Please can some one help me to intall mint 18 on 32 gb usb drive so i may use it on my desktop and my laptop , my desktop has dual win10 with mint 16 and the laptop has win7 and mint 17 both mints are to old for updates, the reason for running from usb is that it is too complicated for me to reinstall mint 18 direct to both hard drives. yours A Phillips.

if you got Linux installed, then you can - well you probably do not even need Linux to be installed on your hardware. One just needs to use it as a medium to transport the data from one USB Port to another.

Most Installers will see whatever is plugged in as a hard drive. therefore just prepare your medium properly.

have another medium you want to install to, ready.

plug in your first medium. Boot its system. then during the boot right after the BIOS catches that OS and begins to boot off it. plug in your other medium so it can see and register it as a hard drive while it is booting. (might even see it if you plug it in after it is booted) but I usually just plug it in during boot.

When the OS is loaded, going into your install process - just install it to the other USB Port you have your other medium plugged into just like you would any hard drive.

if any problems occur post back so me or others can help you step through it to get it to work.

because it can be done.

Experience level: one needs to already know how plug a USB Stick into a USB Port, identify its drive "letters" and how create a USB Stick using an ios to make it a bootable medium.

Basic understanding of the install process, and needs to have a good working understanding of /dev/sdxx vs UUID in fstab.

the mount command and how to edit files in the cli.

so you will know how to change it or correct it if needed.

Because this medium will be used in more that one Computer - it needs to not be confused to where its kernel is located and all other critical directories when in the boot process.

If Linux is being used, then a basic understanding of the dd command to clear the mbr of the USB Stick if needed. because sometimes getting grub installed onto it can be a bit of a bugger, but that is a case by case situation.

It is not that complicated to install Mint 18 to your existing drives, and that would be very preferable to trying to use a USB flash drive.
For one thing, flash drives wear out quickly with frequent write operations. Secondly, you might need a special video driver installed to make Mint work on one of the computers - which would make the USB installation incompatible with the other computer.
So I would advise a full installation...
Please post the result of the command for one of the computers, and we can tell you the steps needed to replace the old Mint.

if you already have LM16 dual_booting with win-10,
then you have already done most of the work:
ie: simply use the later version LinuxMint to overwrite the LM16 partition(s)
in that you can't update that version, any way.

if the Laptop has win-7 on it, then you may find that the usb stick,
won't boot on the win-10 machine, if the usb stick is set to boot on the win-7 machine.
as the win-10 machine has a different way of booting up.

1 members found this post helpful.

Again thank you all , the reason i wanted to install mint on a usb stick is because i was afraid of loosing win 7 which i have lost the serial number too and win 10 was a free upgrade with no serial number should i have to reinstall ,I need windows as i am diabetic and the programs i use and some others do not run on linux ,I and my wife use linux quite a bit for banking and other secure work but at 70 years i have to digest your answers carefully, you would think after about 15 years of using linux i would know what i was doing , well i think i will bit the bullet and upgrade over mint 15 to 18 and hope i do not lose windows , yours Matchless.

Hi TX i have decided to take your suggestion of upgrading mint 15 not 16 as it was my error to 18 on my desktop, I tried the inxi-fxzo command in the terminal but did not work, but it did work using the live mint 18 disk ,And perhaps update my laptop which has mint 16 later.

I would be most grateful if some one would give me step by step instructions to install mint 18 on my duel win10 linux mint 15 desktop ,I have booted the live mint 18 DVD and every thing seems to be compatible printers ect , yours Matchless

Post the result for your Mint 15 desktop.

