Jump to content

Run ZorinOS only from USB drive

GTink911
 Share
Posted

I have been a Windows user for my entire (admittedly short) life, but I am getting curious about Linux distros. I ended up going with ZorinOS for it's easy UI, but I am definitely not ready to switch entirely. Thus the question: Is it possible to use a USB drive as a entire OS without installing anything onto the host computer?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

a bit painful but yes

if it was useful give it a like :) btw if your into linux pay a visit here

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Depending on what you're doing and the speed of your USB stick, it'll likely be (very) slow but still usable.

print "Hello World!" ("Hello World!")

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Like how slow should I be expecting? I have a USB 3.0 drive. I'm obviously not expecting SSD speeds, but I'm wondering just how slow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
4 minutes ago, GTink911 said:

Like how slow should I be expecting? I have a USB 3.0 drive. I'm obviously not expecting SSD speeds, but I'm wondering just how slow.

Probably slower than a mechanical spinning hard drive. In terms of benchmarked sequential read/write speeds the flash drive is technically very slightly faster, but also has a much smaller cache size than a modern hard drive. It'll feel pretty slow once the cache gets filled up, which will be pretty quick when running an entire operating system off of it.

print "Hello World!" ("Hello World!")

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Got it. About how fast would a 128 GB drive fill the cache, or is that independent of drive size?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Linux, macOS and Everything Not-Windows

×