Portable computer in a USB stick?

English Open Chat
1

Hi
…today I received a 64GB memory stick via Amazon in the mail. Later it occurred to me that my 1st PC (new-Dec.2001 w Win98) had a 40 or 60GB HD…40 I think and that was a big HD then. Then I thought “Jeezus…would an openSUSE 13.2 installation with all my favorite apps, Pacman repository,etc function with maybe about 40GBs reserved for Home and the rest for the OS…as a self-contained demonstration openSUSE Linux plug and use PC anywhere with an internet-connected computer?”
…Now I think the answer would be Yes but I’d rather not screw around with somebodies boot order/BIOS settings to do it. If they had their Windows or Mac OS running and such a USB stick be accessed would it be possible to use it and then it seem as if the machine was now just the OS in the USB stick?..maybe I could have worded that better, but I think you’ll know what I mean.
…Now some may say entering and later resetting the boot order of the hosts BIOS is no big deal…but it is since most people wouldn’t want someone else ****ing around with that…and certainly in a Public Library or places like that you shouldn’t be doing it either with their PC’s.
…But imagine compared to the days of the ‘Live’ CD’s if you could plug in a USB stick and show a fully working Linux desktop with lots of apps, pictures, browsers, video, etc…etc…with maybe the best part of 20GBs used for storage of pictures, documents, etc for the demonstration…that would be pretty awesome and be the best way to prove to the doubters how good Linux really is.
…Bonus is being a memory stick it would boot up quicker than a mechanical HD the host machine may still have.

PS: I have a 4.5 yr old Gateway…Win 7/1TB Hitachi HD with 256GB Kingston SSD added 2 yrs ago with openSUSE 12.3 OS…on start-up it will boot to openSUSE unless I choose to select the Win 7 drive within 20 or so seconds. I bought Sony Vegas 10, a Nikon D5200, a JVC HD video camera, Olympus TG-2,…and a few other things which justify my continued use of Microsoft btw. I also have 7 external HD’s with some 14TB’s used, so far, which can be accessed by either OS.

2

Of course it can be done … as long as the computer in question can boot from a bootable USB key.

I use Puppy Linux, since a single install is more compatible with various computer configurations without having to uninstall and install different drivers.

… and, most modern computers have a function key to display a boot device list at POST where you can choose to boot from the key without changing device order in the BIOS.

But, most experienced people will (or, at least, should) have that secured to prevent local intrusions.

3

On 2014-10-08 00:46, JWK57 wrote:
>
> Hi
> …today I received a 64GB memory stick via Amazon in the mail. Later
> it occurred to me that my 1st PC (new-Dec.2001 w Win98) had a 40 or 60GB
> HD…40 I think and that was a big HD then.

My first hard disk had 32 megabytes.

> …But imagine compared to the days of the ‘Live’ CD’s if you could plug
> in a USB stick and show a fully working Linux desktop with lots of apps,

I have some sticks with a bootable Linux, but smallish. They are used
for rescue or emergency work, not for big things.

> …Bonus is being a memory stick it would boot up quicker than a
> mechanical HD the host machine may still have.

Actually, no.

a ) What most people have are USB 2 buses, which are far slower than
SATA. New computers may have type 3, which should be as fast as sata.

b) Most USB sticks are slow write, fast read, devices. Slow as 1Mb/s.
Slow as molasses.

Some flash media can write faster. Just go looking at memory cards for
cameras or video: if they are specified for video, they can write
faster, and the price goes correspondingly up.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

4

My first hard drive was 10 megabytes! And I could tell you exactly what each and every file on that drive was for.

Wait, wait, wait as the green ram count slowly counted all the way to 640K.

Honk, wheek as the full height 360K floppy initialized

Then! C: > on the screen! Ready to go!

Those were the days!

5

On 2014-10-09 13:06, montana suse user wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2668371 Wrote:
>>
>>
>> My first hard disk had 32 megabytes.

> My first hard drive was 10 megabytes! And I could tell you exactly what
> each and every file on that drive was for.

I bough my computer with only two floppies, no hd, and BW display. I
paid a packet for it. Or rather my father did. A friend of mine had a 10
MB hard disk. That machine was used by four
room-mates-engineering-students. I was astonished that they managed to
fill all those 10 MB, when I had do with 2*360K and was happy… others
had only one floppy.

So perhaps a year or two later I bought the biggest disk I could find,
32MB. To be safe.

LOL.

> Wait, wait, wait as the green ram count slowly counted all the way to
> 640K.

