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Software - Support => Installing Linux Lite => Topic started by: Dookus on February 07, 2020, 04:07:24 AM

Title: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: Dookus on February 07, 2020, 04:07:24 AM
Hi all.


I have been trying to install LL 4.8-64bit.iso onto a 2 tb (rated) thumb drive and have the extra space available as storage, is this possible, Persistent drive with Rufus is only up to 4gb, balenaEtcher has no offerings, I'm looking to have LL on a 2GB partition and have the rest of the drive as storage, how can I do this?
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: Dookus on February 07, 2020, 05:11:11 AM
Forgot to mention I'd like the data saved to this drive to be readable in Windows, whether an exfat or NTFS partition is possible for very large files saved off a non-booting machine. there is a way to do this in Linux using Gparted or similar but only using ext file systems.
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: DeepThought on February 07, 2020, 05:19:54 AM
You could try mkusb :

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/tutorials.html#usbpers
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: bscho on February 07, 2020, 05:23:41 AM
Hi all.


I have been trying to install LL 4.8-64bit.iso onto a 2 tb (rated) thumb drive and have the extra space available as storage, is this possible, Persistent drive with Rufus is only up to 4gb, balenaEtcher has no offerings, I'm looking to have LL on a 2GB partition and have the rest of the drive as storage, how can I do this?

Not sure what a thumb drive is?

if it is an external drive just install as Live run gparted unallocate the 2GB format the rest as NTFS normal the root partition will be on that drive. Then click on install on the desktop It will install in the 2gb unallocated partition

Let me know if this works and if when you take the drive out you boot Windows as normal.
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: bscho on February 07, 2020, 05:32:46 AM
Hi all.


I have been trying to install LL 4.8-64bit.iso onto a 2 tb (rated) thumb drive and have the extra space available as storage, is this possible, Persistent drive with Rufus is only up to 4gb, balenaEtcher has no offerings, I'm looking to have LL on a 2GB partition and have the rest of the drive as storage, how can I do this?

Not sure what a thumb drive is?

if it is an external drive just install as Live run gparted unallocate the 2GB format the rest as NTFS normal the root partition will be on that drive. Then click on install on the desktop It will install in the 2gb unallocated partition

Let me know if this works and if when you take the drive out you boot Windows as normal.

I guess by thumb drive you mean a USB flash.  That is OK just regard it as an external drive
.You will need to make 6GB unallocated as your LL will take 2 GB

You can read and edit all your windows file from the LL Desktop

You will have the 2nd NTFS partition for saving that will also be on the desktop.

You may reformat that to ext4 if you wish running Gparted on the LL desktop
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: Dookus on February 07, 2020, 05:54:10 AM
In Australia, in the early days of flash drives, we commonly called them "thumb drives"


infact, they still sell them as such


https://www.dhgate.com/product/-10pcs-128gb-usb-drive-thumb-drive-usb-flash/157597503.html?f=bm|GSN|DSA|660089899|35932816306|355921257247|aud-444270569972:dsa-19959388920||EN||c|&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsvTxBRDkARIsAH4W_j-T2TDA2UUmoEFcrHN-McVMajhi4DyvEaEeO-OXdwyZ7TELRNR7Yx4aAomqEALw_wcB (https://www.dhgate.com/product/-10pcs-128gb-usb-drive-thumb-drive-usb-flash/157597503.html?f=bm|GSN|DSA|660089899|35932816306|355921257247|aud-444270569972:dsa-19959388920||EN||c|&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsvTxBRDkARIsAH4W_j-T2TDA2UUmoEFcrHN-McVMajhi4DyvEaEeO-OXdwyZ7TELRNR7Yx4aAomqEALw_wcB)
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: Teddy on February 07, 2020, 11:51:19 PM
Interesting question and I recently did this to a 64GB SanDisk Cruzer Spark, though in a much different way than a Live USB of Linux Lite.

A full installation of Linux Lite would be better because Linux will run in the exact same fashion that it does off of your internal hard drive in your PC and it will also not nag you to install Linux Lite every time you boot from the flash drive. It will boot into Linux Lite to the login screen without any interruption. It is also easier to modify the partitions of the Linux install easier than you can if it was in Live USB mode.

You can use VirtualBox and a live ISO image, and attach the physical flash drive to the Virtual Machine as a hard drive to install Linux Lite to. A flash drive with a full Linux desktop and not in Live USB mode.

