Jump drive for Grandpa's little girl.

[Shabakthanai]

I am considering purchasing a lexar Jump Drive P20, read speeds 400MB/s and write speeds 270MB/s. I want to load Kubuntu 15.10 to introduce Kubuntu to my eldest granddaughter.

Her household is stuck in a Windows environment and has never been willing to give Linux a try.

I have always installed using Manual configuration in the past and do not know how the install using the entire drive works.

Would this be the correct installation for a 64GB Thumb Drive? If I install using the entire drive, is it necessary to have a swap partition and /home partition or is that all taken care of in the "using the entire drive" setup, or must I still make the normal partitions.

Is 20GB still required for the OS? If swap is required, I want the drive to work as fast as possible, so what size must I make the swap partition if it is required?

When she plugs it in, I would like it to just plain intimidate her Windows 10 OS.

Thanks for any help you may provide

[jpenguin]

You can just have a single ext4 partition with a swapfile, a seperate /home is not needed. Remember to add "noatime,data=writeback" for any ext4 partitions in fstab

And, you'll probably want to set a low swappiness value if you run from a flash drive http://askubuntu.com/questions/10391...ure-swappiness

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[Shabakthanai]

Is the 'noatime,data=writeback' edit needed for the initial ext4 file type, or is that for any additional ext4 file type partitions?

Since I am only going to provide a small thumb drive for her, 128GB, I want the boot partition large enough but no larger than needed, and the swap partition large enough to not slow the work down, leaving some space for the fun stuff she wants or her school work, which I think will not take up much space. If you know, please advise your recommended size for the / and swap partitions?

Thanks friend

[jpenguin]

Since it's a flash drive, you should limit disk access- hence the need for "noatime,nodiratime". Data=writeback is a two edged sword

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[jpenguin]

and may not be best for your needs. Most computers now days don't need seperate /boot, but if you make one 300-500MB. Swap should be 1-1.5x RAM, low (15-) swappines value. You may want to look at btrfs for the root (f2fs would be perfect, but I'm pretty sure the installer doesn't support it) If you do go non-ext root, you do need a seperate /boot.
After installation, turn on SSH (optional) and 'sudo nano /etc/fstab' to add " noatime,nodiratime" She should have any schoolwork she does on it backed up; copy.com, mega.co.nz, medoafire, dropbox...

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[Shabakthanai]

This was in the Wiki; is it relevant? Note: noatime already includes nodiratime. You do not need to specify both.


I am probably about to ask a very stupid question. Is this edit made in the Flash Drive OS, or the laptop OS, which is a Windows Operating System? Additionally, I am inexperienced in editing my computer, so what exactly do I type into the editor and where is this line located, at the top of the list or the bottom? Thanks for your patience with me.

The wiki is an interesting read; I hope I understand it well enough. It is very important for me to get this right. My granddaughter is very special to me, as is my daughter, but my daughter has been resistant to Linux applications for the past 20 years and she uses a computer heavily every day.

I am hoping she will take a look at Kubuntu, providing it interests my granddaughter.

My experience with the two operating systems is such that I can not understand how Windows OS's survive when compared to just about any Linux distribution.

and may not be best for your needs. Most computers now days don't need seperate /boot, but if you make one 300-500MB. Swap should be 1-1.5x RAM, low (15-) swappines value. You may want to look at btrfs for the root (f2fs would be perfect, but I'm pretty sure the installer doesn't support it) If you do go non-ext root, you do need a seperate /boot.
After installation, turn on SSH (optional) and 'sudo nano /etc/fstab' to add " noatime,nodiratime" She should have any schoolwork she does on it backed up; copy.com, mega.co.nz, medoafire, dropbox...

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk

[jpenguin]

Nodiratime is probably automatic with noatime by now, you're right.
The edit is in the flash drive Linux, you add noatime in the options column for your root partition. Use nano or vi, nano is easier. Sudo nano /etc/fstab

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk

[vsreeser]

My experience with the two operating systems is such that I can not understand how Windows OS's survive when compared to just about any Linux distribution.

Windows survives because it comes on new computers and most people are unable/unwilling to change it. There are better options of just about everything we use in life, but most people will just use whatever they are given

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I have installed on a much smaller drive.

Here's my two cent's worth.

A) Your computer probably will already "boot from cd".
B) Burn the cd as normal and leave it in the tray.
C) Shut down.
D) physically unplug YOUR hard drive and insert the usb drive which you have previously formatted to .ext four or whatever you want.
E) restart the computer.
F) RUN the live cd so that you actually get it to run, hooking up to the net is good so that you can automatically download the updates during install.
G) Click the install icon and you will be presented only with the USB drive, and install on it as you would normally.
H) Yes, you can fiddle around with the amount of swap space, etc, but I really would just do a "normal install, letting the OS take over the whole drive"
I) The install will go just as it does with a normal hard drive install.
J) you did not say if she has a laptop or a tower.
K) If she has a tower then I would gently suggest getting into the tower and unplugging the hard drive, both power and ribbon or whatever cable.

