Create a Linux Persistent USB - Use Linux Anywhere with a Persistent Disk!! Easy Beginner Guide.
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- Опубликовано: 14 дек 2020
- Create a Linux Persistent USB that allows you to travel with Linux anywhere and use it on multiple computers all through a USB. This is a Easy Beginner Guide that helps setup and create a Persistent Linux USB using a software called Rufus. This can work on multiple distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and even Windows. This can be done on Windows/Linux. The tool is available for both and allows you to Create a Linux Persistent USB Easily!
Rufus is a software that helps you create a bootable disk, but also can help you by setting up persistence on a USB. Persistence means that when you reboot your Linux distro you won't have to worry about the data getting wiped on your USB. Instead it remains on the USB until you destroy it yourself. This is great if you want a Linux Persistent USB / Pendrive that allows you to use Linux anywhere! You just have to select the USB in BIOS settings and you are on your way.
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Even after 2 years it's still a very helpful video and I've watched a lot of the latest videos but none of them explained how much persistence storage I needed.
Thanks for the help 🎉👍👌
Thank you! Just what I was looking for! Have used Rufus before but didn't know it had a persistent option. Much appreciated.
Glad I could help! You're welcome.
@@SavvyNik Just did it with Mint 20.2 following your instructions and worked like a charm! So awesome :)
Well done video. You are one of many helpful people in the Linux community, and it's wonderful to find you. I will try this for TinyCore Linux on an old low spec PC just for fun. That PC needs a helper to boot a USB, and I use a Plop CD for that, as said, just for fun. Kudos!
Great job with this video, Nix!! Covered all the points extremely well, Thank You, Sir!!
Glad you enjoyed it, you're welcome!
It’s a tiny part of your video, but your advice on choosing a partition scheme saved me when trying to install Ubuntu 22.04. I thought I had bricked my laptop before when the installer removed my OS and then failed to install, but that one part of your video saved it. Thank you, this is a great video!
You're welcome :)
I bought a HP flash drive (16 GB) thought it would be great to boot linux in it. Cyber Security from our country (a bunch of idiots) told their youtube channel to persist half of total amount of flash memory. Every time I do that it shows some weird messages that I never saw in my life. I thought my flash drive is damaged. but I am glad and found your video. I did everything and it worked. Glad I found your channel, you are a life saver. Keep up the good works. God bless.
Awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing. Think about subscribing for even more :)
They likely recommend a smaller persistence partition so that way you can update the ISO at a later time and the partition be large enough for it.
Excellent video.. You explained several other things I was a little fuzzy on thanks👍👍👍👍
Glad to hear it! You're welcome.
Ty this is a very clear and well explained tutorial even for a beginner Linux user like myself. I'm going to share this to my fellow students.
Glad to hear it. Thanks for sharing
such a great video a question i did ths on my usb drive and ubuntu was very slow when opening apps, will this method work on linux mint since its a lightweight os?
Thank you. This was helpful.
Saving documents is great, but you can safe them from under any live distro to another available storage drive, such as a different USB flash or a HDD/SSD device.
The more important part of the who persistence scheme is being able to save changes made to the OS itself, such as modified settings, added or removed plug-ins/extensions, added or removed applications, and such. I am not sure that this topic was covered in this video.
I'm no expert; but as I understand it there's a subtle difference between "with persistence" and a full distro USB installation. This video is about the former while you're talking about the latter.
Great video! Is there a way to do this from another Linux install? Rufus doesn't have a Linux version and I'm seeing conflicting info as to whether it works with Wine
Thanks man virtual box is unusable for me i tried everything!!!
