USB-based OS on PC/Mac possible? + cloning question

Hello,

I have managed to get Lite Education 9 installed on a USB stick. I wanted a portable installation that I could take from computer to computer. I tried it on PCs of different models and to my amazement it works wonderfully so far. However, I cannot boot it on a Mac. Is there a way that a single USB installation could be created in a way that it would work on both platforms?

My second question is regarding cloning my USB installation. Once I get things setup they way I like, I want to clone my USB stick to produce 25 copies - each of which would be bootable. What is the most effective way to do this?

Thank you very much

In respect of the Mac question read these instructions very carefully!:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/install ... _installsh

the link includes 'extra instructions' if booting from USB!

As for cloning:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ve-670342/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ck-686964/

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions ... ized-stick

Let us know which, if any, worked best for you - also check out:

http://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php

Thank you for your suggestions. I ended up using Clonezilla - should have thought of that since I use it to clone everything else. I just made an image of it on an external drive and then used that image to make new clones of the USB drives. No problems at all. I took all 25 copies into a computer lab and ran all of them simultaneously on 25 different machines. These were used by a group of K-12 teachers without much technical experience, and Zorin was so familiar looking to them that I didn't even need to help them use it!

A cloning related question though - in the Windows world when one clones a machine, you must do a few things after cloning - namely change the name of the machine and reactivate Windows. I did not change anything on these clones and didn't have any problems, but I know that the machine name for each clone is the same. Is that a problem in the Linux world? I would imagine that it would only present itself as a problem in the NetBIOS/NetBeui environment, but maybe it is more complicated than that.

Regarding my Mac question, I appreciate the help but those instructions are a bit over my head!

Thanks again.

This article on renaming should help you:

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... buntu1404/

as for the mac advice I can't provide any alternatives - this is due to EFI on Macs - originally there was a project called rEFIt - this was abandoned by the author and the other guy has taken up where he left off with rEFInd.

Can't make it any simpler I'm afraid.