Salutations, While I don't know of any specific instructions on the Arch wiki, you can install Arch Linux onto a usb stick like a regular {H,S}DD. In my case, I made three partitions. The first was an NTFS partition for using the usb stick as a data transferring device; the second was a FAT32 boot partition (for EFI and Syslinux booting); the third was a BTRFS root partition (with transparent LZO compression enabled to reduce read/write). In addition, I use a script to place certain directories (mostly $HOME directories in my case) in a tmpfs partition (I just link them to /tmp) to decrease the effect of USB writes on the system. My script syncs the tmpfs directores to disk every 5 minutes. Since it's a full Arch Linux system, it upgrades and evolves like any other Arch system. Regards, Mark On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:40 AM, Rashif Ray Rahman <schiv@archlinux.org>wrote:
Hi,
Are there instructions for creating an archlinux usb key with
On 13 March 2014 11:09, Don Raikes <DON.RAIKES@oracle.com> wrote: persistence somewhere?
I want to use my archlinux usb key as a diagnostic tool, and sometimes
it is helpful to save files to it for later review.
Any info would be appreciated.
BTW: I am planning on using a 64gb usb key for this endeavor.
As far as I am aware, there is no official documentation, support or tool for this. I've also had a frugal install on my personal TODO for several years now but never got around to it. [1]
Support for persistence needs to be built into the image, but I may be wrong; persistence in most cases is simply a virtual disk image overlay (it is overlaid on top of the primary booting system) that only saves changes and nothing else.
I had an ext2-formatted second-partition Arch install for a while, but I realized I didn't like that. Now I simply have a SysResCD that I managed to shove into a single directory ".ufdboot", hidden in Linux, Mac, and Windows (by setting attrib +h from cmd or wine).
Try a boot helper such as Universal USB Installer; they say it gives persistence to "any" distribution (I'm unsure how). You may also be able to find a ready-made third-party image. Simply do a Google search for "arch linux live with persistence" or similar.
In any case, I wouldn't suggest having one of our official ISOs redone with persistence without more customization. They're bare minimal system images, and the changes you apply are surely to increase by several gigabytes (and the overlay may take even more space).
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/User:Schivmeister/ArchLinuxUFD
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