Thanks for your reply hears what you asked for

This is my desktop duel win10 with mint 15.

andrew@Andrewsdesktop ~ $ inxi -fxzo
CPU: Quad core AMD A6-3670 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB bmips: 21599.7
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz
CPU Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx
fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid
aperfmperf pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt
arat hw_pstate npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save pausefilter
Unmounted: ID: /dev/sr0 size: 1.07G label: N/A uuid: N/A
ID: /dev/sda1 size: 0.10G label: N/A uuid: 3E6406CF640689BB
ID: /dev/sda2 size: 199.81G label: N/A uuid: 3AAA28E9AA28A2FD
ID: /dev/sda3 size: 0.47G label: N/A uuid: E802488602485BA6
ID: /dev/sda6 size: 266.05G label: N/A uuid: a01582c5-62bd-45af-a857-128ae1dfdace
andrew@Andrewsdesktop ~ $

Thanks. But you posted inxi -fxzo which is not the same thing as It has to be a capital F, not f

Sorry did not realize it is so sensative, update as under

andrew@Andrewsdesktop ~ $ inxi -Fxzo
System: Host: Andrewsdesktop Kernel: 3.8.0-19-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.7.3)
Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 15 Olivia
Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: F1A75-M PRO version: Rev X.0x Bios: American Megatrends version: 2206 date: 08/13/2012
CPU: Quad core AMD A6-3670 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 21599.7
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6530D] bus-ID: 00:01.0
X.Org: 1.13.3 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD SUMO GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 9.1.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500D and 6400G-6600G series] driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
Card-3: Microsoft driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 045e:0766
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.8.0-19-generic
Network: Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (4.2% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: ST500DM002 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 24G used: 20G (88%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.03GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Unmounted: ID: /dev/sr0 size: 1.07G label: N/A uuid: N/A
ID: /dev/sda1 size: 0.10G label: N/A uuid: 3E6406CF640689BB
ID: /dev/sda2 size: 199.81G label: N/A uuid: 3AAA28E9AA28A2FD
ID: /dev/sda3 size: 0.47G label: N/A uuid: E802488602485BA6
ID: /dev/sda6 size: 266.05G label: N/A uuid: a01582c5-62bd-45af-a857-128ae1dfdace
Sensors: None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info: Processes: 160 Uptime: 49 min Memory: 706.9/7458.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.7.3 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
andrew@Andrewsdesktop ~ $

1. prepare your HDD via windows. keep in mind that Windows has something called Unmovable files, that limits the size you can give up for Linux.
2. so personally, I'd back up all of my personally Data,
3. wipe my drive.
4. install windows fresh, giving it the head of the hdd, use its installer to partition out the hard drive.
create, C:\ where windows will live, I have installed Windows 10 on as little as 32GB, but not much room for updates, installed 3rd party apps, personal data, etc..

If I remember correctly. Windows will take that whatever you give it for C: and use it for everything, being the other two partitions it makes for itself now days.

5. DO Not partition the rest of the drive, leave it raw. So windows will not even be able to use it.

then install Windows.

6. install Linux next, use its installer to take what is left of the hard drive and partition it out to your wants or needs, continue with the install,
7. install grub on sda over writing the mbr windows boot loader.
8. boot windows just to make sure its working.
9. reboot into Linux and never look back...

done.

if you are using EFI its pretty much the same, just use EFI for both installs. if it is not pretty much the same I am sure others in here will correct me.

rereading you want a tri boot, not dual boot.

that is just the same plus one, minus the wipe drive, make room for it with Gparted and install it on the same room you made for it.

Of course, it is not mandatory to re-install Windows.
You can simply boot your Mint 18 (or 18.1 or 18.2) DVD or USB.
Double-click on the Install Mint icon on the Desktop. That will open the installation program.
Then chose the "Something Else" option.
Double-click on the 24GB partition (which is currently your Mint 15 root partition).
Chose that as / (root), and proceed to install.
Make sure that any files you want to save are backed up somewhere else, before you begin the installation.
That is all there is to it.

Hi TX well i followed your instructions till i got a message saying ( no root system is defined please correct this from the partitioning menu ) i chose no change to the 24gb resize window ticked the box to reformat and boot in the lower box clicked to install and got the above message what am i not doing ?.

If you are installing Mint to a partition which already exists (your previous Mint install) you need to select that partition in the window in which you see the various partitions. Click on that partition to highlight it then click the Edit button below that window and a new window should open. In the new window, you will see several options including Mount point. Click the down arrow to the right of the box and you should see the "/" symbol so click that. If you proceed it will install to whichever partition you select and obviously overwrite anything on that partition so make sure you get the correct one.

The link below explains this and has images so you will know what you will see in the process under How to setup using the something else option about one third of the way down the page.

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/201...alongside.html