A usb install with persistent volume is the best way to go 👍🤝
Glad I could help
Can I install multiple OS same external persistent HDD (ex: Ubuntu and Kali Linux on same external HDD in which both are persistent)? I want to start with Ubuntu since I've read many times that it's difficult to right away start learning Kali Linux. I can't use dual boot since I want to use android studio on my laptop. And again VM isn't a good choice since things might get slow. Can you please give me some suggestions? I have 2months summer break now I'm willing to devote some time to learn linux
Hey something concerning happened when I rebooted from a persistent usb and thought here would be a good place to ask
The distro on it is Mint, made on a Mac host by using a qemu vm running the mint iso that installed mkusb onto it, the usb being passed to the vm to use mkusb on it as if it was a Ubuntu usb not an other distro
So booted from it on a windows machine, made txt file and shut down to see if it worked. Looked into the main drive while in it. It paused for a while, till I unplugged my usb and pressed enter which made it turn off
Then I booted from the usb again, persistence confirmed, and didn’t look into the main drive. Turned it off, it froze again so pressed enter and waited for it to turn off before unplugging then usb
So turned back on the computer to windows, but the booting screen said something about the C drive having an error or similar, and that it was repairing the drive. It repaired it, and it hasn’t happen again as that scared me off from using the usb
Any idea as to what triggered the booting process to see the main drive as damaged/errored? Would want to not damage the actual system accidentally
Thank you so much🙏👍
You’re welcome!
i love kali live, i only have 8gb sd card and i can run it anywhere along with card reader. it became my personal OS. can browse, watch movie, save files.
Thanks! I think this is the solution I needed and will try it now.
Ive been using virtual machines and also using the live method on USB drives but the virtual machine limits my specs and the live USB method means every time I turned off the computer or removed the USB drive it completely reset the OS so I couldn't save any work on it, I had to use another USB, and had to run a setup every time I booted it up to get what I need installed.
I had heard about persistent mode but didn't really get it. So will I be able to save settings and install software and it will be the same as it was when I reboot? So It's kind of like installing the OS fully on the USB - though I have seen another method for doing that so it's not the same but kind of works the same. Basically I just want to install my setup and software once then have it stay there when I restart it again so it will save me 15 to 20 minutes of installing and setup for what I am doing.
"So It's kind of like installing the OS fully on the USB" - correct
I can't believe it worked🎉
I followed your video, everything went according to the video, apart from one thing....my install was not persistent. Any thoughts?
I ran into a problem when I tried to use Persistence. I got an error message "unrecognized file type" while running Rufus. When I put the completed USB stick back in my computer, Rufus started to load, but then gave an error message about something being unmounted. When I don't use Persistence, there is no problem, Any ideas??? Thanks.
UPDATE: I used Ubuntu 18.04 and got this issue. It wasn't fixed until 19.10. So I will try that. Thanks
Thanks!
If I use the persistent usb drive to actually install linux onto a computer, do all the changes to installed software and saved documents also persist there?
Or does the computer I put linux on from a persistent usb drive still get a clean install?
thank you I use with Lubuntu
thanks you helped me alot
Glad I could help, you're welcome!
I thought fat32 could only see 4gb, if so why did you use 27 gb for the persistent file?
Thx for the video ... A few questions
1) what is persistent and live Linux on usb?
2) would I be able to store files on the USB device along side the Linux distro when needed?
live just refers to a linux image that is meant for install/debug purposes that's loaded from a usb on any computer. It will automatically not store any changes that you make. Persistence is making that usb in the live linux image save your changes after you reboot.
Thank you, I used Etcher but it just burns the iso to the stick (not persistent)
No problem, glad you found it helpful! Make sure to destroy that like button for me if you haven't already!
Hi Savvy, so this was the first thing that I did before I was convinced to install Mint to my hard disk along with Windows and I used to use this USB for a while. But then I ran into storage issues (back then I used a 16 GB USB) so I thought of redoing the whole process in a new USB with more storage. But a friend of mine who has been using Linux for a few years told me to do a full install to a USB rather than doing a persistent live USB.. So now I'm having that instead of a persistent disk.
So could you give me an idea of this persistent live USB vs. a full install also which might be better?
Btw, this is a great video.. Now I have many friends who ask me to teach them how to install and use Linux and I always refer them to your vids as it is super easy for a beginner to catch up with.
Hope this channel keeps growing.
