Hi i have decided to open this thread about usb bootable distros. I want somehelp to understand why a peristent installation dont let u use the partition the distro is installed ? Why i should always have 2 partitions on my flash drive?

ne more thing XFCE will fit in a 2GB disk?

USB persistent installations store their filesystem in a file (and not a partition); that file (casper-rw) is later accessed when you boot into a USB session and is read as a filesystem. That's why you can't access is. You can think of it somewhat like a swap file generated during hibernation and stores a snapshot of virtual memory. So when you create a USB disk and allocate space for storing files, that space is pre-allocated.

Yes, you can definitely fit an Xfce distro on a 2 GB USB disk. Xfce is a very light desktop environment. (In fact, on a 2 GB drive you can even install GNOME / KDE distros).

thx for the reply.. but still how can os write changes (persistent installation) to that file?

Basically, when the OS boots up it 'sees' that casper-rw file as a complete filesystem. Sorta like a snapshot image taken and stored in case of hibernation.

So the os can still keep writing to the carsper-rw. One more question plz. I tried install xubuntu in a flash disk with a ext3 partition! Is this installation a persistent one?

I think you'll need to install Xubuntu on a FAT16 partitioned disk for any contents to be readable on Windows systems. Otherwise, yes, it will work fine.

I dont care too much the flash disk to be readable by windows (its a 2gb flash). The problem is that the installation didnt let me use fat 16 or fat32 fs for installation

That's odd. I've installed Ubuntu on USB disk on FAT16 partition earlier.

I receive the message u cant install /root in fat32 (i should use ext2, or ext3 to proceed)

Yeah, you can't use FAT32. But you can use FAT16.

No unfortunately i cant. I started the installation process from xubuntu live cd and didnt let me choose fat 16. The system says that i should use something like ext2