The liveKDE 64-bit openSUSE-13.1 works well on a USB-3.0 memory stick with my Toshiba Z930 Ultrabook’s USB-3.0 port. In particular this is a 16 GB Sandisk Extreme USB Flash Drive and I have to say I am quite impressed with it.
http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/31270/78ac92312699210.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/78ac92312699210)
[Memory stick plugged in to my Toshiba Ultrabook]
I installed the 64-bit .iso file for openSUSE-13.1 on the memory stick, using the application Image Writer, per the instructions here: SDB:Live USB stick - openSUSE Wiki. That is pretty much a no-brainer (drag and drop) and given this is a very fast USB-3.0 memory stick in a compatible USB-3.0 port on my Toshiba Ultrabook, Imagewriter had openSUSE-13.1 installed on that memory stick in less than a minute.
It helps that the SanDisk Extreme, is one of the fastest USB-3.0 memory sticks currently on the market. I say that after having played with a few USB-3.0 memory sticks, and having read some reviews which support my own assessment. Other USB-3.0 memory sticks that I own and have played with are the very nice Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 (64-Gbyte version) and the inexpensive and nice Lexar USB-3.0 S23 (8.0 GB and 16.0 GB versions).
According to one review I read, the SanDisk Extreme has purported sequential read speeds of 194 MB/sec and 177 MB/sec write speeds. The SanDisk faired even better on the more demanding random large-block transfer speed test, with 177 MB/sec read speeds and 43.5 MB/sec write speeds. I know that random write speed appears slow for USB-3.0, but compared to the competition, that is actually very fast. From what I gather, a ‘random large-block transfer’ write is very demanding.
I believe that super ‘random large-block transfer’ characteristics, made this SanDisk Extreme USB-3.0 memory stick very good for putting an operating system on … at least for now (as I have no idea how long it will with stand the many read/writes associated with a GNU/Linux OS).
This is what I saw on my Toshiba when I first booted to the USB stick (with my pressing F12 to obtain this boot menu). Note this Toshiba has UEFI firmware with Secure boot.
http://thumbnails111.imagebam.com/31270/51e9bc312699213.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/51e9bc312699213)
After selecting the SanDisk to boot from, I then selected the liveKDE per this image below.
http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/31270/46dc36312699214.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/46dc36312699214)
That gave me the KDE desktop.
One nice thing about the openSUSE-13.1 liveUSB image is one can update it !! I applied the openSUSE updates, right up to the current updates. I also added the Packman repository for 3rd party openSUSE applications and installed a number of multimedia applications from that. When one reboots to the liveUSB stick, all those installed apps and the desktop configuration are still present.
Given this is a USB stick, performance is very good. For example, boot time (from KDE selection to Desktop up) is 25 seconds to the USB-3.0 memory stick, which is not bad at all. That beats many hard drives on older PCs.
Here is what one see’s for the USB stick from ‘lsusb’ :
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0781:5580 SanDisk Corp. SDCZ80 Flash Drive
This is what the various temporary partitions look like when running from the USB memory stick:
linux@linux:~> df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs rootfs 14G 3.8G 9.0G 30% /
devtmpfs devtmpfs 2.9G 24K 2.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 88K 2.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 224M 2.7G 8% /run
/dev/sdb2 udf 935M 935M 0 100% /livecd
/dev/loop7 squashfs 827M 827M 0 100% /read-only
/dev/sdb3 ext3 14G 3.8G 9.0G 30% /read-write
overlayfs overlayfs 14G 3.8G 9.0G 30% /
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 0 2.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 224M 2.7G 8% /var/run
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 224M 2.7G 8% /var/lock
This is the partitioning of the memory stick with openSUSE installed (on sdb) :
Disk /dev/sdb: 15.7 GB, 15693664256 bytes, 30651688 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xa893698d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 4084 12275 4096 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sdb2 * 12276 1929215 958470 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1929216 30650368 14360576+ 83 Linux
Note that sda is the SSD drive on my Ultrabook.
Of course one of the reasons for fast performance, is my Ultrabook is a Core-i7. I reported on it here in this blog thread: openSUSE Forums
And here is the output of ‘inxi -F’ running from the liveUSB memory stick:
linux@linux:~> inxi -F
System: Host: linux.site Kernel: 3.11.6-4-desktop x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE 4.11.5 Distro: openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle)
Machine: System: TOSHIBA (portable) product: Satellite Z930 version: PT23LC-01300D
Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Satellite Z930 version: Version A0 Bios: TOSHIBA version: Version 6.80 date: 06/25/2013
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i7-3667U CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx)
Clock Speeds: 1: 2400.00 MHz 2: 2075.00 MHz 3: 2825.00 MHz 4: 2700.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
X.Org: 1.14.3.901 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.2hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 9.2.3
Audio: Card: Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.11.6-4-desktop
Network: Card-1: Intel 82579V Gigabit Network Connection driver: e1000e
IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: e8:e0:b7:73:c3:68
Card-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: 84:a6:c8:ad:ba:4c
Drives: HDD Total Size: 271.8GB (1.8% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: TOSHIBA_THNSNF25 size: 256.1GB
**2: USB id: /dev/sdb model: Extreme size: 15.7GB**
Partition: ID: / size: 14G used: 3.8G (30%) fs: overlayfs
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 67.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 187 Uptime: 0:04 Memory: 480.4/5873.8MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.9.18
Overall I am very impressed with the 64-bit openSUSE-13.1 KDE liveUSB running on this very fast USB-3.0 memory stick.