512 on mine :slight_smile:

Later I managed to buy the extra chips, to improve to full 640. Chips,
mind, not modules. 9 chips, I think. And expensive.

> Honk, wheek as the full height 360K floppy initialized
>
> Then! C: > on the screen! Ready to go!

No, A:\ :wink:

> Those were the days!

Indeed. :slight_smile:

That 32 MB HD of mine, doesn’t boot in winter. It has to first heat up,
then it works fine. The head movement is by step motor, and when cold,
the tracks do not align properly. After some minutes, the mechanism has
expanded a bit due to the internal heat, and then it boots and runs happily.

Seems unbelievable now days.

Or things like sector interleaving…

Or format the disk using the debugger…

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

6

Cassette tape, no drives at all, modulator to connect to tv.

> Wait, wait, wait as the green ram count slowly counted all the way to
> 640K.

512 on mine :slight_smile:

16K

Chips, mind, not modules. 9 chips, I think. And expensive.

… very expensive!

> Those were the days!

Indeed. :slight_smile:

That 32 MB HD of mine, doesn’t boot in winter. It has to first heat up,
then it works fine. The head movement is by step motor, and when cold,
the tracks do not align properly. After some minutes, the mechanism has
expanded a bit due to the internal heat, and then it boots and runs happily.

Seems unbelievable now days.

Or things like sector interleaving…

Or format the disk using the debugger…

… or, saving up through several paycheques to purchase your first HD. :frowning:

7

On 2014-10-10 04:56, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2668567 Wrote:

>> I bough my computer with only two floppies, no hd, and BW display.
>
> Cassette tape, no drives at all, modulator to connect to tv.

Ah, yes. I did not own one of them, but borrowed from friends or
college. A ZX 81 once, a Sinclair Spectrum some times (3 units shared
with 200 people).

We got a copy of a flight simulator. It took about half an hour to load,
just to have somebody trip on the cable and start again the loading. As
the machine was shared in turns of 1 hour, that was dismaying.

>> Chips, mind, not modules. 9 chips, I think. And expensive.
>>
>
> … very expensive!

Indeed…

>> Seems unbelievable now days.
>>
>> Or things like sector interleaving…
>>
>> Or format the disk using the debugger…
>>
>
> … or, saving up through several paycheques to purchase your first HD.
> :frowning:

Oh, yes. In my case, a year of talking my father into it :slight_smile:

I think mine was about 73000 pesetas, that is, about 440 euros, for just
32 MB. My allowance was about 5000 pts/month.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

8

My friends all thought I was nuts when I upgraded from 32k of RAM to 128k. Later I replaced the 8Mb HDD with a 16 and they knew I was nuts.

Anybody else remember when a Tsunami hit a plant in Japan and the price of RAM went to $124 per meg? That was a hairy time to be building PCs.

9

On 2014-10-10 15:56, caprus wrote:
>
> My friends all thought I was nuts when I upgraded from 32k of RAM to
> 128k. Later I replaced the 8Mb HDD with a 16 and they knew I was nuts.

LOL.

> Anybody else remember when a Tsunami hit a plant in Japan and the price
> of RAM went to $124 per meg? That was a hairy time to be building PCs.

No… I don’t remember that. I do remember a more recent event, where a
flood destroyed nearly all hard disk manufacturing plants in the world,
that happen to be in the same city. I don’t say the country because I
forgot. Eastern Asia, of course. Prices soared. They are still a bit high.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

10

…Hey thanks everyone (sorry for being away for awhile)…especially for sharing your PC specifications from the past. I think I’ll try an openSUSE 13.2(?)…installation in this 64GB USB stick, when it is available soon, just to see what happens including whether or not I can use it as if it were a PC on its’ own. I mailed my sister a 16GB USB stick this past week which was filled with 2 docs/letters, close to 400 big HD photos and some videos. The 1080p videos I made all played fine on this PC from it because I checked it before I sent it to her. I don’t see why an OS system wouldn’t work fine from a larger one. I mean really my Kingston SSD is the same thing in a larger format and size.

11

Typically, you would use the Live version, but by putting it on a stick instead of a DVD. You would then set persistence on, which will allow changes, app installs, and so forth to carry forward between sessions, and go forward from there.

12

On 2014-10-12 09:26, Fraser Bell wrote:

> Typically, you would use the Live version, but by putting it on a stick
> instead of a DVD. You would then set persistence on, which will allow
> changes, app installs, and so forth to carry forward between sessions,
> and go forward from there.

Limited installs.

