This would be for use on a Windows10 PC. Just want to explore Linux Mint. And not create a dual boot system. Be nice if I could add application software to the Mint bootable USB flash drive too. I have sticks available in 16Gb, 64Gb, and 128Gb sizes FWIW.

I ask because there seems to be a LOT of different ways advocated on line, most of which are quite dated, leaving me rather perplexed and confused.

================================================
UPDATE: as indicated in posts on the second page, I've dumped Win XP from an old Dell Vostro 1000 laptop and installed Linux Mint 19.1 Mate. Also have thrown out any dual-boot system ideas in favor of a virtual machine (VM) approach to adding Linus Mint to my Dell Inspiron 3847 Win10 Desktop.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

This looks like it should do it: Learn the Best Way to Create a UEFI-Bootable Linux Mint USB Drive

But I'm not a MS-Win guy. I've always had a Linux box to hand and just "dd"d the ISO to a thumb drive. I don't think MS-Win has a native utility that allows you to write to a raw device, though. Thus the need for a disk imaging utility.

Yumi. You can put multiple OS images & utilities on one drive & play your heart out. Can even put windows installer image on it.

It appears a lot more complicated than that Lifewire article sadly. For example the choice between Mint "running live on the USB with persistence" or "installed on the USB"... eh? what? duh?

Here's a thread that touches on why I remain confused about the what and how.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=256410

What I'm seeking is a Linux Mint (Cinnamon or Mate... not sure yet) bootable USB system that will allow me to customize and retain changes on the USB as well as place Linux only apps and user data there for use when running under Mint. I'm thinking my 128Gb USB 3.1 flash drive provides more than enough space.

I do not want a multiboot configuration on my SSD desktop boot drive at this point as cited in my opening post.

I guess I misunderstood the original question. My pointer was for simply installing a boot/installation ISO onto a USB drive.

When you boot from one of those, you get booted into a live Linux instance. You can go ahead an run from that, or you can initiate an install.

Sounds like you want something more. Can't help you with that. Have never done such a thing.

OK so the below was written before I realized the OP is looking to boot from a USB stick, not install an alternative environment.
I won't delete it, in the hope that it may retain some value for the interested.

Most Linux distros have for some time been in the form of a USB image that will boot to a working environment. Although I don't know about Mint specifically, this is how it works in Ubuntu, CentOS, and others. How much customization can be retained between boots is a factor of how much free space is available. You should be able to mount your existing NTFS or FAT partitions under Linux running off the USB drive for additional space if needed.

-- original post --

I'll suggest rather than trying to create a "dual-boot" system you consider installing hypervisor software and running your alternative OS's in windows provided by your primary OS. One of the reasons you are finding dated information on setting up dual-boot environments is that hardly anybody does this any more, hypervisors/virtual machines have won the multi-OS wars.

Contrast:

Dual-boot prep. steps:

0) make sure you have good backups (OS and data) on a medium that you can access from a freshly-installed system
0.5) make sure you have installation media and licensing credentials for currently-running OS
1) re-partition initial OS disk (or start from scratch on a new primary drive, or install a second drive)*
2) re-install OS(1) on first dedicated disk partition (maybe/maybe not, but expect to have to do so in most cases)
3) install OS(2) on second dedicated disk partition
4) install boot selector on boot partition of primary disk
5) format data partition, configure both OS's to mount it
6) install desired applications for each OS

* This is a non-trivial operation and requires software that is not always provided by a general-purpose OS, it also requires that the primary OS be OK with its primary partition ("C: drive" in the Windows world) shrinking considerably in size. Most systems engineers I know would prefer to partition a disk from scratch rather than try to re-partition a running system.

Realize that in the absence of experience, steps 1 through 6 are likely to require multiple iterations.

Hypervisor prep. steps:

0) make sure you have good backups (OS and data) on a medium that you can access from a freshly-installed system
1) select and install appropriate type-2 hypervisor software (VMWare, Virtual Box, HyperD, KVM, etc.)
2) download alternative OS VM image (most Linux distributions now offer VDI/VMDK images)
3) boot VM guest and install desired applications (the primary OS stays pristine in this scenario).

Of course, it would be prudent to ensure that your system's specs are adequate for virtualization before attempting such. In particular, you will need a recent, multi-core CPU, plenty of RAM, and some free disk space. Plan/research before doing.

As another wacky idea: consider installing Mint on a second computer dedicated to this purpose. Yes, this is far less "hip" than going the hypervisor route, and will incur a hardware cost, but is likely to provide a far more satisfying working environment, and be much less time consuming to set up. Avoiding the frustration of those "oh shit" moments when you realize you screwed the pooch, no longer own a working computer, and have to start over from scratch is well worth spending a few bucks on a new machine. May even be cheaper than "beefing up" your current system to be able to run all the VMs you want (they multiply like rabbits), those 24-core Xeons are not cheap.

architect,

Appreciate the suggestions, but frankly after just going through the pain of transitioning from Win7 to Win10 I have absolutely no stomach for messing with my desktop again. Hence my desire to have a segregated independent bootable Linux Mint OS on a USB flash drive as I've outlined above.

