Here’s the basics of my set up for what I can bring around:

  • A Crucial 1TB M.2 Drive
  • A M.2 Drive Enclosure that has USB 3.1 Gen 2 output So with these together are desktop performance in a small thing. It is not a flash drive that just gets ruined in like 3 months of constant use.

And with these, I use a Ventoy set up called Medicat. I love it, and there’s no issue with it for me, besides that Medicat/Microsoft requires NTFS for Windows stuff. Aside from standard NTFS bullshit, it’s wonderful.

Since I have so much space, I had the idea of storing a Linux set up for on the go use on any laptop/computer without needing to sign into 10 websites for one time use. Here’s my two methods of how to do it:

  • Make a persistent data block for Fedora/Ubuntu/etc. and make a Live ISO point to it, then boot from Ventoy into the ISO, which then handles mounting the “drive”.
  • Clear a space on the drive, install a distro like Fedora/Debian and encrypt it, allowing me to just run apt upgrade and move on like a normal PC.

Here’s the upsides and downsides to both that I can see, just thinking about it.

Persistence:

  • ✅ Don’t need to fuck with partitions of NTFS, last time I tried to shrink the drive NTFS had a breakdown and I couldn’t fix it.
  • ✅ Can expand the persistence as time goes on
  • ❌ NTFS constantly has issues with me, where I can cleanly eject the drive but I need to run ntfsfix to make it work again, and I don’t know when that will happen in the future.
  • ❓ Not sure how it will go with Arch Linux, but that might be a bad choice for a drive I boot into for fun/infrequently.

Partition and full install:

  • ✅ Easier to just get going, point an ISO to install there and good to go.
  • ✅ Easier to upgrade to new packages/editions, instead of downloading new ISOs and pointing it each time. I’m unsure if it would let me use a .dat file from Fedora 36 for Fedora 40, for example.
  • ✅ I can encrypt it so I don’t need to worry about people nabbing it and messing with personal files.
  • ✅ I can use something like ext4 or btrfs, so I don’t need to rely on NTFS.
  • ❌ Trying to resize NTFS was really fucky, and felt like I was breaking something. I did break it, and had to reinstall Medicat/Ventoy.
  • ❓ I’m unsure of how to boot from it and keep Medicat/Ventoy as the main option. Maybe create a file on Ventoy to boot the distro? Maybe it varies from BIOS to BIOS?

Wanting to hear the thoughts from people smarter than me, maybe have done this before. I just want to make it clear It’s not a USB flash drive, this won’t break randomly from one too many R/Ws.

  • WolfLink@lemmy.ml
    9·
    9 months ago

    I’ve done this sort of thing before but the fundamental problem is people typically don’t just let you boot your OS on their machine.

    • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      4·
      9 months ago

      Right, this is for my friends that I have consent/approval from. I also don’t punch random bank info in public, and rarely do it on their computers.

      • cuppaconcrete@aussie.zone
        1·
        9 months ago

        It’s still a bad idea. If they have some really nasty malware installed it could rootkit your device, and vice versa - and you never really know. Just build a small portable computer (eg. Raspberry pi, NUC, etc) and use their KB/mouse/display.

        Other peeps are saying just connect to a remote desktop you have hosted somewhere using your friend’s PC - don’t do that, you can’t trust their software/hardware.

  • Catsrules@lemmy.ml
    7·
    9 months ago

    I don’t like messing with people’s computers settings. So any kind of bootable media is a no go for me.

    I personally just go with remote access to an always on system at my house. All I need is a web browser and Internet access and I am good.

    If your dead set on some portable stick of some kind. Why not just go with a small portable computer stick? You can just plug into an existing monitor keyboard and mouse and your on your own private system.

    Or another option less Linux is a Samsung smartphone. You can get HDMI adapters that will give you a full desktop experience using the phone. I played with it a handful of times and it seems to work.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
    6·
    9 months ago

    Are you committed to using a physical external drive?

    I personally came to the solution for a portable workspace by setting up a Guacamole server, Guacamole is a HTML5 based remote desktop interface. I personally have a proxmox server and have Guac hooked into various VMs so I can access anything from any browser on any HTML5 capable device.

    It’s actually really nice for even at home use, I have a couple Windows VMs each setup for specific use cases, like one of them is setup as my Visual Studio development workspace or switch to my totally-not-macos-that-would-be-a-eula-violation VM for not-mac stuff lol

    I use proxmox, but Guac handles quite a few different remote desktop protocols, so you could hook it into an always running desktop/laptop or something if you want to keep things a little simpler

    But that might be a little more involved than you were thinking with your original idea lol

  • pastermil
    5·
    9 months ago

    Might be harder in modern computers, with secureboot and all…

      • pastermil
        1·
        9 months ago

        You can, if the secureboot doesn’t stop you.

        Of course you can disable the secureboot, assuming you have control of the firmware setting.

  • danielfgom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    I don’t have the answers but doesn’t Linux have to boot off a ext4 formatted drive/partition? Not sure if it will work on an NTFS drive.

    If it was me I’d just buy a good quality 128gb usb 3 drive dedicated to this task.

    • Eevoltic@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Linux can use filesystems other than ext4 for root. Using NTFS is probably not the best idea, but it might be do-able?

      • atzanteolEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        There’s a difference between “root” and “boot” filesystem support. grub does support a number of filesystems these days though.

  • d3Xt3r@lemmy.nzM
    3·
    9 months ago

    Make a persistent data block for Fedora/Ubuntu/etc. and make a Live ISO point to it, then boot from Ventoy into the ISO, which then handles mounting the “drive”.

    You don’t need a live ISO or a separate persistent data block. The best way is to just create a single VHD/VDI for your Linux distro of choice and boot it with Ventoy. You can even have it encrypted using LUKS.

    https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html