Question: How do I install multiple, full, ready to use and manipulate distributions on USB?
by Nick Shades from LinuxQuestions.org on (#536BW)
This is going to potentially be a very, very long background post, and I will close with the questions I am going to request an answer for at the very end.
In addition to that, DISCLAIMER while I do understand many of the terms that folks use to describe particulars about Linux operation, my vernacular is nowhere near expert, nor advanced. Please bare with me as I try my absolute best to describe my experience, as well as questions, in laymen's terms.
_____
BACKGROUND:
I recently purchased an intel NUC. Everything seems to work great hardware wise. It has several USB 3.0 ports, and I have one 7 port USB 3.0 HUB that I am attemtping to maniuplate most of these USB Sticks with.
I have downloaded and created bootable USB sticks on 5 individual USB sticks of several distributions of linux: Ubuntu 20.x, KDE Neon x.x, Linux Mint 19.4, Linux Lite 4.8, MX Linux x.x and Debian x.x
I currently have, and am typing within Linux Lite 4.8, installed onto my SSD.
I have previously downloaded SARDU as well as multibootusb, and attempted to place multiple distributions of each onto a single USB 3.0 stick (128gb, HP900x).
My INTENT was to have the distributions fully installed onto the USB stick to work specifically with this NUC computer.
I understand that many indviduals will put bootable distributions that can be used to install onto another PC (LiveUSBs?) onto a USB Flash Drive. They can also use this LiveUSB for simple tasks to browse around on the internet or whatever is necessary without actually installing the entire operating system. This is not exactly what I was looking to do when I made the multi-boot USB stick that I currently have. I want FULLY installed versions of the Operating systems installed onto the USB Stick.
While using multibootusb, it requests information for how large I wish to have the Persistence space to be. I set it to 1 gigabyte of persistence via multibootusb, and I assume that it carried 1gb of extra space over to each multi-boot configuration.
I was under the impression that this would allow me to have multibootusb extract the ISO onto the USB drive in a fashion that it would install completely, and the allocated space for persistence would allow all configuration data to persist its data onto the USB drive, and, essentially, "remember" those settings persistently from bootup to bootup to bootup.
After installing the aforementioned distributions of linux via multibootusb, I was able to reboot into KDE Neon and succesfully operate in its environment. However, the "INSTALL" Icon remained in the upper left of the screen throughout my use of it. In my mind, the Install never actually took place. I just have a copy of a bootable USB in its own section of the USB Drive for convenience sake. It is not an actual full installation at this point.
---SIDE BAR---
The reason that I had SARDU and did not install using it, was because every time I ran Sardu, it would ask how large of persistence I needed. I had registered Sardu with its owner as a personal user, received its registration key, and went through its registration from within the client interface in order to do so. [i]Every time I attempted to allocate persistence within the USB stick, the SARDU client would FREEZE[/b]. I would wait up to 10 minutes to make sure that there was not a software holdup, but indeed, the SARDU client would freeze, linux would notify me via windowed Alert pop-up, and I would eventually give up on Wait prompts, and terminate its instance.
Last night, I attempted to install KDE Neon to a separate USB stick from the multiboot USB stick which I created to see if it would run. It did not. It did not even boot. I am not sure for what reason this happened, but I only attempted it once.
Granted, when I installed from one USB to another, I installed KDE Neon FROM the 128gb USB3.0 drive onto a 16gb USB 3.0 drive using them both on the exact same USB 3.0 hub. This took about 7 hours altogether, and might have had its duration impeded by the shared input/output destination and source. Upon BOOT of the USB2.0 Drive with the installed version of KDE Neon The DESKTOP Froze in a terminal like interface just after KDE Neon's "Intel Nuc" boot screen, stating something along the lines of, "BIOS did not find WGDS or WRGS interface." <-- this quotation is nowhere near exact, but I did not record the precise output message. It was this moment which lead me to the linuxquestions.org forum in order to ask the following questions:
----QUESTION TIME----
1) Am I going about this the right way?
