Actually fairly simple to do. Get a large USB then use that as the target for the install you boot from a second USB. Now you got a full Linux install on a USB
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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You could install Linux Mint onto a flash drive. Though keep in mind that flash drives aren't that robust, the flash chips are cheaper and will fail faster than SSDs.
I had a 128GB USB "3.0" (one of the cheaper ones so might have actually be slower than 2.x max speeds) stick fail on me right after installing Mint onto it and booting into it once or twice, so yes this is indeed a thing that can happen
You could also get one of the SSD drives that look like flash storage. I got a "usb stick" with 512GB SSD for about $60 last year.
Yep, you can get an m.2 NVMe to USB3 converter very cheap and stick any m.2 nvme drive in it. (Also sata versions exist for m.2 sata)
Much safer solution for your data.
I don't have that need but if I were to do that I would
- boot normally
- identify which applications I want
- make a directory on the USB stick calls Apps/ and put them there
- I would run them from there directly, not copy them then run
- I would check which files are created in my home directory (e.g. using find filtering by files created during the last 5 minutes)
- I would stop the run apps, move the new files to my USB in a new directory named content/
- I would reboot, mount USB stick, move files from content/ in the right location, run the app from Apps/ and see if it works
Assuming that would work I would make a (bash) script to automate all that, probably relying on rsync and find. I would then try to find ways to automate more with USB rules (namely mount the right USB stick automatically, run the script too, unmount prior to shutdown, etc).
My main point being that I'd be iterative about it, try, test, document as live script and try again because it's quite a specific use case.
Yes, I have 2 computers running off of USB with Mint, with persistence. And I've set up that for my father in law and a friend too. You boot with one drive, you insert the other one, you UNMOUNT it, and then you load the installer. Please note though, that the bootloader will be installed into the internal drive instead of the usb one. To go around this problem, would be best to disable the internal drive temporarily during installation (either in the bios, or just remove its cable). Then the installer will be forced to write the bootloader on to the usb stick.
I usually set up the partitions as such: 1 GB of fat32 boot partition with the boot flag set, a 4 GB swap partition, and the rest / (root).
Can't you just partition the SD card and mount the second partition as your persistent storage? Why do you have to unmount anything?
These are the instructions at the mint forum.
I don't do this thing, so it's a real question. If I were doing it from scratch, my instinct would be to go with the partition.
I don't think you'd even have to make your own image, although you'd be mounting /home by hand every time if you didn't. Hm. If you built your own image, you could mount everything as an overlayfs, and persist even application installs.