As an aside, I do have an old Dell Vostro 1000 laptop that still works with the Win XP it has installed on it. It sports an AMD Athalon 64 X2 1.9GHz CPU, 2Gb DDR2 SDRAM, and an 80Gb HDD. Yup, dated. Not sure how this would be for a current Mint installation.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
architect,

Appreciate the suggestions, but frankly after just going through the pain of transitioning from Win7 to Win10 I have absolutely no stomach for messing with my desktop again. Hence my desire to have a segregated independent bootable Linux Mint OS on a USB flash drive as I've outlined above.

As an aside, I do have an old Dell Vostro 1000 laptop that still works with the Win XP it has installed on it. It sports an AMD Athalon 64 X2 1.7GHz CPU, 1024Mb RAM, and an 80Gb HDD. Yup, dated. Not sure how this would be for a current Mint installation.

I think you will be surprised at how well Linux runs on your old Dell laptop, I have a similar vintage laptop running Kali just fine.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
As an aside, I do have an old Dell Vostro 1000 laptop that still works with the Win XP it has installed on it. It sports an AMD Athalon 64 X2 1.7GHz CPU, 1024Mb RAM, and an 80Gb HDD. Yup, dated. Not sure how this would be for a current Mint installation.

I wouldn't put Linux Mint Cinnamon (uses too many resources) on there but Linux Mint Mate would run fine ... as would the even lighter Xfce version of Mint, but I prefer Mate. Mate to me is more like an XP experience and XP was my favorite version of Windows and the last Windows version I used before switching to Mint about 8 or 9 years ago.

As far as making a persistent partion on a Mint USB for installing additional software during a Live session ... sorry I can't help. But, apparently you are already familiar with the Linux Mint forum and if you aren't a member, join and post your questions there. That is if no one posts a remedy here. I've always either just ran the live session as is, or gone ahead and installed Linux Mint Mate. Good Luck !!!

... oh, and don't rely on the live USB session to give you an idea of the operating speed of Linux Mint. The live session is slow, even the boot process is real slow. Once installed, Mint is quite snappy.

EDIT: If you install Linux Mint, decide to keep it and want to tweak and delve a little deeper into it, check out this link ... https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/

quote:

Originally posted by Hobbs:

EDIT: If you install Linux Mint, decide to keep it and want to tweak and delve a little deeper into it, check out this link ... https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/

Interesting. Didn't know Mint comes already bundled with Firefox and Libre Office. That said the approach there is for a dual boot set up and not what I'm looking for. Still, lots of good info I hadn't seen elsewhere. Thanks.

Hopefully a solution will be presented in this thread.

That link covers much much more than dual boot ... which I've NEVER done. And yes, nothing in that link covers what you're asking about ... yet. And that's why I said "If you install Linux Mint", before I posted the link.

When I install mint mate, it takes about 20 minutes, installation AND updates. Although not essential, I then spend 1-2 hours following most of these specific tweaks to get the installation as sleek, efficient and fast as possible. I don't apply EVERY tweak but have carefully considered each. As mentioned, not essential. Mint runs fine right out of the box, but if ever interested ...

These are all sub links of the one link I previously posted ...
https://easylinuxtipsproject.b...first-mint-mate.html
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/ssd.html Your older computer doesn't have an SSD but I do follow this link for my SSD
https://easylinuxtipsproject.b...om/p/speed-mint.html
https://easylinuxtipsproject.b...om/p/clean-mint.html

EDIT: You noticed Firefox and Libre Office ... My bookmarks, addons and passwords are sync'd to my Firefox login account. I never have to backup or save those for fresh mint installations ... just login to my Firefox account and the bookmarks and addons all pop back up. Libre Office does everything I need an office suite to do. It even opens microsoft docs if that's all you have saved.

... but to try and address your question ...

Software can be installed in live USB but they won't be found after reboot. Your installed software will last as long as you are running that live session without any reboot. Because the entire point of a live session is that it runs entirely in RAM and doesn't touch any hard drive. If you want your changes to be permanent, you have to install the system.

The Linux Mint live system on USB itself is read-only by design. The actual Linux Mint system is stored inside a large squashfs container file on the USB pendrive. squashfs container files are read-only by design again.

So basically, any Linux Mint live system is a read-only system by design, no matter whether you run it from a bootable DVD or from a bootable USB pendrive. Any change to the live system will only be valid till you shutdown.

The persistence feature which was added to Linux Mint live systems partially softens the read-only character of a live-system. It is meant to allow you to save personal settings and user created data files between two sessions of your (read-only) live-system. Using a live system with persistence still does not allow you to apply fundamental modifications to your live system such as changing hardware drivers or upgrading the Linux kernel or installing large software packages like Wine.

Simply consider a bootable pendrive with the Linux Mint live system and persistence on it as if it were a bootable read-only DVD with an attached read-write data container. If you want a fully featured Linux Mint system you will have to boot your machine from a Linux Mint live system and perform a normal Linux Mint installation, either to a harddisk or to a second USB pendrive which is large enough to hold a completely installed Linux Mint system (16 GB plus).