2) Did I do it all correct when I loaded each distribution onto the single USB 3.0 drive via multibootusb?
3) Is the install even necessary once the distribution's operating environment has booted to its GUI Desktop Environment?
4) Will the Persistence which I allocated (1gb) be adequate for manipulating the environment persistently? Across All Distributions?
5) Should I allocate significantly more of the USB flash drive for persistence if I wish to, say, install Steam to the USB and run games from it?
6) What is a reasonable amount and unreasonable amount of storage space for the allocated persistance created in multibootusb?
7) How do I go about making the USB flash drive an kernel-only drive, and using the installed hardware SSD as a shared software resource for all distributions 'installed' on my USB flash drive?
8a) Is there a way to access software currently installed on my PRIMARY SSD's Linux Lite distribtution, if I do not wish to install multiple copies of the same software all throughout the harddrive or USB?
(((8a v2.0 Same question, worded differently: If I wish to have Discord, Steam, Gimp and KDenlive installed only one time on the entire SSD. what is the best way to create "shortcuts" for each of these programs within multiple linux distribution environments by referencing, manipulating and accessing this shared data from a single source/resource?)))
8b)Continuation of the above: If this shared data is accessible within a single installation resource, is it possible to create individual configuration preferences for each individually installed/running distribution?
I appreciate everyone who reads every word of this very long post. My decision to be verbose was in order to convey as much of my interests as possible in finding the precise solutions I am looking for, which I am hoping will move me in a direction in order to complete several goals of having multiple distributions of linux on the same shared drive.
IN ADDITION TO WHAT WAS ASKED ABOVE, ONE FINAL QUESTION:
Because I currently have Linux Lite intalled on my SSD and do enjoy its setup, what is the easiest way to add multiple distributions of linux to the SSD and at the same time, use an individual source of installed software across all distributions in the identical fashion I have mentioned in the aforementioned questions? Is the solution identical?
Once again, thank you so much for your time and well conveyed responses.
In addition to that, DISCLAIMER while I do understand many of the terms that folks use to describe particulars about Linux operation, my vernacular is nowhere near expert, nor advanced. Please bare with me as I try my absolute best to describe my experience, as well as questions, in laymen's terms.
_____
BACKGROUND:
I recently purchased an intel NUC. Everything seems to work great hardware wise. It has several USB 3.0 ports, and I have one 7 port USB 3.0 HUB that I am attemtping to maniuplate most of these USB Sticks with.
I have downloaded and created bootable USB sticks on 5 individual USB sticks of several distributions of linux: Ubuntu 20.x, KDE Neon x.x, Linux Mint 19.4, Linux Lite 4.8, MX Linux x.x and Debian x.x
I currently have, and am typing within Linux Lite 4.8, installed onto my SSD.
I have previously downloaded SARDU as well as multibootusb, and attempted to place multiple distributions of each onto a single USB 3.0 stick (128gb, HP900x).
My INTENT was to have the distributions fully installed onto the USB stick to work specifically with this NUC computer.
I understand that many indviduals will put bootable distributions that can be used to install onto another PC (LiveUSBs?) onto a USB Flash Drive. They can also use this LiveUSB for simple tasks to browse around on the internet or whatever is necessary without actually installing the entire operating system. This is not exactly what I was looking to do when I made the multi-boot USB stick that I currently have. I want FULLY installed versions of the Operating systems installed onto the USB Stick.
While using multibootusb, it requests information for how large I wish to have the Persistence space to be. I set it to 1 gigabyte of persistence via multibootusb, and I assume that it carried 1gb of extra space over to each multi-boot configuration.
I was under the impression that this would allow me to have multibootusb extract the ISO onto the USB drive in a fashion that it would install completely, and the allocated space for persistence would allow all configuration data to persist its data onto the USB drive, and, essentially, "remember" those settings persistently from bootup to bootup to bootup.
