is there a #linux distro where you can run a persistent installation off a USB drive with no SSD?

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

is there a #linux distro where you can run a persistent installation off a USB drive with no SSD? or is that something you can do with any distro for that matter?

EDIT: the deluge of replies insist that this task is both easy and obvious. alright then.

[ekaitz_zarraga@mastodon.social]

@aeva don't do all live-usbs do that?

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ekaitz_zarraga do they?

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ekaitz_zarraga if I knew I wouldn't be asking

[kit@m.tripulse.link]

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place you can do that with any distro if you're nasty like that

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@kit how does that work. just install to a flash drive instead of a ssd?

[gertkeno@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva I've gotten Debian and Arch to install directly onto a USB; by default it's really slow with logs and journaling so there are plenty of things to tweak to reduce writes.
Tails is designed for USB use and some live usb isos support a persistent partition, I think Rufus will make one automatically, I think if a partition is labeled "ghost" or something Ubuntu live iso will write to it. Ironically not very fun to set up on linux.

[kit@m.tripulse.link]

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place yep. any storage is good enough, as long as you can put a partition on it

I would imagine that some installers might not like it by default, but if you had to, you could manually create an ext4 partition or something on the flash drive and then it would appear for sure

just for fun I once partitioned a flash drive so I could boot the installer from it and then install the OS to the other half of the same drive

some commercial NAS things and crusty servers have used USB flash drives internally as boot drives before, I'm sure some still do even though I don't hear about it anymore

[pupxel@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva any distro should be able to, some even ship with the tools to create one, some are required to run over usb ala enterprise orientated paid distros

[aachrisg@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva Put the ubuntu iso image on a usb key and insert it into the computer is all it takes, should be similar on other distros.

netboot.xyz is nice. It's a bootable image which brings up a menu of linux distros to try or install, fetching them over the internet. Install it on a usb key, boot drive, or network boot file.