Howto make USB boot drives

[sudodus]

mkusb can create a persistent live USB drive with Kali Linux

I tested with the iso file kali-linux-light-2017.3-amd64.iso, and mkusb version 12.2.9 works without any tweaks (I selected 67% of the remaining space for persistence in a 16 GB pendrive).

See the following links,

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb/persistent

Re: Kali Live USB persistence error(Kernel Panic) - post #3

https://docs.kali.org/category/introduction

[oygle]

Pardon the dumb question. I'm running version 12.2.9 on Kubuntu 16.04.3 , ran mkusb on a 17.10.1 ISO and selected the "C" option (clone). Is that the 'normal' option to use ? I just want to do a fresh instal of 17.10.1 on a test laptop and it looks strange when I boot. The mkusb went fine and the usb 'looks' fine.

[oygle]

False positive - I had used a dodgy USB port on the test laptop.

Pardon the dumb question. I'm running version 12.2.9 on Kubuntu 16.04.3 , ran mkusb on a 17.10.1 ISO and selected the "C" option (clone). Is that the 'normal' option to use ? I just want to do a fresh instal of 17.10.1 on a test laptop and it looks strange when I boot. The mkusb went fine and the usb 'looks' fine.

[sudodus]

@oygle,

Yes, the "C" option (clone) is the 'normal' option.

I'm glad you found and solved the problem.

[oygle]

Yes, the "C" option (clone) is the 'normal' option.

I'm glad you found and solved the problem.

Thanks.

[WinEunuchs2Unix]

I installed latest version from PPA in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Kernel 4.14.14 today.

Dash didn't display single icon for MKUSB as it should but rather 5 or 6 generic gear icons with various "mk..." program names above them.

I should have rebooted then but selected the first one (mkusb-12 I think). After a minute my syslog filled to 1.3 GB and CPU usage jumped to 80% or so the whole time. I made a 30 second .gif if you're interested.

Disadvantage of 2 GB/s NVMe Gen 3 x 4 SSD is syslog can fill fast in a 1 minute loop. To empty the syslog I used `echo > /var/log/syslog`.

After rebooting the mk-usb icon showed up normally in Dash and I successfully created today's build of Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver to USB thumb drive in Persistanced mode. Works Great

I had an older `dd` wrapper script I had to disable with `chmod a-x` because it stops `/bin/dd` which mkusb calls.

BTW Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver per-releese worked flawlessly on Skylake i7-6700HQ laptop using internal 1080p screen and external 1080p tv hooked to Thunderbolt3, USB Type-C with DP to HDMI converter. I was impressed.

[sudodus]

Thanks for the feedback

I installed latest version from PPA in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Kernel 4.14.14 today.

Dash didn't display single icon for MKUSB as it should but rather 5 or 6 generic gear icons with various "mk..." program names above them.

I am developing mkusb in my main computer, which is running 16.04 LTS based on 16.04.1 and still with the xenial kernel (linux 4.4 series). So that is one difference to your system with kernel 4.14. But I have tested mkusb in 16.04.3, 17.04, 17.10 and Bionic and I have never seen anything like what you describe.

I should have rebooted then but selected the first one (mkusb-12 I think). After a minute my syslog filled to 1.3 GB and CPU usage jumped to 80% or so the whole time. I made a 30 second .gif if you're interested.

Disadvantage of 2 GB/s NVMe Gen 3 x 4 SSD is syslog can fill fast in a 1 minute loop. To empty the syslog I used `echo > /var/log/syslog`.

Maybe mkusb has a problem with your 2 GB/s NVMe Gen 3 x 4 SSD. How is it shown by lsblk?

sudo lsblk -f
sudo lsblk -m

After rebooting the mk-usb icon showed up normally in Dash and I successfully created today's build of Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver to USB thumb drive in Persistanced mode. Works Great

I'm glad the problem was solved by rebooting. But mkusb should work directly after installing (without rebooting).

I had an older `dd` wrapper script I had to disable with `chmod a-x` because it stops `/bin/dd` which mkusb calls.

This might have caused problems, but not the problem in Dash.

BTW Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver per-releese worked flawlessly on Skylake i7-6700HQ laptop using internal 1080p screen and external 1080p tv hooked to Thunderbolt3, USB Type-C with DP to HDMI converter. I was impressed.

