How can I use my fast work laptop to run linux on the side?

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-21 05:27

The place I work is a totally windoze shop. I have a very fast Dell Latitude E5540 laptop with 8 gb of memory, but I'm not allowed to load linux on the hard drive. I have a super fast Sandisk Extreme 64 gb flash drive chip and a usb 3.0 adapter that it works in, and I am trying to come up with the best safe way to use it instead of running my clunky old laptops.

Could I hibernate the windoze machine, reboot from flash drive under linux, and just do all my saves to the flash drive as well?

Or better yet, could I leave windoze 7 running and use some of its 8 gb of memory to run VirtualBox, and run linux from the flashdrive within that environment?

What would be the best way to run linux? Ie do I run live or install to the flashdrive. There are many different options therse days, too. I'd like to be able to easily run the same flashdrive linux on my older laptops anytime i'd want to. Which option would be best for that?

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-06-21 10:55

I would run a live system. Especially if.you want to use it on more than one machines.

If you hibernate windows and reboot that should work fine. However on win 10 if you do this (and actually a regular win 10 shutdown as well) the internsl ntfs drives will be locked and not accessible. But this won't matter if you don't need to access data on the harddrive.

I've got one machine that I run pretty much exclusively live when I run linux. (MX 15 in this case). I use a usb 3.0 device stick.

Shay · posted: 2016-06-21 11:56

I also use a usb 3.0 stick.

I have used it in about 5 desktops and 6 laptops.
Being persistant, every thing is there when I need it.

anticapitalista · posted: 2016-06-21 12:26

I also run antiX live with persistence on a usb stick (one usb3 on a new lenovo the other usb2 on an old laptop the university gives me in the summer with a Core 2 Duo CPU).

I also run frugally from an external usd drive connected to the above mentioned Core 2 Duo laptop

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-24 03:02

Thanks guys. I got it to run antiX 16 386 from an iso on my USB via a Grub2 loopback.

So what is"persistence"?

What I need it to do is remember the things I add or change, like my network settings and browser bookmarks, cookies to sign me on to here and my email, and games or programs that I add or update, and remember them next time I boot. Whats the best way to do that?

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-06-24 04:45

thriftee wrote:Thanks guys. I got it to run antiX 16 386 from an iso on my USB via a Grub2 loopback.

So what is"persistence"?

What I need it to do is remember the things I add or change, like my network settings and browser bookmarks, cookies to sign me on to here and my email, and games or programs that I add or update, and remember them next time I boot. Whats the best way to do that?

On your next live boot select a persistence option. It does what you just described.

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-24 05:32

Thanks for the reply.

It never asked. It just came straight up to the desktop. Is there something I can add to the boot line in my grub.cfg?

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-06-24 05:59

when you boot live, do you not have the Function Key menus at the bottom of the screen. you would select the persistence option there.

skidoo · posted: 2016-06-24 07:05

what d_o said
or
during your desktop session, you can open ControlCenter, click the"Live" tab, and use the"Setup Persistence" tool.

anticapitalista · posted: 2016-06-24 09:43

Maybe the OP used a dd method to put the iso onto a usb device.

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-24 17:54

My USB has the iso file on it and I'm using grub loopback to boot from the iso file directly in live mode. I'm doing it this way so I can create a boot menu with options to boot from my home or work pc

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-25 17:13

I tested making a minor change and it does not get saved on a reboot.

I tried going to Control Center and Live persistence options, and its set for automatic. I can't change anything. its as though the root password is wrong because it takes the password, then just returns to the popup menu.

I wish I knew the option to add to the boot command line. Can anyone tell me that? I see"rootfs" and"homefs" and tried homefs=/dav/sdb1 (see below), it just gets an error I guess because I am not doing it right, but anyway but its not good because on one PC the flashdrive is /dev/sdb and its /dev/sdc on the other, so it would be much better if I had a way that works for both based on the actual volume name or something.

I would like to be able to tell it the location or name and location of a save file that would store everything I change. I can't see how this could be saved inside the ISO, without changing the ISO, therefore it has to be saved outside the ISO as a separate file or files. The device might be different on the different machines, but if there is no easy way to handle that, I could create separate boot sub menus for booting from the different machines.

Thus far only antiX can boot this way at all. Slacko and Slitaz don't work so far.

Code: Select all

# /boot/grub/grub.cfg
insmod font
if loadfont /boot/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
    insmod efi_gop
    insmod efi_uga 
    insmod gfxterm
    insmod vbe
    insmod vga
    set gfxmode=auto
    set gfxpayload=auto
    terminal_output gfxterm 
    if terminal_output gfxterm; then true ; else
        terminal gfxterm
    fi
fi

menuentry"antiX-16-RC1_386-full.iso" {
    set isofile="/boot/boot-isos/antiX-16-RC1_386-full.iso"
    loopback loop $isofile
    linux (loop)/antiX/vmlinuz quiet splash=v disable=lx fromiso=$isofile homefs=/dev/sdb1 rootfs=/dev/sdb1
    initrd (loop)/antiX/initrd.gz
}

Dave · posted: 2016-06-25 18:20

Uhm, by putting the iso on the usb to make a live usb would be to use antix2usb or unetbootin or a like program.
You could then simply set the bios to prefer to boot from usb device so that every time the usb is in when you start the computer it would boot directly off the usb (bootloader and all). However you could chain load to the bootloader on the usb drive from the grub that you have installed on the hard drive. Booting from the grub on the hard drive to the iso will not allow all the fancy persistence options. Alternatively you could extract the iso to a directory on the hard drive and load that directory from grub on the hard drive.

skidoo · posted: 2016-06-25 18:37

I wish I knew the option to add to the boot command line. Can anyone tell me that?

The bootline argument, depending on your intent, would be one of the following:
persist=root!,home'
persist=root!
persist=root!,home,static
persist=home!

I would like to be able to tell it the location or name and location of a save file that would store everything I change. I can't see how this could be saved inside the ISO, without changing the ISO, therefore it has to be saved outside the ISO as a separate file or files

If you want to study what operations are performed during antix live init, welcome down the rabbit hole (it's pretty intense):

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/Live-initrd-1/blob/master/init"
linktext was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/Live-ini ... aster/init"
====================================

and

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/remaster/blob/master/bin/persist-config"
linktext was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/remaster ... ist-config"
====================================

( along with the other persist-related scripts linked here:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/remaster/tree/master/bin"
linktext was:"https://github.com/antiX-Linux/remaster/tree/master/bin"
====================================
)

Booting from the grub on the hard drive to the iso will not allow all the fancy persistence options.

(Dave and I were posting at same time)
Yep, in the context of using grub, those bootline arguments I listed are moot.

thriftee · posted: 2016-06-26 00:16

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I need to boot it from the USB without using the hard drive, and I would like to leave the original iso alone and accumulate a changes file or files, maybe one for data and a 2nd for system changes. I will them be able to hibernate my work machine and put the USB in and reboot it, and when down, shut it down and reboot without the USB. It would be even cooler if I when I left the USB in, I could select Win/7 and have it automatically recover out of hibernation, but that's not critical. Its a work PC and its a Windows shop, so I'm probably not supposed to be running Linux on it or messing with it , but as long as what I do is all on the USB, I think it will be fine.

I think maybe the loopback thing is not really buying me anything but some space on the USB drive, and with a 64 gb drive space isn't a big issue anyway, so maybe I should be trying it from the live CD and install to the USB