Need Advice on USB Live

My dual boot laptop is out of disk space. It will not upgrade to Leap 15.1. My tentative plan is to:

  1. Restore the Toshiba L-70 to it’s original Windows 10 configuration for use with the few legacy Microsoft applications I need.
  2. Make a bootable openSUSE Leap 15.1 USB memory stick (32gb) for everyday use.

What problems am I likely to encounter?

I have read the instructions at Live USB stick and downloaded the .iso. It is all clear down to *4. using live-fat-stick … *.

What is the purpose of this procedure? Is it something I need only if I plan to use the memory stick as a storage device with other operating systems?

Hi
You should be fine, may be a bit slow… why now just run WSL or openSUSE as the host and virtualize winX?

Get a bigger drive? I pull the CD ROM and put a caddy in to hold a second drive, lots of options :wink:

I bought a 32GB M2 SSD and a casing with M2->USB3 cable, and use that as a portable system ( I don’t need my docs etc. since they are on my Nextcloud server ). This beats USB sticks by far re. performance, even beats HDDs in laptops. The total costs were ~$ 25. To start I simply dd’ed a Tumbleweed Live KDE image to it, which expands using the entire 32GB and is upgradable. Works like a charm.

For testing anything goes. For every day use make sure your pen drive has a real SATA controller with good read speed, e.g USB 3.0:

erlangen:~ # hdparm -tT /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
 Timing cached reads:   36018 MB in  1.99 seconds = 18127.31 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 770 MB in  3.00 seconds = 256.25 MB/sec
erlangen:~ # 

The purpose of “live-fat-stick” is to have several iso on the stick and you can boot any of them.

That does not seem to be what you want or need. Just use “dd” or similar to copy the iso to the USB device (not to a partition on the device).

My 2 cents.

  1. Buy a larger SSD drive to go in the laptop - use Clonezilla and a USB to SATA cable to clone the hard drive to the SSD. SSD’s are at least 5 times faster than a HD.
  2. Pull the old Hard drive and put the SSD in the laptop. And validate all is well by booting Windows and Opensuse.
  3. Using a live version of Opensuse in the USB port and booting from it Open gparted to expand the Opensuse root partition.
  4. Reboot after the larger root partition is finished and now do the updates.

You can find 256 gb for $30 and 480 gb for under $50. I have had great luck with Apricorn USB to SATA drive cables - they are a little more expensive but work every time. Some of the cheap ones fail half way thru the copying of the data.

If you don’t like Clonezilla you can always dd the internal hard drive /dev/sda to the USB SSD /dev/sdb - then do the 2-4 steps if sda is the internal and sdb us the USB external drive. Opensuse and gparted will fix the size of the drive and best of all the UUID’s stay the same so windows and Opensuse see no problems.

As most pointed out, running Leap15.1 from a USB 2.0 memory stick is slow. It does work properly and even updates itself. If you plan to use it much, follow the advice given by the experts above to get normal speed.

By booting from USB, I was able to access the hard drive and figure out why it was full. (While doing this, it occurred to me that the USB boot gives access to any computer with a BIOS that allows USB booting. Good or Evil???) The Linux partitions on the Hard Drive were full of encrypted files that didn’t belong there. This computer quit working after my wife’s funeral while it was running a slide show prepared by the funeral home. The Windows Partitions seemed OK

I re-formatted the Linux partitions to erase all files. Then I installed Leap 15.1 from DVD using the Guided Partition feature. I now have a fully functional dual-boot Win 10/Leap 15.1 laptop with adequate disk space.

Maybe this will help someone else. My solution was more luck than brains and I was genuinely surprised when it worked out perfectly. I was just fooling around, expecting catastrophic failure. The backstop is that Toshiba could restore the Laptop to its’ original state when all else failed.

Thank each of you for your timely, concise, accurate and helpful replies.

It only gives access if you already have physical access (to plug in the USB).

If you want good security for your computer, you need to control physical access – and not only because of the USB booting.

Compared to blowing up the ATM using an USB stick for jackpotting is to be preferred: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmpbPl78ck

In my area, “repairmen” installed malicious software on gas pumps that captured debit card info and PINs. The banks had to hire a private security service to catch the thieves because law enforcement agencies didn’t have the expertise (or will?) to do it.

This is far off-topic for the Install/Boot/Login forum. I expect some moderator will (should?) object. But, it gives me a chance to ask a question:

Is there a place in the forums for such discussion? Where would be appropriate?

Chit-Chat or Soapbox.