Hello everyone!

First off I want to apologise for asking a question that I'm sure have been asked before. I've just not been able to find the answer googling it or looking here. The few I've found have been way to old.

I want to install Mint on a 128 GB usb so that when I boot it, it would load as a complete, full installation as if it was on my hdd (that currently has windows 10 as it's OS.) Not a live usb with 4 GB of extra space. I'm sharing my computer and stealing hd space for a linux partition for a dual boot wouldn't be popular. It's not really what I'm after either.

Is this possible? Again, sorry for asking what might be an obvious or often asked question but I just couldn't figure it out myself.

Thank you,
Dwindle

Hello and welcome to LQ.

Yes, I do this almost always now. I prefer it.

First is you have to be sure you don't mess up the local computer on this task. To that end I suggest either using a free virtual machine to create this or remove any internal hard drive connections on the computer. You can easily bypass some warning about locations or such and bork your computers current install.

For almost all modern linux, a usb drive is a real hard drive. How your computer views it later is another story and we may have to return to it.

I do this.
Create a VM without a virtual hard drive. (or use physical computer without hard drive)
Boot to iso image or cd/dvd.
Attach usb flash/mechanica/ssd drive to system.
Install to the usb media as you would a real hard drive.

While it isn't easy to boot to a usb in a VM you can usually test the usb out on physical computer. Newer systems tend to be a hard drive choice in bios.

If you have a new computer then you may wish to create a uefi usb and some installers make it if you create a gpt partition by default.


Places like SuseStudio could let you build an image for this if you wished too.


Best results are from usb drives that are fastest. Lexar has a cheap super fast one for reasonable,.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you so much! I just completed the installation successfully. I will now go on to tinker a bit with it and set it up with my "normal" programs or linux substitutes.

Thank you

Good going then!

Thanks for the update and post thread as solved maybe

1 members found this post helpful.