Options for easily installing a linux distro on a usb drive ?

I am not talking about a bootable only distro with unetbootin, but a complete install with persistent storage.
What distros are there that can be easily installed from windows on a pen drive with persistent storage ?

ubuntu is one . What else ?

Note the use the of the word easily.

Thanks

Not sure what you mean by 'bootable only distro'. Is Slax something like what you're talking about?
--- rod.

puppy linux maybe.

AFAIK, Ubuntu and Mint are the only ones that are able to be installed from within Windows (called Wubi install) but making a Wubi install on an external drive is somewhat pointless.
Having said that, you can install any distribution on external media, just burn their installation CD/DVD and use that to install.
Hint: To make sure that it is bootable on different computers don't install proprietary drivers and use UUIDs in your bootloader and /etc/fstab.

To be easy I'd go over to www.pendrivelinux.com for the many how-to's. Not all ways are shown.
Almost every modern linux disto can be installed to a usb just like it was a normal hard drive. That way it doesn't need a tool.

What I do is run a virtual machine to protect myself against not reading. Boot a VM to an iso, attach the usb to the vm and install.

If you want you can remove your hard drive and boot to a live cd/dvd and do the same thing.

Let me get this straight, you want to have a fully running distro on a flash drive, is that right? If it is then all you need to do is put a disc into the PC, put a usb into the PC, start the PC and let it boot from the CD. When it comes to installation choose the usb, probably designated sdb, as the medium to install to, follow normal installation procedure and wallah your done.

As far as I am aware you should be able to do this with any distro, the only drawback is it takes alot of the usb space to do it so you wont have much room for /home.

The other way is to follow the suggestion above and check out pendrivelinux for hints. You'll need to create a /home that is rw but a quick google will find you plenty of info how to do that. The drawback with this is you really can't update the actual OS itself so you are going to be stuck with an OS that is out of date very quickly and I'm not sure that's good for security.

Originally Posted by k3lt01 As far as I am aware you should be able to do this with any distro, the only drawback is it takes alot of the usb space to do it so you wont have much room for /home.

You are aware of the sizes of modern USB pendrives? 16GB are pretty common now, so space shouldn't be an issue.

Originally Posted by TobiSGD You are aware of the sizes of modern USB pendrives? 16GB are pretty common now, so space shouldn't be an issue.

Yes I am very aware that 16GB is pretty common now, although you're hard pressed getting a 32GB of the shelf in my area, but my standard install procedure is 10 GB / 2 GB SWAP and the rest /home so that leaves you with a 4GB /home and that's 1/4 of 16GB.

I know Debian installs can be made extremely small but for someone who likes having multiple DEs (to show people what's available) that 10GB can be taken up pretty quicly.

I wouldn't go with a separate /home on a small drive, and I think having multiple DEs is rather uncommon. But of course yours and the OPs mileage may vary.

I have multiple DEs to show people what options they have, and I have a separate /home because I always set things up that way (it's a habit I suppose).