You can do the rsync or debootstrap install from an ubuntu live image. You just need two usb sticks, one for the live, one for the destination. Or two readers and such. Rufus can help place such on image on the initial bootable device from windows.

The original poster is having difficulty getting any working linux system at all, and may have only one USB stick. Also, doing rsync from / while booted to an Ubuntu live image will not produce a Debian install. I'm not sure really what it would produce.

Yes, it is possible to select where to install. As I mentioned above the USB stick is a drive on "...this computer..." so you install to "...this computer..." then select exactly where on "...this computer..." to install later on in the process.
Again, please actually read about what you are doing! Take a little time to understand the process (I suggest you start from the beginning rather than the sample I linked to) and things will be much clearer to you.

Actually doing installations from VB sounds like a grate ide for other purposes so Im going to keep that in mind. However i dont think it solves the problem in this case. I installed windows 7 on a portable VB once and it toke a day to get the drivers for the usb and printer and get it working so I would kind of ad more obstacles.

I have a number of iso files that have bin downloaded from:
https://www.debian.org/distrib/

The one I tried now is named:
debian-9.1.0-i386-netinst.iso

It might not be the optimal Debian platform for VB (its 32bit and that wouldn't work with VB). But anyway I can get or use another one once I got the installation working. But fil has to be an Debian installer right?

Any way Im showing the process step by step below. The images below is from USB not from DVD that is I used ruffus on the iso file and selected usb as destination folder and started installation from there (just ignore that part). but 2,3,4 lucks just same as when starting up installation from DVD with iso file.

This is step by step and as every one cant see its not possible to select drive before installation starts. So obviously Im missing something.

file used: https://i.imgur.com/1EFw4Ab.png
step 1. https://i.imgur.com/o9wN2d6.png
step 2. https://i.imgur.com/He48RPE.png
step 3. https://i.imgur.com/59h5Yy3.png
step 4. https://i.imgur.com/PTtPmBS.png

By the way is doing this with as much trial and error as I am. I strongly suggest getting: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool because all the installations eventually mess up the USB drive it did so for me anyway.

Yes, but you really want the amd64 version, not i386.

First off, do not use anything like setup.exe. If you want to make your life simple, do not run any sort of installer from Windows. Do not use setup.exe.

Instead, burn the iso file to a CDR and boot up the CDR. This means shutting down the computer and powering on the computer with the CD in the computer.

This makes sense, although you want the amd64 version.
Not good. Don't do anything with any sort of file named setup.exe. I think that this method is provided in case you can't get your computer to boot from the CD or USB drive, but it's definitely better to get normal booting working.

Also, the menu options given look very different from the menu options you would get from the normal installer. You may not get the required options. Here is what the installer looks like normally, when you boot off of the install CD/USB:

http://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linux...reenshots.html

I have to start up computer from cd rom! Ok, so that the booting! how is that even done can I chose to do so before windows starts up or what?

Im getting back to this tomorrow.

I didn't mean to imply an rsync of a running system. But the usb-storage device isn't really treated any differently than any other bootable media. You just have to be careful and not use /dev/ names since they can change depending on which port you are plugged into, and how many other things are plugged into the others. But there's LABELs and UUIDs which work perfectly swell. The only "disk" install I've done in recent history was to an SSD. And mostly because I had never had an SSD and the system in question lacked any usb3 type ports. Everything else I do in linux is on a "card" or a "stick". I prefer the "stick" since you aren't likely to "break" or "forget" the reader, and they're fast enough these days, plus cheap.

It kind of sounds like you have never booted up to a CDROM before. Have you ever installed Windows on a computer?
Basically, imagine that you have a brand new computer build that has nothing on any hard drives yet. You do not expect to first boot up into Windows in order to install Windows, right? Windows is not yet installed on the computer!

No, everything required to run the Windows Install CD is on the CD itself. You just put the Windows Install CD in the CD-ROM and, maybe, tell the BIOS to boot off of the CD. When you turn on the computer, it will boot up from the Windows Install CD and then you go from there.