Hey there Nikhil! The persistent live disk will have some bloat on it since it does have install tools for the distro. I would prefer a full install on USB if possible, but most find it hard to do this. If you want a fast and "easy" way to do it I normally suggest the method that I showed because then you don't have to go through the install process and you take out an extra step. Thanks so much for referring my videos to others. It is people like you who help grow my channel. I truly appreciate the support. Hopefully, I answered your question.
@@SavvyNik Thanks, and, yes it did answer my question. I kinda have a lot of experience doing a full install of different distros by now but I'm currently helping out a friend of mine who is abroad... So would you prefer me to make him do a persistent USB or a full install? I wanted to do the full install but for some reason even the live mode doesn't boot.. it keeps giving different errors..
When he booted in legacy it said "unable to start plymouth" but when he started in UEFI it said 'device not found'
Note: The Grub menu did show up in both the cases so I don't think it's the BIOS problem..
I learnt to do the full install from the forums page : forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=287353
@@nikhiljohnjose6739 If the live disk won't even start up there's really no reason to do either install. There's something that doesn't seem to be supported on his system and is causing issues. I would try some other Linux distro and see if it's a function of just that distro having issues or every distro. Which might allude to a kernel problem..
@@SavvyNik I searched for similar posts in the Linux Mint forum and there were quite a few (even with some who had the same problem with different distros). We tried flashing with Rufus, Etcher and Ventoy and none of them made a difference.. so that's clearly not the prob. One solution I found was to press F6 and to replace the line "file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed"
with "live-media-path=/casper/ ignore_uuid".
But when he pressed F6 nothing happened.. What should've we expected on pressing F6?
He's trying to install Mint 20. I have the same version now and had no problem installing it. For him it does come up till the Grub menu with some flashings.. after pressing start mint, the problem starts..
@@SavvyNik Hi Savvy, thanks but we managed to make it work. Turns out that he had fast startup switched on. Made him switch that off and we were good to go. Did take more time to boot though.. and that normal loading logo of Mint didn't show up.. instead of that it displayed all those processes running..
Thank you SavvyNik.. btw how did you record your tutorial along with your bios?
You're welcome! I record using a capture card much like this one - amzn.to/3b4Rnj0
Will the same work with Ubuntu Derivatives like Zorin OS? Please let me know
Yes the same method should work on most distros. I believe Rufus has a list somewhere of tested operating systems.
Thanks, i installed lubuntu and it works great. But whenever i shutdown the pc it says " PLEASE REMOVE THE INSTALLATION MEDIUM AND THEN PRESS ENTER".
What should I do, should I pull out the USB or just simply press enter with usb plugged in?
With a persistent usb it should be fine to simply press enter and let things shut down.
Thx for 1-1 exp 👌🏻
i d like to instal TAILS on USB ... i need to securly store ,save some seed phrases from my crypto wallets , so i want to write it to word office or the kali text editor but dont wanna leave any trace in PC ... i also bought a encrypted USB to store the passwords and seed phrases i mentioned alredy... someone sugested to run kali linux on usb on a pc without HDD , dont still make sence to me ... best thing woul be to be offline while writing the prases i wanna save ...what do you sugest ?
I get an option to try Ubuntu, but I have to install it if I want persistence.
Thank you savvynik! I would do the whole install to my usb driver but my sata works in rst mode so ubuntu won't run on my pc. I dont want to change to ahci for now, so i've found in this metod a temporary solution. If you have an other solution to this pls let me know! thanks for everything.
Glad I could help! This is probably your best option. If you have an external drive laying around you could install it on there if you wanted to give it a try on a larger disk.
Can i use this on mac?
i wanted to help people who were having my same issues so here i go
if u cant see an external ssd or hdd in rufus in the dropdown menu just click alt+f and it will show them
Tried this with my Lenovo Yoga Pro 2. On restarting and choosing the USB option, all I got was what appeared to be a frozen black screen with some colored dots in a couple of rows and columns. Only way out of that was by hitting the Enter key or the arrow key. Anyone else face the same problem?
BTW, nice tutorial. Thanks.
Hey Savvy Nice video, but I'm trying to make an extra partition in order to use it as a regular usb. So it would be 2 partitions for the OS and the persistent storage, and another for just whatever files one needs. Any idea how to do that?
