Permanent Ubuntu install on 16GB pen drive.

[pfeiffep]

If you have SWAP on HDD then USB-Ubuntu will use that and you don't need to create one on USB. However, personally, I would create a small SWAP of 1GB or less (512MB), just for 'in case' senario.

Another thing: If you enter your BIOS set up you may have an option to "Boot USB Devices First" or something like that. Enable it. When USB-ubuntu is plugged in it will boot first, if not then your HDD will boot. If you don't enable this feature then you will have to manually intervene to Boot your USB-Ubuntu.

Compared to your HDD, USB 2.0 will be slower. However USB 3.0 will be faster than USB 2.0. If you have a USB 3.0 port then you can consider buying a USB 3.0 PenDrive.

HDD's are relatively cheap now. Consider getting yourself a New HDD with more storage capacity.

Good Luck...

USB hard drives are also an option to consider - I use a USB 2 hard drive to fully install and test OSes on my laptop. More expensive than a USB flash drive but 320 Gb for ~$50 won't break the bank.

[zemega]

If you're saying running from your USB is slow, can you post the read/write speed as well? Since not all USB are fast. I used one with ++6MB/s, 12.04 hangs sometimes in it, 13.04 no freeze at all, that is its a bit faster than 5400 rpm HDD. I remember before there were USB 2.0 with speed of barely 3.0MB/s, now thats way slower than 5400 rpm HDD.

As for the drivers, I did not have any problem running it at several different computer/laptop. The only trouble I have is when that computer has old Nvidea graphic cards (Nvidea is always a problem for Linux), and old motherboards. Its most likely it was not automatically supported in the current Ubuntu.

[rrich1974]

i just have performed a benchmark with disk utility, a read-only (read/write does not work)
it seems to be good.

[zemega]

Well, its okay, not the fastest USB drive around, but its definitely better than old HDD, they need to let go of the HDD design, even Seagate has stated that it will stop developing 7200 rpm HDD. Write speed is also important. With HDD, you can only choose write or read at one time, that is not the case with SSD, but on USB, it differs between the actual technology for each. And most importantly, nothing physically moves inside a Flash drive, so you throw your USB and SSD into the freezer for a week and use it right away, yes someone did this crazy stunt and publish it.

[oldfred]

My install to a USB2 flash drive is not speedy, but seems very functional. And once apps are loaded they run just as fast as the kernel caches recent activity in RAM, so there is little activity to flash drive.

But I did change ext4 to turn journal off and other settings to reduce writes.

With SSD or Flash (trim do not work on flash) drives, Use ext4 without journal:
sudo tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sda1
sudo tune2fs -o discard /dev/sda1
No swap or set swapiness or install 'Dynamic Swap Space Manager' from the Ubuntu Software Center
After installing, change the fstab so that everything gets mounted with noatime.
Make sure BIOS is in AHCI mode for trim to work.
change to noop i/o scheduler
But per this noop may not now be best.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_iosched_2012&num= 1

Post #14 some flash drives that did not work
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2120196
More tests Flash drives post #5 - C.S.Cameron
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2130234

[C.S.Cameron]

I am quite surprised that no one has mentioned the main downside to doing a full install onto a usb. When running a fully installed system there are a huge number of hard drive writes going on in the background, usb storage is just not designed to handle this huge number of writes and re-writes and can quickly corrupt, I'm speaking through experience and it will burn out your usb stick rendering it useless, how fast it happens depends on how much you use it. A live usb does not write log files or modify databases so is not prone to this problem

I have never heard of anyone bricking a (quality) flash drive running Ubuntu from it.
Most flash drives are good for at least 10000 writes and have wear leveling.

Now take an empty flash drive and time how long it takes to fill up by copying files to it.

16 000 MB @ 10 MB/s = 1600 seconds = 27 minutes.

Multiplying that by 10000 = 111 forty hour work weeks.

And nobody writes to a flash drive full time so figure about ten years of actual use.

http://www.bress.net/blog/archives/1...rive-Last.html

I am using 10GB swap on the flash drive that powers my home entertainment center because I want to ensure that the computer hibernates when not in use.

I do not install swap on general purpose flash drive installs.

Full install flash drive should work on any (non UEFI) computer as long as proprietary drivers are not installed.

[zemega]

After looking at other threads, I have to admit, I am using SanDisk drives line, Cruzer Pop, Cruzer Fit and Ultra. You know, we should create a subforum just for running Ubuntu off USB thumdrive, or externals.

[C.S.Cameron]

After looking at other threads, I have to admit, I am using SanDisk drives line, Cruzer Pop, Cruzer Fit and Ultra. You know, we should create a subforum just for running Ubuntu off USB thumdrive, or externals.

+1

[CaptainMark]

I believe CaptianMark is talking about Journaling, it can be turned off in ext4 and ext2 doesn't have it.

Journalling is only a small part of it,

@c.s.cameron its not that simple, all it takes is one corrupt sector to make a filesystem go haywire, and you have heard of someone bricking a flash drive from this, as I said, I'm talking from experience,
i'm not saying its a huge show stopper problem, but its something that should be considered, no one minds about bricking a freebie 2gb usb drive you got from some promotional thing, but 32/64gb one that you paid for is a different story

[C.S.Cameron]

16GB drives are under $10 and have 2-5 year warranties, I agree it is not a show stopper.
As I understand, a flash drive that fails from too many writes is still readable.
Many people seem afraid that if they run Ubuntu from a flash drive it will burn out in a few days.
I have a flash drive still working after six years of running Linux.

You are the first person I have actually heard of bricking a flash drive running Ubuntu.
Was it a name brand drive with wear leveling?
Are you sure it failed solely from running Ununtu?