Howto make USB boot drives

[sudodus]

mkusb version 12.3.2

mkusb 12.3.2 - dus: 'dus-home-backup' and 'dus-home-restore' in starter menu, see the two first attached screenshots. - dus-home-backup: . new tool that can backup and restore the /home directory of casper-rw partitions of persistent live drives by mkusb-dus - dus-home-restore: symbolic link to dus-home-backup - mkusb-backup-n-restore-home: symbolic link to dus-home-backup - the manual 'man mkusb' made up to date

You can backup a running persistent live drive. In that case you should not write the tarball into your home directory, but into another directory, for example an internal drive, another external drive or the drive's own 'usbdata' partition, if it is big enough. Mount the partition if necessary. See the third attached screenshot.

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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.

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Stable: mkusb version 12.3.2 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]

Two help texts are upgraded to match mkusb version 12.3.2

- The built in text mode manual man mkusb

- The pdf file mkUSB-quick-start-manual-12

You can download the quick start manual and check the md5sums at this link http://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/mkusb/



- View or download the new quick start manual mkUSB-quick-start-manual.pdf

Alternative: You find alternate links at Quick start manual and mkusb PPA (if http://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/mkusb/ is temporarity down).

[1fallen]

HiYa sudodus I'm here and got your message
Will test this a bit later today>>>you know life gets in the way at times.
Anything you need me to check in particular?

[sudodus]

Hi @1fallen,

Please use mkusb version 12.3.2 (for example from the unstable PPA).

Please check

- in bionic (standard Ubuntu or one of the community flavours, whichever you prefer, all should work)

- clone the iso file to a live-only USB boot drive and check that it boots correctly

- make a persistent live drive with default settings and check that it boots correctly

- backup the home directory of the persistent live drive (after you have used it (and have at least some data in ~/.bash_history)

- restore the home directory of the persistent live drive and check that it boots correctly and can use the restored data

- extra (if you wish) - create another persistent live system (xenial or cosmic) and restore the home directory from the bionic system to this persistent live drive and check that it is portable between versions. This is easiest if you stay with the same flavour of Ubuntu.

[1fallen]

Ok, but give me some time later today. Maybe even tomorrow.
That's a great check list and helps me a ton.
Thanks sudodus

[sudodus]

Thanks @1fallen,

I'm looking forward to your results

[C.S.Cameron]

I made a Ubuntu 18.04 flash drive from laptop running 16.04.
Works great so far, very fast, easy to use, the home backup is a great feature as is.
Restore gave a warning but worked ok.

What next?

[sudodus]

@C.S.Cameron,

Thanks for testing

Please try to remember (or test again) to specify the warning.

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What's next:

- Copy this version (mkusb 12.3.2) to the stable PPA, ppa:mkusb/ppa

- Maybe create a stand-alone tool to replace the ext4 file system in the 'casper-rw' partition with udf. (I don't want to integrate it in mkusb because there is no well-known tool to repair the udf file system. As you may remember, this is a way to keep Windows from prompting to format the partition.)

- What would you suggest?

[C.S.Cameron]

"This casper-rw partition is not clean."

"It may work..."

[sudodus]

I see. This warning is written, when you restore to a 'casper-rw', where there are files already (in the home directory or in other system directories (except etc where mkusb writes some files to prevent massive automatic updates)).

Maybe it should be written in a different way: 'clean' could be replaced by 'empty' or some other word.