A real install on usb stick is more powerful. But then, a real install
is continuously writing, too. Not optimized for usb flash media.
If any are.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

13

…And with this particular USB stick/flash media being 64GBs it could have a full/major OS system with all sorts of stuff bloating it if I want.
Yes I had a few Live CD’s years ago but the disc drives and various disc media will go the way of the floppy in the not too distant future. I’m quite content with my current openSUSE 12.3 SSD drive and Win7 SATA drive along with 8 external HD’s which both OS’s/HD’s can access…Win7 does often crash when accessing a 4 or 3TB HD (‘Windows Explorer has quit working’ box pops up when that happens) which never happens when doing the same with openSUSE…and luckily VLC plays 1080p video faultlessly in either OS.
…So I look forward to using openSUSE 13.2 soon via the USB stick leaving my 12.3 unadulterated and working fine with all I added to it since 12.3 1st came out.

14

FYI i have a 64GB usb Sandisk cruzer and i installed 12.3 and 13.1 on it. I made an image copy of those install as a backup. Now im currently testing 13.2 beta on it and it works fine, one thing to note that if it is usb3 since i often encounter some laptop that has some issue booting usb3 devices i either use a usb hub or switch to a usb2 port. I spent a week debugging that so better take note. My setup does not have a swap but a NTFS partition instead. Good luck with the install.

15

Hey thanks jetchisel
…the pc has about 7 usb 2.0 ports and I’ve just added a powered 7-port usb hub so I could plug 7 HD’s into one usb port…works fine with both OS’s listing and accessing any drives plugged into it. A few of the newest HD’s are usb 3.0 but fortunately they’ve made usb devices all backward compliant with usb 2.0. The usb stick is a 64gb USB 3.0 Blaze B05 Flash Drives.
…I also just received (Amazon purchases) a ADJ PC-100/A A/C power center and some one foot power cable extension cords which will allow me to have the power adapters of 8 HD’s plugged in and any combination of them switched on and off. This will be a good looking solution to how most power bars/surge protector bars/etc don’t have enough room to plug a bunch of adaptors into them.

16

…Finally did it 2 weeks or so ago and I’ve been using a 64GB USB stick with openSUSE 13.2 as its’ OS and it works fine…including the Kodi (formerly XBMC) media center, Stellarium and VLC accessing the same videos in 4 external HD’s that both Win 7 and openSUSE 13.2 drives in my desktop have access to. Win 7 can’t cope with all the drives at the same time quite often and shows the dreaded ‘Windows explorer has quit working’ window while I access them using it…never happens with openSUSE and VLC plays 1920x1080 now which is great. I chose to set the stick up with only one partition using the entire stick formated in Ext4.
…So if I want to use the stick I start or restart the desktop and press the F12 key when that option shows…then scoll down to the USB stick in the list, press enter and then I’ve got it going in a few seconds. To use either OS’s in the desktops internal drives I just start and don’t touch the F12 key and then make a choice or the default openSUSE 13.2 SSD (a Kingston drive I put in a few years ago) or scroll down to thw Win 7 drive. I decided to upgrade the desktop to 13.2 64 bit after using 13.2 32 bit in the USB stick for a few days and also because support for 12.3 had just ended.
…Well the USB stick works pretty much exactly the same as the SSD (which is about 250GB) but I will avoid storing videos and lots of pictures in it. Pretty convenient how all OS’s can play and/or view the files in the external drives and I’m assuming a Mac would too. Now what I haven’t tried yet is to see if it would work in someone elses PC or laptop but I’d be surprised (and very disappointed) if it wouldn’t work. The people I may try it with all have laptops and I would expect the USB stick would quickly look at the different hardware it was confronted with and deal with it OK…better to have the 32 bit openSUSE DVD in the laptops drive (if it has one) too. If that is so then I should in time get a few other people using Linux/openSUSE who othwise would probably have never tried it which is basically why I wanted to do this in the 1st place.

17

I think it depends on the hardware in their laptops. Things like graphic hardware and wireless could cause problems. AMD ? Nvidia ? Intel ? This would specially be true if one is using a proprietary graphic driver and not an opensource graphic driver. Many laptops today have 2 graphic devices which can be a bit tricky to configure. Some of the wireless devices require additional firmware which may or may not come with the nominal kernel-firmware. Touch screen could also be an issue as it may require a custom configuration.