Can't say I've tried it before, but maybe you could create a persistent USB and then take the last partition shrink it and reformat it so that it is of a FAT32 format and then I would think that part would be able to mount as a storage disk. Again, not sure if that's going to work. Haven't tried it.
@@SavvyNik I though so, when I checked the partition sizes the one labeled "persistent data" was empty and the other had the OS and had 2gb used but was taking up the rest of the space in the USB. When I removed the persistent partition it would stop being persistent so If I can shrink the OS one I'll probably get it to work. Will return with results.
hey i made it work, I couldn't resize the OS partition so I made all of the USB to persistent data and shrunk that partition instead. Thanks a lot, great help!
Awesome to hear! Great job, and no problem. Glad you got things working.
Great job!
Thanks!
@@SavvyNik hmm why linux don't shut down my comp?
Amazing
Thank you SavvyNik :)
You're welcome =)
What is preferable, booting a UEFI live USB from a Legacy computer or booting a MBR live USB from a UEFI computer?
My home rig is Legacy, but I want a live USB that will boot on hotel computers.If I select UEFI, doesn't that mean it's harder to boot at home?
Yeah. Honestly most computers out there are UEFI based at this point so if I plan on interacting which a bunch of computers that are newer I'd just go the UEFI route and buy a second USB for MBR based.
thank you dear
You are so welcome!
I have an Asus X99 pro and the BIOS is very similar to yours. I've recently installed an M.2 SSD and I can't get to install Windows on it. Now I see your's is showing in the BIOS Storage Information. Mine is not :(
Sad day
In the advanced startup options I don't see "choose a device", does it have to do with my version of windows?
Are you talking about while you are using the Rufus program? Or on reboot? If on reboot don't worry about it. Use the second method and just boot into your BIOS. Like you said it's probably bc of you windows version.
@C M Yeah mainly secure boot and fast boot need to be disabled.
Is it possible to change Boot Option #2 as a persistent disk instead of changing Boot Option #1 as demonstrated in the video? I am concerned that changing Boot Option #1 may cause me to lose my Windows OS as a prioritized (default) operating system of my laptop. And if I choose Boot Option #2 as a persistent disk, what differences can I expect in comparison to the method shown in the video? Thank you!
Do you mean in grub or in bios?
@@SavvyNik During the UEFI BIOS setup
I would typically allow grub to be the first in the boot priority and then change the order of grub around so that it boots into windows first
Hi,
Can help out how to crete clone of customize live ubantu iso to make multiple usb bootable
That's not a bad idea. If you want a program that can help check out clonezilla, otherwise, check out the "dd" command (in linux).
How do I get out of the USB?
Mine only works with usb2. Any ideas why it doesnt work with usb3?
can one use rufus in linux, if not then what should one use to create a persistence Live USB?
I'm not aware that Rufus is available outside of windows. There is a different method to doing this through Linux and it involves changing a partition and some files around to make things persistent. Not something easily explainable w/o a vid.
Hello SavvyNik,
The slider with th persistence option never shows up, why? I did download the 3.13 version of rufus. Does the persistence option just not working with all distros? (I use Garuda Linux, and have a 64GB USB stick)
Thanks for your reply.
Hi Dëātÿ Hüńtēr, I'm not sure why the slider wouldn't show up. Maybe it doesn't recognize Garuda as a supported Linux like you said. You could try directly installing Garuda onto your USB via the custom disk setup.
@@SavvyNik that's what I did in the end, thanks anyway ^^
@@Jikiwolf great to hear!
i was using this method for elementary os. when completed it did not boot up as persistant drive instead it was just normal installation. is it okay if i use a second usb for installation from the first one? any precautions to take?
Same thing happened to me
good video savvy
Glad you enjoyed it!!
I set up a 30Gb partition on my phone and used Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon dvd, I set up OBS, Browser and a few other programs. Also using OBS plugin for webcam and virtual MIC over wifi. Is it safe to keep this setup? Will the persistence eventually go away? Should I run normal updates and such?