Here is how I did it:
1. Install VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine.
2. Select "Ubuntu Linux" (32-bit or 64-bit doesn't matter) and give it a name ("Live ISO mode" is the name I used). Click next. Leave the memory RAM setting at default and click next again.
3. On the virtual hard drive screen click on "Do not create a virtual hard disk file".

Once the virtual machine has been created do these preparation steps:
1. Click "Settings" and go to the "Storage" section on the left side.
2. Click on the CD Icon that says "Empty" and click on the second CD icon on the very right side next to the drop down IDE menu. Find your ISO file of Linux Lite ("Choose Virtual Optical Disk File").
3. Go to the "USB" settings section on the left side and enable "USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller".
4. On the very right side of the window there are 4 blue icons. Click the blue icon with the green + plus on it. In the drop down menu find your flash drive. It can be many different names depending on your make and model of flash drive.
5. Click OK on very bottom of the Settings window to confirm your changes.

The fun part:
1. Boot your Linux Lite virtual machine. It is just like booting a Live USB on a real PC. Select install Linux Lite.
2. Go through all the installation steps (Language, Keyboard, Username, Password, etc.).
3. When asked to "unmount" the flash drive, click Yes if the dialog appears. Ignore this step if it doesn't appear.
4. Click on "Something else, you can create or resize partitions yourself" option. Here you can setup an EXT4 system partition for the system, Swap space and an NTFS partition that you can access.
5. Install Linux Lite!

This video has good instructions too but using a physical machine but similar process (A warning though: Disconnect or remove your internal hard drive before doing this like the video said to ensure no data loss or mistakes can happen):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMMzobK1Clk
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: minesheep on February 08, 2020, 03:21:40 AM
Old tutorial, should still be up to date. Make sure it really is 2 tb drive to prevent data loss, there are many fake size drives available. You get best tutorial by googling it yourself. My tutorial is done the hyperlink is the same when I was doing my tutorial. My tutorial includes fat32 partition for storage just make it bigger and optionally format is as ntfs. (fat is more supported but have file size limit of 4GiB and partition size limit of 2TiB)

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-lite-to-usb-stick-not-ready-yet!/
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: Moltke on February 08, 2020, 06:49:41 AM
Hi all.


I have been trying to install LL 4.8-64bit.iso onto a 2 tb (rated) thumb drive and have the extra space available as storage, is this possible, Persistent drive with Rufus is only up to 4gb, balenaEtcher has no offerings, I'm looking to have LL on a 2GB partition and have the rest of the drive as storage, how can I do this?

Since it is a 2TB HDD, using gparted make a 100GB patition or smaller and install Linux Lite in that one, the rest of the disk, 1.9TB will be available for storage.

Hope this helps! :)
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: bscho on February 08, 2020, 08:02:06 AM
You may be lucky to get 64GB out of it. Terrible to format with Gparted as they are not real. This is the way to check them as they just refuse to partition properly.

Best buy a 64GB, 128GB or 256GB USB Flash or memory card and put it into a USB card reader. I do this a lot.

Partition 20GB unallocated and the rest NTFS Install Lite on it.

Then using Gparted on lite shrink the NTFS to 20GB then Format the unallocated rest to NTFS.

Then unallocate the 20GB of NTFS

Then install Manjaro on that. Manjaro needs to be last as it has a better Grub with icons for each  OS   Follow ginamiller.co.uk/manjaro.php This will give you Windows 12 Manjaro with a slide show desktop.

You can also do a slide show on Lite but it is more complicated see ginamiller.co.uk/setlite.php

Thanks to the Australian explaining what a thumb drive is in Australia
Title: Re: Thumb drives how to install LL and make the extra space available as storage
Post by: firenice03 on February 08, 2020, 11:59:15 AM

Then install Manjaro on that. Manjaro needs to be last as it has a better Grub with icons for each  OS   Follow ginamiller.co.uk/manjaro.php This will give you Windows 12 Manjaro with a slide show desktop.


That "better grub" is most likely burg... could probably be added to any linux system -- if thinking of using - I would emphasize ** know what your doing and know how to recover - it very well could leave your system in a non-bootable state. **  it also most likely wouldn't be a support topic for most distro's using the traditional grub bootloader...

Oh and probably wouldn't hurt to have a backup...