Full Install on USB

Hey guys, new here, new to Linux. Out of the distro's I've tried so far (Ubuntu, Lubuntu, puppy, fedora and Zorin) I really like zorin the best. Im trying to figure out how to do a full install from the live USB i've got to another usb (8gb) for a full install in it. In the install I've got my Hard drive (500gb), recovery partition, HP Tools and surpport, and the new flash drive under /dev/sdb. The current flashdrive (the one Im currently live booting from) is not showing. So when I click on "install now" it says "no root system file is defined." of course its not, cause i cant get it to show. Any suggesions? Really like to get this going to I can give it a whirl without installing on my hard drive just yet, but want to be persistant/able to save and carry over my changes. Thanks guys, Lucas.

I had some problems also but look first this:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7203

And then also this:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7273

Following things are important:
- format the USB drive to ext 4 and erase all data there.
- check that you use a USB that have space enough to make a full install, if installing Zorin 8 Core it takes 8.2 Gb space, so use 16 Gb drive min.
- use a high speed drive preferably a USB 3.0 specified, also in case you have only USB 2.0 port available.
- create only one partition to USB. (Installation software may ask you to make a swap partition, not needed if there is one already in some device).
- use "something else" method when installing according to a guide in forum
- select the partitioning menu (change) and set the mounting point to root -/-
- select the bootloader placement according your needs either to first HDD /dev/sda, the internal hard drive or to the USB device /dev/sdb or what you there have as destination, not to the partition /dev/sdb1 there. BIOS can not start it there and shows an error message.
- look once more that the destination partition for installation is the right one, highlight it if it is not selected correctly.
- select "install now" and follow the process.
- boot your computer to that installation and it will start.

If you follow this process carefully you will have a nicely running os in your USB drive. One thing to remaind you, where that is different from a USB live installation, a full installation to a USB drive is not transferable to an other computer due to HW configuration made according to that computer you used when installing it.

Here is some additional info related to using swab partition:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7277

thanks so much, I finally got it with your help. I wasnt going to "Change" and marking "/"

Got it running now, but another question. Its currently on an 8gb 2.0 usb. Ive ordered a 16gb 3.0 USB. Would this make it any faster. ever once in a while it will hang up on a menial task and I am assuming its the read/write of the flash drive.

Hi

Nice to hear that you got it working. I believe that you will get some additional speed performance using a USB 3.0 drive whether the USB 2.0 Drive you used was not so fast. However there are also other components that might limit the speed. The USB 2.0 port in your computer might be slow, so using a USB 3.0 Drive does not give additional speed to R/W. I believe however that it is not the bottleneck. How much you have RAM, there should be min. 2 Gb for running Zorin 8 Core. One additional component here still is to speed up, it is the os. distro that you use, If it is too heavy to run from a USB 2.0 port you can try some other.

I have installed additional to Zorin 8 Core and Lite also the LXLE distro to a USB Drive as full installation. All these works from a USB 2.0 spec. port in my HP 530 Celeron M 32 bit laptop and an ASUS AMD Athlon Dual Core 64 bit with Nvidia Geforce 8500 + graphics dektop. In both I have 2 Gb RAM. My suggestion here is that you have to try different alternatives to find out what fits best for you and your hardware. USB drives that I have used are Kingston 16 GB DataTraveler 100 USB 2.0/3.0 for Desktop and SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB 2.0 16 GB for my laptop due to its small size. The speed specs. are not so high in these drives, however they works nicely together with my hardwares. According to what I experienced, so a reading speed 25 to 30 Mb/sec. would be enough to work properly with these distros. There is USB 2.0 specified drives that have up to that speed but there is also slower ones that won't work or runs too slowly. There might be also sometimes "unknown" issues, that causes that some drive type do not work even if it should, when looking only the speed specs.

Let us hear how you get on.

I'm using a 64 bit window 7 pc, 4gb ram, and a recently purchased netbook with 1gb of ram (I've ordered ram got both) and it seemed to hang up intermittently with both systems. I'm going to try elementary OS buy I really like zorin.

Can you tell me the difference between the core, educational, gamer, and premium packages? I've been using 6lte. But gonna try 8 core. I'll try some different usbs and update. Thank you again for the quick reply

Hi

I give now only short answer to this because I am not so familiar with educational and gamer versions. But these are the three alternatives having only some different scope or orientation in their setup of ready installed software. The premium version, Ultimate is however very complete collection of whatsoever software you may need. Due to that it is over two times bigger distribution compared to the others and you have to buy it. After donation you get a key to extract the downloaded file. If you are going to use Ultimate version it takes nearly 20 Gb space from the disk.

wow so it takes almost as much as a win7 install. thanks Henri. got it installed on a 3.0, cant really see a speed difference, but none of my PC's have 3.0 plug . So far I like the look/feel of 8 vs 6 so think I'll stick with it.

Hi

Does it now however run without any other problems than being little slow. There is further possibility to install a USB 3.0 interface card to a desktop having standard mechanical construction whether the speed is still unacceptable slow. I have not installed a USB card but a Firewire card to my desktop for video cam. due to a USB 2.0 port was too slow and did not work for that purpose.

wow so it takes almost as much as a win7 install. thanks Henri. got it installed on a 3.0, cant really see a speed difference, but none of my PC's have 3.0 plug . So far I like the look/feel of 8 vs 6 so think I'll stick with it.

Just be aware that support for 8 ends in June - you should then upgrade to 9

wow so it takes almost as much as a win7 install. thanks Henri. got it installed on a 3.0, cant really see a speed difference, but none of my PC's have 3.0 plug . So far I like the look/feel of 8 vs 6 so think I'll stick with it.

Just be aware that support for 8 ends in June - you should then upgrade to 9

Aww man so 9 isnt out yet tho is it?

Hi

That is not a problem for you, make the installation now using Zorin 8, just back up all your data to the ext. 500 Gb drive and make a upgrade to Zorin 9 when it will be released.

Hi

Look also this regarding the speed of USB drives. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7410

wow so it takes almost as much as a win7 install. thanks Henri. got it installed on a 3.0, cant really see a speed difference, but none of my PC's have 3.0 plug . So far I like the look/feel of 8 vs 6 so think I'll stick with it.

Just be aware that support for 8 ends in June - you should then upgrade to 9

Aww man so 9 isnt out yet tho is it?

Hi,

install Zorin 8 and when Zorin 9 comes out, just select the "Something Else Method" when installing and keep all your data intact!:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4848