If you setup persistence it won't go away. Really the main thing to worry about is how often you're power cycling / unmounting the usb. They have lifecyles so eventually they fail. You wouldn't want your info to get lost
@@SavvyNik I used drivedroid to partition my Android phone's internal memory with a 30Gb blank .img then formatted using Rufus... Should I still be concerned about power cycling or should I set aside another 30 gigs and do a full install?
I got a question for You.
How did You record your entire screen Even BIOS screen????
Regards
use a capture card on a secondary computer like this - amzn.to/3eXqL54
Are installed programs remain too and how can I encrypt whole persistent usb live ?
Yes, and you need to choose the option to encrypt before flashing drive
What will happen if I install some software, like vscode and login on it.. and then restart the pc... Will my downloaded softwares (vscode) remain untouched?
yes
I’ve done all of these exact steps. The only difference being my storage device I’m using is a 2TB external HDD.
I can get it to boot into Ubuntu, but the persistent storage does not work whatsoever.
And on top of that, I seem to be having an issue when using large fat32 when formatting in Rufus. Things are sluggish and I cannot download anything in that state.
If I format it as NTFS, it isn’t laggy whatsoever, and I can download files. But the persistence still doesn’t work. Not sure what’s going on there.
I can't get the persistence to work no matter what I try to do. Any idea?
no devices showing up in rufus windows can see it tho
So you can install packages etc and they will stay installed?
Yes
can I use this in my brother's computer with my own files I need? if I'm using my own software like games and soo?
Yes, but you won't be able to run most games since it will be slowed down because a USB is much slower than a internal storage disk.
Should I use a portable SSD drive instead ?
If we install a software in the persistent OS will it be available in the next bootup.?
Yes, that would be the point.
@@SavvyNik can I install the os in the USB?
do you have any tutorials on how to full install linux to a usb? and is it worth it compared to your method here? thanks!
I don't have vids on this and yes it can be be better to do full install on USB since you won't have unnecessary install information / packages.
@@SavvyNik but would it wear out the usb? And how about the latency?
Yes it would wear out the USB because they're not really designed for constant read/write actions and the latency isn't bad.
@@SavvyNik thanks for the response, highly appreciate it!
you can also use ventoy
hey thanks first of all,
is there any chance for this hole operation to effect my current SSD files that I have windows and all my stuff in?
thanksss
www.kali.org/downloads/
which one should I download
installer ? live ?
I'll write that on the discord channel
I suggest watching on of my Kali install videos: ruclips.net/video/gMY216MCms4/видео.html I usually show what ISO to get.
@@SavvyNik tyyyy
You're welcome! Make sure to smash that like button for me if you haven't already ;)
Having previously created a non-persistent linux drive on an 8GB drive, I've since run into a problem here after attempting the persistent installation with the same 8GB drive and then another 64GB (trying the 64GB after assuming that memory size may have been the problem)... On both occasions, when attempting the formatting after following the steps in rufus, windows returned asking 'please insert USB Drive' and then following up with "The Volume does not contain a recognised file system".
Is this something to do with the formatting to FAT32/LargeFAT32? Has anybody else experienced this problem?
Sometimes you have to restore your USB drive after flashing it with an ISO. Check this out: ruclips.net/video/LBWDw4QKXuo/видео.html
@@SavvyNik Many thanks! now up and running with the 8GB drive... is a persistent storage installation achievable with a drive capacity greater than 32GB, given the limitations of FAT32 format?
Glad you got things working! No problem. You can change the type of filesystem on your USB to allow for more storage support.
How do you add more than 4gb for persistent file storage?
you get a bigger flash drive
Mine is failing after some time. I'm trying to install Ubuntu using Rufus on WIn 7.
Like the persistent USB stops working after a while?
can i do same for parrot os?
Yea
Is this the same as the try option?
The try option will delete all your data after you restart. This helps that try option become persistent (keep your data).
Unfortumately, it seems you can't put Persistence with Kodachi Linux, on a USB, because it is based on Ubuntu 18 - which also had bugs with Persistence
sad :(
Thank you so much! I've been using MBR forever and just got a newer computer and it just wouldn't work...
You're welcome. Glad you found it helpful!