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and here's your same question and some answers from that community and maybe some things you can try if you want to be "persistent" ... Again, good luck ... https://askubuntu.com/question...ations-on-livecd-usb

EDIT: And even if you did a full Linux Mint install to a USB ... I wouldn't put anything on there you wouldn't mind losing. USB pendrives only perform so many read / writes before they spit the bit. Your best option to check out Mint is to install it on that old laptop of yours.

If you are running W10 Pro and have current hardware to support it (most all recent is) you can just install it as VM with Hyper V.
If you don't like it just delete the Virtual Disk and reclaim your space.
Why kill yourself with building complicated bootable drives or dual boot machine when a VM is much easier?

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
If you are running W10 Pro and have current hardware to support it (most all recent is) you can just install it as VM with Hyper V.
If you don't like it just delete the Virtual Disk and reclaim your space.
Why kill yourself with building complicated bootable drives or dual boot machine when a VM is much easier?

^^^ and this of course. But if you aren't using that old laptop for anything, you will likely be surprised, maybe shocked, how well it runs Linux Mint Mate or Linux Mint Xfce and how much you will enjoy using it again. ... and it would be hella more secure than XP or any version of Windows for that matter and the chance of virus or malware is virtually nill. In fact, no antivirus or anti-malware required ... nor hours upon hours of system updates, scans, maintenance etc etc several times a month. And unlike Microsoft or Apple products, Linux Mint will never phone home with who knows what of your personal information or user habits.

I just created a Linux Mint bootable USB but I installed it on this (see link) instead of wasting time with running on a USB stick -which I’ve done before. Best thing to do is create a bootable USB stick and figure out how to do what you want. That’s part of Linux. You’re on the right path. Use Veracript to create a mountable partition on your USB stick and you’ll have your persistent data storage. Encrypted too.

Anyway, for about $285 you can have a souped up Pentium NUC j5005 that can be a dedicated Linux box - requires HDMI monitor! I got one as my upstairs PC and it’s as fast or faster than my Gen 7 Core i3 that cost $100 more.

quote:

Originally posted by Hobbs:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
If you are running W10 Pro and have current hardware to support it (most all recent is) you can just install it as VM with Hyper V.
If you don't like it just delete the Virtual Disk and reclaim your space.
Why kill yourself with building complicated bootable drives or dual boot machine when a VM is much easier?

^^^ and this of course. But if you aren't using that old laptop for anything, you will likely be surprised, maybe shocked, how well it runs Linux Mint Mate or Linux Mint Xfce and how much you will enjoy using it again. ... and it would be hella more secure than XP or any version of Windows for that matter and the chance of virus or malware is virtually nill. In fact, no antivirus or anti-malware required ... nor hours upon hours of system updates, scans, maintenance etc etc several times a month. And unlike Microsoft or Apple products, Linux Mint will never phone home with who knows what of your personal information or user habits.

You guys make the virtual and/or hyper business sound painless and riskfree. But I am a big time cynic having been burnt too many times over the decades. Not going to screw with my desktop now that I've finally got Win10 configured as I want and running smooth.

Right now I'm deleting a ton of apps and crap from my old Vostro 1000. Will then defrag the harddrive and look to install Mint Mate on it in a dual boot (XP / Mint Mate) configuration. From there.... who knows.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
You guys make the virtual and/or hyper business sound painless and riskfree. But I am a big time cynic having been burnt too many times over the decades. Not going to screw with my desktop now that I've finally got Win10 configured as I want and running smooth.

It IS totally risk free.
Virtualization dos not interfere with your existing computer except to take up some drive space and some memory allocation.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
You guys make the virtual and/or hyper business sound painless and riskfree.

It IS totally risk free.
Virtualization dos not interfere with your existing computer except to take up some drive space and some memory allocation.

Okay, I'll bite. Where do I find this risk free Hyper V step by step Linux installation for dummies?

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Right now I'm deleting a ton of apps and crap from my old Vostro 1000. Will then defrag the harddrive and look to install Mint Mate on it in a dual boot (XP / Mint Mate) configuration. From there.... who knows.

I'm 100% Linux Mint ... except for one small 32GB lapbook I have running Win10 Home because I need it for the (*.exe) app to control my stereo/TV sound system and that's all I use it for. It's dedicated to that and nothing else. I've never done a dual boot Windows/Mint setup and likely never will. I'll be no help with any issues and there may be some. Let us know how it works out. Thanks and Good Luck !!!

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:
I just created a Linux Mint bootable USB but I installed it on this (see link) instead of wasting time with running on a USB stick -which I’ve done before. Best thing to do is create a bootable USB stick and figure out how to do what you want. That’s part of Linux. You’re on the right path. Use Veracript to create a mountable partition on your USB stick and you’ll have your persistent data storage. Encrypted too.

Anyway, for about $285 you can have a souped up Pentium NUC j5005 that can be a dedicated Linux box - requires HDMI monitor! I got one as my upstairs PC and it’s as fast or faster than my Gen 7 Core i3 that cost $100 more.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-N...mONHiascL&ref=plSrch

Oops, forgot the link.