I am just about to set up my new Linux machine, which will be used to convert analog video and audio to digital video and audio. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t run the system off of a live USB stick (say, a good quality one from Sandisk), that is, without installing Linux on the hard drive and not setting up a boot partition, a system partition, and all that?
Just mount /home and /var to an SSD, tempFS(If you dont care about your data), or network drive and this is a perfect purpose for USB booting.
Saves your hard drives from all the bootloader stuff, and should be faster than a spinning disk if the drive is 3.0.
Id even mount the USB as read only to ensure it isnt damaged, and use any ISO generator to manage updates from another device (Like create a new flash, shutdown this PC, plug in the new flash - bam update complete)
/home and /var are the main targets for persistent storage. Unfortunately, a LOT of applications color outside those lines, so you’re into a bit of case-by-case for what else needs to go into persistent storage, depending on what you run and how you configure it.
Thanks. God I love playing around with different solutions! 😁
The thing is USB sticks are much more unstable than an nvme or something, so you’re more likely to lose your data. They can also be stolen way easier than an nvme or hard drive, but if you encrypt it w/ a strong password that shouldn’t be an issue.
The concept here is that the USB carries the immutable OS image, you make as many copies of it as you need because it’s a fixed image, boots the same every time, “your data” gets stored elsewhere.
That’s a totally valid use case, I have done it in the past and there are Linux distributions that are made to be used this way. Those distributions usually work by loading the whole system into ram which avoid multiples writes to the USB stick. They also usually offer some persistence mechanism so that data can be added on the USB stick.
Examples of distribution meant to be used this way: MX Linux, Puppy Linux
You can configure a lighter-weight setup (lxde, xfce, maybe mate, mint) so that it writes only if you do some writing. And also mount options to cache for a minute or so, for the smaller writes. But you better have some RAM then, for Firefox in memory/tmpfs. And compiling larger software will destroy your stick.
Also keep in mind, that thumbdrives are relatively cheap is, because it’s flash memory is one step in quality before defetctive. Also no wear leveling.
You also have the option of network booting. Generally the PC gets an initial boot image over the network, then mounts an ISCSI disk for the OS to fully boot from.
This causes disk access to be a bit slow, but is useful for a Pi when you’re tried of the SD card dying and don’t have a M2 hat.
Sic! I’ll look into it! :D Thanks!
Mainly performance will take a hit. USB drives are also not really rated for consistent writes so you’ll find a USB dies quicker than a standard drive
I see. Well, scratch that then. 😅 Thanks! 🥰
You could buy an M.2 to USB enclosure and use a proper SSD NVMe as “USB drive” but I don’t really see any gain in it.
Hear hear. It’s just my laziness 🤣
If /home and /var are on disk and not USB then it might be ok. The rest of the os is typically only written when installing or configuring things.
Try it, might be fun.
Also the smaller OS’s (puppy linux, tailOS) that can run entirely in RAM are going to be fast when it comes to anything but disk reads.
I also thought about running from RAM but I guess the transcription might be needing the RAM too. So that route probably depends on how much RAM there is available
In such a scenario, do I create mount points for them or is there some other, preferred way of pointing to them? Symlinks?
Mount points in fstab
Roger🫡
It’s not a deal-breaker or anything tho. Just not for something long term. Totally feasible as something quick and dirty tho.
Yes, I did that for a while some years ago. It was fine. Good enough for using it in a training. And I lost interest in that setup early enough that the stick survives to this day.
I guess an SD card might be better. RasPis work from those for years just fine. Just don’t kill the power, power down nicely. SD cards are fragile on that
Interesting! Never thought of that, even though I am running three RPis 😅 I do have a micro SD card and a micro SD card to USB adapter… 🤔
Don’t if you value your data. Those are not intended for such tasks and will fail much sooner than your usual disk. Edit: read is fine, write is not
I mean that’s how Unraid OS is designed to work
No.
The person who said it’ll be too slow and you’ll ruin your usb is right but also:
Your system supports a nvme and sata. Dumping raw to nvme then working with it there so it doesn’t take so long to page into ram will be significantly faster.
Use spinning drives for storage though.
I’m still looking for a place to put the spinning drive though 😅 this micro-ATX chassi, while really practical in many other aspects, doesn’t leave much room for HDDs. 🫠 I could just leave one “standing” on the bottom of the chassi if I don’t have to secure it with screws 🤣
You do have an asus prime case. The smallest is the 201.
Here is the manual showing where to mount three 3.5” drives:
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/2851351/Asus-Prime-Ap201.html?page=19#manual
You bolt them to the bottom.
Holy crap that is/looks hilarious 🤣 And also thank you 🥰 now I won’t have four SATA ports doing nothing. 💪
What case? I can’t tell myself because you blurred out the info…
You may end up needing to use attached storage either in the form of a nas or some kind of usb bullshit.
E: asusprime ap201?
To tune the question slightly: what about USB SSD? I thought of doing the same thing for a different PC. (For HTPC.)
Wait a minute… Would you know, I even happen to have an unused chassi 🤣
I remember a long time ago when I went to an onsite assignment and got a laptop. I didn’t have my personal laptop so I just booted puppy Linux off a USB drive and used the office laptop as my personal device until I bought a personal laptop there. Fun times.