I guess Im pretty randomly asking but do anyone know of a good website to watch newly released movies online?
@Ares Vincent Try flixzone. You can find it by googling :)
@Ares Vincent lately I have been using Flixzone. Just search on google for it =)
It is working but can i skip the disk scanning? It takes a lot of time before boot
Sure it's to check the integrity of the disk. Once it's been checked once it should be good.
Can I make a live usb of fedora with persitent storage, using this method?
Yes
@@SavvyNik well it's not working. The final product works, but is not persistent
If you lose those, presuming you set a login password, all of your data will be encrypted and password protected won't it?
Sure just like a normal storage space. Nothing really different, but like you mentioned you must set passwords accordingly / better yet encrypt the disk with a pass!
can i boot this on Mac after macos 11 update ?
I'm not sure what you mean? Put what on?
Thanks for the video, but it didn't work. I wrote a test document, just like you did, but it disappeared when I restarted the USB drive. I tried it with both Rufus and Portable Rufus, What did I do wrong?
the same happens to me
thanks
You’re welcome!!
It works on ubuntu, but don't work on lastest Fedora version
What if i created few files in that and next time when i boot up will the files be present or will they get deleted?
If you have setup persistence properly they will remain
@@SavvyNik I'm following your steps shown in the video.
@@SavvyNik later If I want to use it as normal pendrive can I use ?
can i use it with arch linux
Sure.
Not working in kali 😥😥
Will this work with xubuntu?
Yes it should
When i got to the GRUB menu, i chose the safe graphics. Nothing happened after that; black screen, no CPU load LED light, PC resists turning off with power button. Help please?
Same
im all ears if anyone has an answer
@@Moksha.Samsara I forgot what I did but either I've reflashed the stick with mbr instead of gpt or used a faster flash drive.. was a year ago
@@rawexploiterp6951 was thinking mbr thank you
It works, but it's extremly slow. Can you open Firefox and Thunderbird?
That's going to be a bottleneck between the computer & USB speeds.
@@SavvyNik Yes but for it feels that it runs faster without perstistence.
Weird on the same USB or on a storage disk?
This doesn't work at all on zorin os 16.
Do we have to (install) ubantu or (try it )?
I'm not sure what you are asking.
You should try it and not install if you were to use his method.
You cand do both, try and install it
Hi, how to use ubuntu without installing?
Watch the video
Bro Did you select Try Now or Install Ubuntu 🤔
Try now to get into the Live disk.
@@SavvyNik thanks this worked. Can you try making a video for Zorin Os live USB with persistence? Thanks
@@cyberl1f333 You're welcome. I probably wouldn't make specific distros because this is supposed to be the general method.
@@SavvyNik i tried for Zorin but it didn't work i thought maybe you can
@@SavvyNik same for me, the 'persistency' didn't work for zorin os lite
❤️❤️❤️❤️
I tried this with MX Linux 21.3 using Etcher (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), then LiveUSB Maker and lately Rufus. On a 64GB stick in case space is the issue. The issue isn't space. I need to save settings such as language, keyboard etc, as mentioned in a comment below by J North. But this never. Ever. Ever. Ever. works. Persistence, Live remaster, partitions of different names, reboots. Nothing.
wait, no! Not reboots. Respins! Still. Never mind. They don't work. Could you be arsed re-selecting a different language keyboard timezone. I'm otherwise a very happy Linux user, just this part makes me think it's a massive joke and everyone's laughing at me.
Cant you encrypt the whole drive?
You’ll have to do it post but yes you could.
I will try it now with MX Linux Feb 2024
Is it possible if you use Slax OS?
My screen just stays black, any idea?
Like after I pick install/try ubuntu it will have a loading screen the go to a black screen
It doesn't work with arch...
Doesn't work. Selected my iso, set the slider to 6gb, clicked start, booted, made a file, shutdown, turn on, disappears.
Iso is archbang. Sha1 was correct
Same issue. I haven’t found a solution yet.
@@apersonontheinternet8354 i use ventoy and it works
Doesn't boot with Lubuntu. It says initramfs or something
your install may be broken