Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 5342354)

Then what, I just download the trial distro onto the flash drive and then plug it in?

Originally Posted by Ztcoracat (Post 5342369)

If 2 different distributions are installed they should still sync. As far as file sharing anyway.
You should still be able to use shh to copy files from one machine to another.

Originally Posted by Ztcoracat (Post 5342369)

Yes but you will have to format the usb so that the distro you put on it will boot.
Than go into the BIOS and set your machine to boot to usb as it's first choice.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...tick-on-ubuntu
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Originally Posted by RockDoctor (Post 5342570)

You'll have to do some type of installation to the flash drive to make it bootable. Most distros come with a utility to install the live medium onto a flash drive with optional persistent storage. That's probably the best way to go. Fedora live media can be copied directly to a flash drive (and be bootable) using dd. With non-Fedora distros, I generally run isohybrid on the iso file, then use dd to copy it to the flash drive. When using dd, there's no persistent storage. I've also done full installs to flash drives (8GB or larger for most distros, now). The choice is yours...

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 5343642)

How about like Copy and Dropbox. (Don't have shh.)



Okay, got the startup disk creator idea and the ubuntu link explaining how to do it, but what's the unetbootin for? And I've heard sourcefourge isn't all that safe to download from any more.

Originally Posted by RockDoctor (Post 5343817)

A simple example of using dd to place a copy of Linux Mint 17.1 Mate desktop onto a flash drive:
1. Downloaded the iso file, linuxmint-17.1-mate-64bit.iso, to my Desktop. It turns out that Linux Mint uses hybrid isos, which means there's no need to invoke the isohybrid command.
2. Plugged in my flash drive. It automounted, and opened a file manager window. I just
closed the file manager.
3. I opened a terminal window
4. I ran the command in the terminal window.
5. I saw that my flash drive was showing up as /dev/sdg. There happened to be two partitions on it, sdg1 and sdg2, but that ok, I'm going to wipe them both.
6. I ran the command to unmount the flash drive (sdg2 was not mounted.
7. I ran the command to change to the directory in which the iso file was located.
8. I ran the following command: 9. I restarted my computer, booting off the flash drive.

Originally Posted by Ztcoracat (Post 5344101)

Copy should be ok but Dropbox; I'm not sure about.
I's try it with a picture (test first) that's not of great importance and see how it goes.

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu and other distro's.

I've never had a problem with Sourceforge.

As with anything that you download it's always a good idea to verify the source.
Checking the integrity of a file is important. (md5sum for example)

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 5344192)

Thanks Ztcoracat. I've heard that Sourceforge isn't as reliable as it used to be. http://blog.gluster.org/2013/08/how-...ge-has-fallen/ And thanks for the md5sum tip. (For me I've always just done Virus Total.) I'm definitely checking into that.

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell (Post 5341804)

I've got a more powerful computer that you guys have told me will handle any distro. But there's about eight million of them! I've been happy with Xubuntu (I have it on both of my computers) but I also like change. So if I put a different distro (I have Copy.com right now syncing the files between the two Xubuntu computers) on the one computer, is that going to screw up the syncing? And I've heard all the distros have the same relative file structure so navigating shouldn't be a problem. But which distro? And people have said 'try different ones.' Okay, I've got a flash drive, can you give me some links where I can try these cool distros? I've heard Red Hat is good. Some of you guys are Slack fanatics. Mint seems popular. I'm a pretty basic user. Don't need huge bells and whistles. Xubuntu's simplicity has appealed to me. Maybe I should stay with that! I'm open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

Originally Posted by ehdunf67 (Post 5344744)

If you are a beginner user, I recommend Zorin or Ubuntu. If you are beginner and enjoy hacking/pen-testing, I recommend installing my distro, Macrohard: (a remastered version of ubuntu w/ a great amount of hacking tools. Will be released on May, 5th 2015) http://www.macrohard.co.nf

If you are more advanced w/ linux, and are in to pen-testing, I recommend kali linux. (which is the OS im using atm)