worked fine with 64 bit iso (slax-64bit-9.11.0.iso) from slax.org website ; on boot up you get the choice of "with persistence" using
apt search <program>
i've just put on clamav, clamtk, ext4magic, chkrootkit
 
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