Bootable Linux USB stick: Difference between revisions

Ubuntu
(Ubuntu)
Line 3: Line 3:
processing, structure solution and coot visualization. What we found:
processing, structure solution and coot visualization. What we found:
# the sticks should be fast USB3 (very good results with SANdisk Extreme 32GB or bigger; physically small sticks like Kingston DataTraveler look nicer but are slow). The computers do ''not'' have to be recent, nor do they have to have USB3 ports. USB2 ports support up to 30MB/s, but only USB3 sticks deliver this! With a bit of tuning (below) the stick feels as fast as a local harddisk.
# the sticks should be fast USB3 (very good results with SANdisk Extreme 32GB or bigger; physically small sticks like Kingston DataTraveler look nicer but are slow). The computers do ''not'' have to be recent, nor do they have to have USB3 ports. USB2 ports support up to 30MB/s, but only USB3 sticks deliver this! With a bit of tuning (below) the stick feels as fast as a local harddisk.
# we use Fedora (FC23 and higher) because its hardware support is very good. We always use the 64bit distro.
# we use 64bit Fedora (FC23 and higher) because its hardware support is very good. We tried to prepare a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS stick that boots on (U)EFI and Bios machines but that - other than the FC28-based stick - did not book on Macs.
# The stick can be booted on MacBooks as well (press the <code>alt</code> key at the boot sound); their hardware works well with Fedora. For Windows clients (press F11 or F12 or sometimes F9 or F10 for the boot menu; if that does not work press F2 or DEL for the BIOS menu and change the boot order), one has to make sure that "fast boot" (or "fast startup") is disabled (or Shift is pressed while shutting Windows down), and sometimes <code>powercfg -H off</code> (as Administrator in a console window) is additionally required; otherwise the USB stick may not boot. Occasionally we find a computer that does not boot from the stick because the BIOS screen can not be reached (due to unknown BIOS password; happens with machines belonging to institutions which administer them centrally) or some such, but 19 out of 20 work as they should.
# The stick can be booted on MacBooks as well (press the <code>alt</code> key at the boot sound); their hardware works well with Fedora. For Windows clients (press F11 or F12 or sometimes F9 or F10 for the boot menu; if that does not work press F2 or DEL for the BIOS menu and change the boot order), one has to make sure that "fast boot" (or "fast startup") is disabled (or Shift is pressed while shutting Windows down), and sometimes <code>powercfg -H off</code> (as Administrator in a console window) is additionally required; otherwise the USB stick may not boot. Occasionally we find a computer that does not boot from the stick because the BIOS screen can not be reached (due to unknown BIOS password; happens with machines belonging to institutions which administer them centrally) or some such, but 19 out of 20 work as they should.
# if the WiFi does not work out-of-the-box on MacBook Pro, connect temporarily to the Internet by other means (ethernet cable, WiFi via USB key, tether to your phone via Bluetooth), become root, and install the latest kernel and tools with <code>dnf install -y akmods kernel kernel-devel broadcom-wl  --best --allowerasing</code>. After installing, reboot into the new kernel.  
# if the WiFi does not work out-of-the-box on MacBook Pro, connect temporarily to the Internet by other means (ethernet cable, WiFi via USB key, tether to your phone via Bluetooth), become root, and install the latest kernel and tools with <code>dnf install -y akmods kernel kernel-devel broadcom-wl  --best --allowerasing</code>. After installing, reboot into the new kernel.  
1,330

edits