Bionic works well for me too. I have installed it in an external SSD and run it in various computers

[sudodus]

mkusb version 12.3.0 and 12.3.1

mkusb 12.3.0 - dus dus-persistent mkusb-start mkusb-11: zenity window sizes fixed for Ubuntu Bionic because of a new zenity version mkusb 12.3.1 - dus: zenity window sizes fixed for Ubuntu Bionic because of a new zenity version (more)

---

Unstable 1: You get/update this new version of mkusb from the unstable PPA via the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository universe  # this line only for standard Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox                # to install
# sudo apt-get dist-upgrade                         # upgrade to current version (with all other upgrades), only for installed systems

sudo apt-get install mkusb guidus dus mkusb-common  # to upgrade all mkusb basic components including dus

sudo apt-get install usb-pack-efi  # for persistent live drives that work in UEFI and BIOS mode with 32-bit iso files

and you get only the version dus (alone or with guidus) via one of the following commands (if you don't care about mkusb-11, mkusb-nox, mkusb-bas)

sudo apt-get install dus
sudo apt-get install guidus

Unstable 2: This new version of mkusb might also be available via this link: mkusb/gui#from_phillw.net.
Unstable 3: There are tarballs with only dus and guidus (mkusb version 12) as a last alternative.

---

Stable: mkusb version 12.3.1 is in the stable PPA. The policy is to test mkusb for a long time and in several environments before it is uploaded to the stable PPA.

You get/update this version via the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository universe  # this line only for standard Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox                # to install
# sudo apt-get dist-upgrade                         # upgrade to current version (with all other upgrades), only for installed systems
sudo apt-get install mkusb guidus dus mkusb-common  # to upgrade all mkusb basic components including dus

sudo apt-get install usb-pack-efi  # for persistent live drives that work in UEFI and BIOS mode with 32-bit iso files

and you get only the version dus (alone or with guidus) via one of the following commands (if you don't care about mkusb-11, mkusb-nox, mkusb-bas)

sudo apt-get install dus
sudo apt-get install guidus

Upgrading mkusb is described in the following links,

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb#Upgrade_mkusb

Upgrading from mkusb 11 to 12

[sudodus]

VirtualBox in persistent live Ubuntu or Ubuntu family flavour

There is a question at AskUbuntu about problems with VirtualBox is a persistent live system made with mkusb.

I tested with host systems made with mkusb from Lubuntu 16.04.1 LTS 'Xenial dot one' and 17.10.1 'Artful dot one'. I use a Lubuntu host because of the ultra-light desktop environment, to save as much horsepower and RAM as possible for the virtual machine and the guest operating system.

Problems with the graphics rendering with Lubuntu as guest made me confused, but I think those problems depend on the Lubuntu guest, and not on the host system (that it is a persistent live operating system). I had no problems with the guest system, when booted from standard Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Xubuntu.

In both cases I installed VirtualBox from the repositories,

sudo apt update
sudo apt install virtualbox

The first successful test was with a Lubuntu 16.04.1 64-bit host and a Xubuntu 16.04.1 64-bit guest.

To get a new, yet released and stable system, I focus on the host system made from Lubuntu17.10.1 'Artful dot one'. In this system I can run 'Try Ubuntu' with the following iso files as guest operating systems,

- Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu 16.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 17.10
- Ubuntu Bionic (to be released as 18.04 LTS)

See the attached screenshots.

Details

I selected a suitable 'internal environment' in VirtualBox to match the guest operating system, that I wanted to run,

- 'General -- Basic -- Version: Ubuntu (64-bit)

- enough RAM (2 GB in a computer with 4 GB)

- connected the virtual optical drive to an iso file

- created a virtual disk

- and in one case installed Xubuntu from xubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

See the last screenshot.

Edit: Running VirtualBox in Lubuntu 16.04.1 LTS and 17.10.1, I found that the boot option nomodeset makes Virtualbox render the graphics correctly for Lubuntu 17.10.1 and Bionic guests, but the resolution will be limited to 1024x768 (and lower).

[C.S.Cameron]

I used:

sudo apt install virtualbox-qt

Not sure if there is a difference?