After installing the aforementioned distributions of linux via multibootusb, I was able to reboot into KDE Neon and succesfully operate in its environment. However, the "INSTALL" Icon remained in the upper left of the screen throughout my use of it. In my mind, the Install never actually took place. I just have a copy of a bootable USB in its own section of the USB Drive for convenience sake. It is not an actual full installation at this point.
---SIDE BAR---
The reason that I had SARDU and did not install using it, was because every time I ran Sardu, it would ask how large of persistence I needed. I had registered Sardu with its owner as a personal user, received its registration key, and went through its registration from within the client interface in order to do so. [i]Every time I attempted to allocate persistence within the USB stick, the SARDU client would FREEZE[/b]. I would wait up to 10 minutes to make sure that there was not a software holdup, but indeed, the SARDU client would freeze, linux would notify me via windowed Alert pop-up, and I would eventually give up on Wait prompts, and terminate its instance.
Last night, I attempted to install KDE Neon to a separate USB stick from the multiboot USB stick which I created to see if it would run. It did not. It did not even boot. I am not sure for what reason this happened, but I only attempted it once.
Granted, when I installed from one USB to another, I installed KDE Neon FROM the 128gb USB3.0 drive onto a 16gb USB 3.0 drive using them both on the exact same USB 3.0 hub. This took about 7 hours altogether, and might have had its duration impeded by the shared input/output destination and source. Upon BOOT of the USB2.0 Drive with the installed version of KDE Neon The DESKTOP Froze in a terminal like interface just after KDE Neon's "Intel Nuc" boot screen, stating something along the lines of, "BIOS did not find WGDS or WRGS interface." <-- this quotation is nowhere near exact, but I did not record the precise output message. It was this moment which lead me to the linuxquestions.org forum in order to ask the following questions:
----QUESTION TIME----
1) Am I going about this the right way?
2) Did I do it all correct when I loaded each distribution onto the single USB 3.0 drive via multibootusb?
3) Is the install even necessary once the distribution's operating environment has booted to its GUI Desktop Environment?
4) Will the Persistence which I allocated (1gb) be adequate for manipulating the environment persistently? Across All Distributions?
5) Should I allocate significantly more of the USB flash drive for persistence if I wish to, say, install Steam to the USB and run games from it?
6) What is a reasonable amount and unreasonable amount of storage space for the allocated persistance created in multibootusb?
7) How do I go about making the USB flash drive an kernel-only drive, and using the installed hardware SSD as a shared software resource for all distributions 'installed' on my USB flash drive?
8a) Is there a way to access software currently installed on my PRIMARY SSD's Linux Lite distribtution, if I do not wish to install multiple copies of the same software all throughout the harddrive or USB?
(((8a v2.0 Same question, worded differently: If I wish to have Discord, Steam, Gimp and KDenlive installed only one time on the entire SSD. what is the best way to create "shortcuts" for each of these programs within multiple linux distribution environments by referencing, manipulating and accessing this shared data from a single source/resource?)))
8b)Continuation of the above: If this shared data is accessible within a single installation resource, is it possible to create individual configuration preferences for each individually installed/running distribution?
I appreciate everyone who reads every word of this very long post. My decision to be verbose was in order to convey as much of my interests as possible in finding the precise solutions I am looking for, which I am hoping will move me in a direction in order to complete several goals of having multiple distributions of linux on the same shared drive.
IN ADDITION TO WHAT WAS ASKED ABOVE, ONE FINAL QUESTION:
Because I currently have Linux Lite intalled on my SSD and do enjoy its setup, what is the easiest way to add multiple distributions of linux to the SSD and at the same time, use an individual source of installed software across all distributions in the identical fashion I have mentioned in the aforementioned questions? Is the solution identical?
Once again, thank you so much for your time and well conveyed responses.