This is fundamentally how a Linux install CD works also. You don't first boot up from the hard drive into Windows and then run the CD. No, you boot up directly to the Linux install CD. It is interesting if the CD happens to also include a program "setup.exe" on the CD, but this apparently does something a bit unusual - probably because Windows is running and already utilizing various hardware which the Linux install CD would normally be using and modifying. In particular, the fact that Windows is running will prevent the partitioner from doing its normal job.

Anyway, the bottom line is - don't use anything called "setup.exe". Boot up into the installer. This means not doing ANYTHING with Windows. Don't boot up Windows. Don't run Windows at all. Run only the Debian installer disc, by booting up directly to it.

If you were wondering, rsync of a running system works great! I rsync running systems all the time. It's a key capability I use for my increasing number of RAMBOOT and NFS-RAMBOOT systems, since the / filesystem is in RAM. Using rsync to back up to non-volatile media is kind of like an asymmetric poor man's RAID1, where the primary is super fast and the backup is comparatively slow.

So, since I use rsync from running systems all the time I did not assume you didn't mean that. Still, using rsync from a LiveCD running system...not really sure how well that would work. I'd think it would have problems due to boot issues and /etc/fstab, among other things...

Sounds cool. I work with what I get my hands on, and that means a lot of older systems that don't have any USB3 ports. And I've managed to get my hands on more and more RAM over the years...such that most of my currently active systems have enough RAM for RAMBOOT. It's a poor man's SSD when you didn't actually spend money on sufficient RAM for it.

Anyway, since you're not familiar with the traditional Debian installer lately, it uses UUIDs out-of-box. This means that a traditional Debian install onto a USB drive will pretty much just plain work. The Grub bootloader will point to /boot via UUID; the boot entries will use UUIDs; and /etc/fstab will use UUIDs. This makes the setup insensitive to whether the USB drive is /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc or whatever.

In either case, once an install is in a NEW location (via rsync or other means), in order to make it bootable by itself, in it's NEW location, one does need to update /etc/fstab and the bootloader that will boot it. SystemD will boot an /etc/fstab-less system, but the root filesystem " / " will be read-only. And grub tends to use /etc/fstab to determine the root= parameter passed to the kernel.

I tend to like doing the rsync method since you can change filesystem types, and your install is effectively defragmented at the end of the process. But yes, most installers will install to USB storage just fine. Even BSD. Although my first attempt at that OS it did NOT see my internal drive so it installed BSD over the installer. But once I figured that out, two USB storage options and it installed just fine to the other.

Hi, every one! Its good to be back at the forum. First of all I would like to thank every one posting in this thread and for being very generous! It was very us full reading every ones reply as well as fallowing the discussion. And I did get it to work (that is running Debian from the USB drive), the problem seemed to be the booting menu that had bin modified but it did work out after disconnecting the hard-drive and creating a bootable USB rather then a DVD.

Its kind of slow however (partly due to the old USB I think) now I decided to install Qubes and run Whonix in Debian from a new USB in a temporary Qube in Qubes-operating system as this seams optimal from a security point of view and besides Qubes seams to be a very neat system as well.

But now once Qube is installed the internet connection wont work... I have no idea how to solve this problem. I looked at installation videos and it's supposed to work automatically with out any need for configuration.

So first of all I wounder if its possible that my hardware is in compatible with Qubes? Or could this be excluded as everything else seams to work well? And presuming that the hardware is fine what should I do next? Im not to keen on reinstalling and I think the installation is an issue and also as there already is an operating system on the SSD drive (Qubes), I would probably encounter a sett of new problems if I attempt to reinstall. So what would be the next step?

dose any know?

No, I'm not familuar with Qubes OS. So....I looked it up-

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=qubes

https://www.qubes-os.org/

-::-It's a distribution based on Fedora.-::-

IF your hardware is in-compatible it would of been mentioned in the operating systems documentation.
https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/#choosing-your-hardware

***You might need to install a driver.***

Read the Fedora documentation for wireless networking.
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/...ess_Networking
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Networking/CLI

Is your connection wired or wireless? Wired should work out of the box:-

Do you see your network in the Network Manager?

Yes unless you use gparted or some other partition mgr to resize Qubes to make room for another fresh install.
OR install overtop of Qubes.

Work with the os that is already installed and try to get the internet connection working.
IF that fails you could install another os.

When I was running Fedora and other Fedora based distro's I never had a problem with Network Manager not working.