USB question (Linux version cinnamon 20.2 boot)

flowergreen · 10-11-2021, 04:42 PM

I just installed Linux Cinnamon 20.2 from a USB flash drive.

Then I remembered that the USB flash drive is a brand new 128GB device!

I don't want to loose both Linux Cinnamon 18.2 and 20.2 from the USB flash drive since if anything goes wrong I can boot from the USB flash drive but the USB wont store anything else.

The USB cost a lot so any ideas? Or should I just let good enough be good enough and keep it solely as the boot-up since it wont save or store anything else?

I don't want to risk corrupting the Linux cinnamon versions by messing around with copy/paste to another media. does that make sense?

thanks for any input!

hazel · 10-12-2021, 10:57 AM

Copy/paste would certainly not be the way to do it. The normal way to do this kind of thing is to use the dd command. This copies block by block from one device to another so it's very accurate. If you plug in your big usb stick and a smaller one (3-4 GB) you can use dd to copy the one to the other.

You will need to check carefully which drive is which so that the copy is made in the right direction! The way I would do it would be to plug in just one drive and check what the kernel calls it after detecting it; you can do that using

Code:

sudo dmesg|tail

. Write it down, then plug in the other drive and repeat. Then if your big drive is sdb and your small one sdc, you can use

Code:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc

colorpurple21859 · 10-12-2021, 11:11 AM

with the usb plugged in post the output of

Code:

 lsblk -f

wpeckham · 10-12-2021, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flowergreen

I just installed Linux Cinnamon 20.2 from a USB flash drive.

Then I remembered that the USB flash drive is a brand new 128GB device!

I don't want to loose both Linux Cinnamon 18.2 and 20.2 from the USB flash drive since if anything goes wrong I can boot from the USB flash drive but the USB wont store anything else.

The USB cost a lot so any ideas? Or should I just let good enough be good enough and keep it solely as the boot-up since it wont save or store anything else?

I don't want to risk corrupting the Linux cinnamon versions by messing around with copy/paste to another media. does that make sense?

thanks for any input!

If you just installed FROM the USB device and not TO the USB device, then you must still have the ISO around that you used to load up the USB device for the install. If that is the ONLY thing currently on the USB device, then you can convert the USB device to a VENTOY drive (see my signature for links) and load as many ISO files as will fit onto it. (Starting with that ISO file you specifically want to protect.)

I use a 64G drive for at least a dozen live images and two install images. (And by copy, I MEAN copy, not burn to. You can use "cp" or "rsync" on the command line, or drag and drop in a GUI file manager!)

Just make sure to flush buffers or unmount the drive (using "umount" or eject) afterwards before removing the USB device to ensure that it is fully consistent. From then you should be able to boot from that USB device and pick the ISO you want to boot into from the menu.