Using Ubuntu on a USB

[Mfho1]

Hi,
I'm a web developer of many years. I've grown tired on the Microsoft scene, so I'm moving on to other Operating Systems - Mac OS and Ubuntu/Linux. I have to stay marketable and that's where everything's headed.

In any case, I'm taking on Ubuntu. I am a complete newbie at it. I was surprised though that I was able to select the type of Linux Distribution I wanted and in this case it was Ubuntu 15.10. I am still using PCs. I don't want Windows in the way AT ALL. So I decided to download the Linux ISO and installed Ubuntu on a USB. I feel safer doing this until I get famliar with the OS. To get to Ubuntu, I simply changed the boot settings on one of my machines to boot from the USB first instead of the hard drive. I was surprised how little time it took to do this - just a little reading and voila, I was looking at the Ubuntu desktop.
[pre][/pre]
Here's my question. I've been going through tutorials and some of these tutorials recommend downloading of softwares to help with Ubuntu configurations. One such utility suggested is "Unity Toolkit" - I believe that's the name.

My question is - If you have downloaded Ubuntu/Linux distribution to your USB, will ALL of the downloads you perform and install be installed on the USB. I don't want to mix anything I'm doing with Ubuntu onto Windows. So I want to make sure before I start downloading things and playing with it.

I recall that when I created the ISO, I was asked for an allocation of how much space to leave for soemthing?? Was this allocationn for downloads etc. on my USB?

I just want to verify everything is targeted to the USB if I have Ubuntu pulled up on my Windows machine.

Thanks for your help!!


Thanks in advance for your help.
mfho1

 

[ChrisHirst]

Was this allocationn for downloads etc. on my USB?

Do you mean the "persistence" data allocation, used for storing documents, settings etc that you create or modify while using the USB installation.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[Mfho1]

Hi Chris,
Thanks for replying. Yes. I mean the persistence. I believe I did allocate some space for this. I will have to double-check though. I'm a newbie at this, so I believe that would have been when I was making the bootable USB from the ISO image I downloaded.

However, I have been watching some other tutorials since then, and I'm exploring just setting up a Virtual Machine on my Windows 7 box to get to Ubuntu. That way, I wouldn't have to modify my machine's Boot order each time I wanted to play around with Ubuntu. I heard that Oracle has a pretty good free Virtual Machine product.

However, right now, as I'm playing with items, and creating scripts whatnot, that everything is contained in the same Ubuntu environment - either the USB or the virutal machine. I don't want to lose anything, but I've heard that unless you setup Ubuntu correctly at first, then you will.

Any advice you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thanks much.


Thanks in advance for your help.
mfho1

 

[ChrisHirst]

However, I have been watching some other tutorials since then, and I'm exploring just setting up a Virtual Machine on my Windows 7 box to get to Ubuntu.

VirtualBox you do need a machine with memory to spare though.

Or you can partition the HDD and dual boot Linux and Ubuntu.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[Mfho1]

Hi Chris,

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond back - craziness at work.

I've been doing some research, and I think I'd like to use the Oracle VM VirtualBox tool and install Ubuntu there.

I'll check that out. I've reviewed several tutorials and it seems like that may be the way I'd like to go.

However, I want to make sure it doesn't mess up my Windows 7 Pro installation. (I would try your suggestion of a dual boot, but my laptop was originally Win 8, and I installed Win 7 Pro meaning for it to be a dual boot, and while I was on with my tech support, they helped me get rid of my Windows 8. So I'm a little skittish of dual boot right now, especially with Ubuntu.)

If I see where I don't need Ubuntu on my machine anymore, I'll delete the OS from my Virtual Machine and then will consider removing Oracle VM VirtualBox altogether.

Also, I've reviewed more about the partitioning and I did allocate 2950 MB on my USB, and I can totally see where I can allocate space on my virtual machine.

How does this solution sound? I'll let you know how things turn out.

Thanks for all of your help!
Cheers.


Thanks in advance for your help.
mfho1

 

[ChrisHirst]

Sounds OK.

I've never tried dual booting with Windows 8, but it may be problematic especially if the Win 8 installation is an OEM pre-load that has "security hooks" in to the machine BIOS. That would not affect the 'other OS' of course, but it may affect Win8 if it does any checks during the boot process. I may be wrong on that and if someone wishes to alleviate my ignorance regarding that detail, please do so.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[MikeHalloran]

Just buy some crap machine from Craigslist, Fleabay, or Walmart, wipe out whatever's on it, and do an Ubuntu install from scratch on the hard drive.
No worries about ruining a work machine, no complications from dual booting or virtualization.

 

[xwb]

It is swings and roundabouts with VMs.

Virtual box isn't other VM friendly. You can't run virtual box if you have hyperV, Virtual PC(MS) or VMWare running. Your machine will just BSOD. If you are running XPMode (which is basically Virtual PC) on a W7 PC, it will BSOD.

VMWare Player will happily run with Virtual PC or hyperV but it is not for commercial use. You need the licenced VMWare workstation for commericial use. Virtual box has no such restriction.

If you are using VMs, make sure you use split disks otherwise the VM creates the virtual disk as one big file which cannot be duplicated. You can't move the VM anywhere else or copy it to another network or offline storage.

 

[MikeHalloran]

The best, IMHO, implementation of persistence is Puppy Linux. I ran (I think 5.2.8) for six months from USB with a dead hard drive. Puppy runs from RAM, so it's very fast. It's a little different from other Linuces, because some functions are actually BusyBox binaries, to save space. It has its own package manager, which can deal with .deb and .rpm files, but most of what you need is available in native Puppy packages.

Most recently, I set up 6.0.2 TahrPup, which uses Ubuntu packages, for a friend. It works fine, and fast, from a USB thumbdrive.

I have also recently tried FatDog64 and MeX Linux, both of which are 64 bit versions. Both work just fine, except that Brother printer drivers (32 bit, I think) don't work, so far.