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Can I make an bootable USB with a live OS while still keeping other data functional on my USB? I want to make an USB bootable Slax OS (Linux), but to be able to access other data while running the OS from my USB.
Will I be able to for example to manipulate documents or play games while at the same time I am running the Live OS from the same USB?
Thank you in advance
Kwang
Posted 2012-04-18T13:25:35.583
Reputation: 90
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Yes, you can do it(your O.S. files will be loaded into the system memory, USB is only used to read this files on boot timing, after that you can use your flash drive anyway you want....). However, I would recommend you to create a second(extended) partition on your bootable USB Flash drive. This way you can "isolate" the O.S. from another files.
According to this website you can use the following partitioners to extend your partition on Linux:
- Diskdrake ( The default Mandrake tool, by far superior and easy to use even for people that never came close to a partition before )
- fdisk ( commandline tool for the more advanced, but still very intuitive )
- Diskdruid ( The RedHat partition tool )
- QTParted ( GNU clone of Partition Magic, the tools from SUSE, RedHat and PCLos are based on this )
- Yast ( the SUSE partition tool )
- Qparted ( the non-GUI brother of QTParted, I would go for fdisk myself )
Diogo
Posted 2012-04-18T13:25:35.583
Reputation: 28 202
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As i understand your question... You will be able to play games and manipulate documents as long as said games, and document software runs on linux.
There's a few options, actually for the rest of the question
If you will be switching between systems, select a USB install with a persistant data option - most ubuntu varients will let you do this with unetbootin. You can use the rest of the drive as well, i believe.
Alternately you can often simply install the OS to the thumb drive, as you would a regular OS, with the install cd and partitioner. This is only a good idea if you are unlikely to switch systems (there can be wierdness due to fstab and driver related things), and needed to use a larger thumbdrive or USB hard drive, and wanted all the space accessible to linux
Journeyman Geek
Posted 2012-04-18T13:25:35.583
Reputation: 119 122
Does it do any harm if I don't. Is it preferable and why? – Kwang – 2012-04-18T13:46:12.157
It will not harm anything if you don't use a second partition. I usually do this only for organizational reasons(I don't know any specific/tecnical reason to do that unless the "isolation" from the Linux files from your personal files). – Diogo – 2012-04-18T13:52:21.120
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gpartedandcfdiskare the most common linux partition tools I've seen. @Kwang you don't have to do it that way, but if something goes wrong with your OS, it's nice to not have to remove/backup all your files to fix it. My /home is a different partition from the rest of my OS, and I can swap my OS and keep my home directory if I ever want to. – Rob – 2012-04-18T15:21:47.450