18

Yes…thanks. I guess there’s only one way to find out. But if it does work on one laptop it wouldn’t mean it would work on the next.
…I bought my 1st PC in Dec.2001 having never used one before. It had Windows 98 (since Win 2000 and the other had issues), less than 1GB of Ram and a 40GB H-D which was big at the time. I learned how to use it on my own at home. One day (4-5 years later) it needed to have a lot deleted because the H-D was near the 70% full thresshold which Win 98 didn’t like…well as I busily got rid of files I inadvertantly deleted something which was part of the OS and the PC was ☒☒☒☒ed. A friend at work (from Vietnam) knew a lot about PC’s and looked at it at his place. Well he gave up on restoring it as a Win 98 PC and put in XP. So now I had an illegal OS in it and did get ‘is this a legal install’ type of message often from Microsoft. So I had noticed mention of Linux in my previous websurfing and knew it was legal to do what he did with many Linux distros.
…I noticed Ubuntu was mentioned a lot and they even would give you 5,10 installation CD’s (CD’s I think back then and each in a nice Ubuntu labelled cardboard case with the intention that you give the other 4, 9, etc to others) for free if you asked. I got them in a big envelope with Isle of Mann origin which was cool. Well try as much as I did I could never get my soundcard working using Ubuntu. One kind person at a forum suggested I try SUSE since he thought it was better at being easy to install and have everything working. I tried SUSE and I had sound! So then I even bought SUSE 9.2 or so in a retail box with a book and several installation CD’s. Eventually I gave openSUSE a try…likely when the store-bought SUSE was no longer supported.
…Well anyways I’ve never, ever had any hardware configuration/recognition issues with openSUSE all the years I’ve been using it and so I’m hopefull that it will sort itself out in a strange laptop but as you pointed out it may not go that way. I bought 3 more Silicone Power brand 64GB USB sticks to hopefully give a Linux drive to 3 people but if one or more don’t work for their laptops I’ll still have use for them. Each can hold 2 HD/BR or many lower resolution movies which I’ve used several times to show them over at a neighbours place.
…Also the Packman.de repository is another very good reason to use SUSE/openSUSE what with all the stuff their ready for easy installation packaged specifically for us.

19

Yes, this is a very real caveat. I have personally seen this problem moving the USB stick from one machine to another. And, yes, problem #1 is Graphic cards and problem #2, not as often but still does happen, is Wireless.

A 3rd thing to keep in mind: You are probably much better off to use the 32-bit version on the stick for portability reasons. Some of the laptops you encounter might not have 64-bit capability.

20

…I’ll try to give it a test on a neighbours laptop in the next few days. I downloaded and burnt 2 DVD’s since it does say somewhere on the ISO download area that the 64-bit may not work on some laptops and so I installed 13.2 32-bit in the stick and 13.2 64-bit in my desktop. Both work great still and I just bought another external H-D…a 5TB Seagate. In case you’re wondering I’ve been buying a lot of Blu-Rays then immediately rip them uncompressed with all the extras and additional audio tracks, subs, etc using MakeMKV…then I watch them on my HD LCD monitor using VLC which plays back in 1920x1080 and has dropdown menus for the audio and subtitle tracks. And I keep the movies in used once condition. I’m holding off buying a TV until the 4K ones come down more in price.
…Hey Fraser Bell I moved to Vancouver Island about 15 months ago from Stratford, Ontario. I haven’t used a computer at the Public Library since I have one at home but I was pleased to see that all the PC’s for customers to use at all Vancouver Island Regional Libraries run Linux. Not sure if posting a link is allowed so I’ll just copy paste this…

Public Computer Configuration
The operating system that is used on all Public Access Computers is referred to as the Userful Desktop. It is based on an open-source Linux distribution. Userful Desktop includes over 40 applications in 30+ languages. Features

  Users can surf the web, catch up on work, burn CDs, or just play games.  There's even a large-print option for those with vision impairment. The  included office like suite of applications is called OpenOffice.org.  This suite of provides all the functionality of Microsoft Office and is  fully compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. Each computer, is  fully loaded with the same selection of software.
  Userful Desktop enables 'Multi-Headed' technology which allows for one  physical to operate up to six individual stations. Each of these  stations has its own monitor , keyboard and mouse, as well as private USB ports and audio jacks. This technology allows for power savings, easy setup and long term benefits

Security

  Userful Desktop is locked-down and tamper-proof. When a user logs off,  the station is cleared of browser histories and downloaded files.  Privacy is guaranteed.  High security is built right in and users'  privacy and security are always assured.
  Userful Desktop's security architecture and built-in firewall protects  it from malware and unauthorized access.  Immunity from viruses, spyware  and hackers means no worries about threats from the Internet.