Create a Linux Persistent USB - Use Linux Anywhere with a Persistent Disk!! Easy Beginner Guide.

Create a Linux Persistent USB that allows you to travel with Linux anywhere and use it on multiple computers all through a USB. This is a Easy Beginner Guide that helps setup and create a Persistent Linux USB using a software called Rufus. This can work on multiple distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and even Windows. This can be done on Windows/Linux. The tool is available for both and allows you to Create a Linux Persistent USB Easily!

Rufus is a software that helps you create a bootable disk, but also can help you by setting up persistence on a USB. Persistence means that when you reboot your Linux distro you won't have to worry about the data getting wiped on your USB. Instead it remains on the USB until you destroy it yourself. This is great if you want a Linux Persistent USB / Pendrive that allows you to use Linux anywhere! You just have to select the USB in BIOS settings and you are on your way.

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[keiji-kaikyo]

Even after 2 years it's still a very helpful video and I've watched a lot of the latest videos but none of them explained how much persistence storage I needed.
Thanks for the help 🎉👍👌

[ashishsarker]

I bought a HP flash drive (16 GB) thought it would be great to boot linux in it. Cyber Security from our country (a bunch of idiots) told their youtube channel to persist half of total amount of flash memory. Every time I do that it shows some weird messages that I never saw in my life. I thought my flash drive is damaged. but I am glad and found your video. I did everything and it worked. Glad I found your channel, you are a life saver. Keep up the good works. God bless.

[parisgraphics]

Thank you! Just what I was looking for! Have used Rufus before but didn't know it had a persistent option. Much appreciated.

[christophervu]

It’s a tiny part of your video, but your advice on choosing a partition scheme saved me when trying to install Ubuntu 22.04. I thought I had bricked my laptop before when the installer removed my OS and then failed to install, but that one part of your video saved it. Thank you, this is a great video!

[bloimlala]

Thanks man virtual box is unusable for me i tried everything!!!
A usb install with persistent volume is the best way to go 👍🤝

[adon]

Way to go, Savvynik! Great info! Superb delivery! SUBSCRIBED!!!!
Thank you....

[jnorth]

Saving documents is great, but you can safe them from under any live distro to another available storage drive, such as a different USB flash or a HDD/SSD device.
The more important part of the who persistence scheme is being able to save changes made to the OS itself, such as modified settings, added or removed plug-ins/extensions, added or removed applications, and such. I am not sure that this topic was covered in this video.

[texbrew]

Well done video. You are one of many helpful people in the Linux community, and it's wonderful to find you. I will try this for TinyCore Linux on an old low spec PC just for fun. That PC needs a helper to boot a USB, and I use a Plop CD for that, as said, just for fun. Kudos!

[plaidsnowfrog]

i wanted to help people who were having my same issues so here i go

if u cant see an external ssd or hdd in rufus in the dropdown menu just click alt+f and it will show them

[MrDJdo]

Ty this is a very clear and well explained tutorial even for a beginner Linux user like myself. I'm going to share this to my fellow students.

[jonathabotbot]

i love kali live, i only have 8gb sd card and i can run it anywhere along with card reader. it became my personal OS. can browse, watch movie, save files.

[normweidner]

Great job with this video, Nix!! Covered all the points extremely well, Thank You, Sir!!

[gamingweeb-]

Hey something concerning happened when I rebooted from a persistent usb and thought here would be a good place to ask

The distro on it is Mint, made on a Mac host by using a qemu vm running the mint iso that installed mkusb onto it, the usb being passed to the vm to use mkusb on it as if it was a Ubuntu usb not an other distro



So booted from it on a windows machine, made txt file and shut down to see if it worked. Looked into the main drive while in it. It paused for a while, till I unplugged my usb and pressed enter which made it turn off
Then I booted from the usb again, persistence confirmed, and didn’t look into the main drive. Turned it off, it froze again so pressed enter and waited for it to turn off before unplugging then usb


So turned back on the computer to windows, but the booting screen said something about the C drive having an error or similar, and that it was repairing the drive. It repaired it, and it hasn’t happen again as that scared me off from using the usb

Any idea as to what triggered the booting process to see the main drive as damaged/errored? Would want to not damage the actual system accidentally

[nikhiljohnjose]

Hi Savvy, so this was the first thing that I did before I was convinced to install Mint to my hard disk along with Windows and I used to use this USB for a while. But then I ran into storage issues (back then I used a 16 GB USB) so I thought of redoing the whole process in a new USB with more storage. But a friend of mine who has been using Linux for a few years told me to do a full install to a USB rather than doing a persistent live USB.. So now I'm having that instead of a persistent disk.
So could you give me an idea of this persistent live USB vs. a full install also which might be better?

Btw, this is a great video.. Now I have many friends who ask me to teach them how to install and use Linux and I always refer them to your vids as it is super easy for a beginner to catch up with.

Hope this channel keeps growing.

[jhonfredysantanderpatino]

It works on ubuntu, but don't work on lastest Fedora version

[gjoseph]

Good information about understanding Persistence. I still do not yet understand the GPT UEFI stuff.

[RedboltTech]

I can't get the persistence to work no matter what I try to do. Any idea?

[himbary]

Thank you, I used Etcher but it just burns the iso to the stick (not persistent)

[justthebeginning]

Excellent video.. You explained several other things I was a little fuzzy on thanks👍👍👍👍

[nandanpai]

Can I install multiple OS same external persistent HDD (ex: Ubuntu and Kali Linux on same external HDD in which both are persistent)? I want to start with Ubuntu since I've read many times that it's difficult to right away start learning Kali Linux. I can't use dual boot since I want to use android studio on my laptop. And again VM isn't a good choice since things might get slow. Can you please give me some suggestions? I have 2months summer break now I'm willing to devote some time to learn linux