If she has a laptop and it is a Toshiba then you are in luck, flip it over and there is a plate with a screw for the memory and another for the hard drive, remove the hard drive. If it is something like a Sony then it is a little harder but it can be done, look on the net.

J) You will have to get into the bootup sequence, the whole F1 or F8 or whatever thing on the girls computer and change for it to boot from the USB drive.
K) If it is a recent Windblows then there may be a UEFI thing in the hardware, if there is then you might want to read the locked thread on how to deal with UEFI.
L.) However, on my latest tower, which was Windows 7 I merely unplugged the hard drive, which I had NEVER powered on, and I have been able to boot to a Linux hard drive and also a USB( for playing around ) with no problem.
M) I'm just a hardware kind of guy, and I always go for the SIMPLEST approach. and so I have NEVER, fiddled with "swap" or any of that, and never done anything but Ext 3 and now Ext4, yes I did the other file systems just for grins and giggles but I now always use Ext4 and have zero, as in zero, problems.
N) That is about all I can say, hope things go well!
woodhopeshelikesitsmoke

[Shabakthanai]

Nice to hear from you, my friend,

I am using a USB ISO and will take your advice on using the whole drive. I have never installed that way. It is the reason for my post.

Since I have not used this method of installation, I am not aware of having to create root and swap partitions. If that is not required, it is a preferred way for me to make the installation. The USB drive is 128GB which is just large enough for a trial or backup Operating System.

When I install on my tower, I use 20GB for the boot partition and 30GB for swap. I have 32GB of RAM memory and usually like to make my swap partition about the same size.

Because the USB is so small, I don't want to waste any space by allocating too much to Boot and Swap. If I understand you correctly, by using the whole USB drive, the boot and swap areas use whatever space that is available and needed, so there isn't any wasted space. Thanks for being so clear in your description.

I hope your Christmas was great and that you have Happy New Year.

If you have noticed all the problems I have had in recent months, I finally found the problem. It was a memory failure which did not show itself when running the normal memory test. I tested each stick for about 14 hours each, and each tested OK; Then I ran my computer 24/7 with one stick at a time for about 2 weeks. One failed after 3 days of operation,the other three worked fine for 2 weeks. Then I tried the remaining 3 sticks 2 at a time in all possible configurations with no problems. Each ran for 2 weeks before trying a different combination.

I am writing from my laptop right now; I returned all 32GB from my desktop PC to get matching memory in return. They haven't been returned yet. I spent about 300 total hours testing every component on my machine but finally got hopefully an accurate result.

My SSD's checked perfect as did the HDD's, GPU tested perfect as did the processor. All cables tested good, and nothing was overheating. Hopefully in a week or two I will have my faster computer working again. Almost a year of malfunction before isolating the problem.

I hope all is well for you and those you care about.

Shab

Hi
I have installed on a much smaller drive.

Here's my two cent's worth.

A) Your computer probably will already "boot from cd".
B) Burn the cd as normal and leave it in the tray.
C) Shut down.
D) physically unplug YOUR hard drive and insert the usb drive which you have previously formatted to .ext four or whatever you want.
E) restart the computer.
F) RUN the live cd so that you actually get it to run, hooking up to the net is good so that you can automatically download the updates during install.
G) Click the install icon and you will be presented only with the USB drive, and install on it as you would normally.
H) Yes, you can fiddle around with the amount of swap space, etc, but I really would just do a "normal install, letting the OS take over the whole drive"
I) The install will go just as it does with a normal hard drive install.
J) you did not say if she has a laptop or a tower.
K) If she has a tower then I would gently suggest getting into the tower and unplugging the hard drive, both power and ribbon or whatever cable.

If she has a laptop and it is a Toshiba then you are in luck, flip it over and there is a plate with a screw for the memory and another for the hard drive, remove the hard drive. If it is something like a Sony then it is a little harder but it can be done, look on the net.

J) You will have to get into the bootup sequence, the whole F1 or F8 or whatever thing on the girls computer and change for it to boot from the USB drive.
K) If it is a recent Windblows then there may be a UEFI thing in the hardware, if there is then you might want to read the locked thread on how to deal with UEFI.
L.) However, on my latest tower, which was Windows 7 I merely unplugged the hard drive, which I had NEVER powered on, and I have been able to boot to a Linux hard drive and also a USB( for playing around ) with no problem.
M) I'm just a hardware kind of guy, and I always go for the SIMPLEST approach. and so I have NEVER, fiddled with "swap" or any of that, and never done anything but Ext 3 and now Ext4, yes I did the other file systems just for grins and giggles but I now always use Ext4 and have zero, as in zero, problems.
N) That is about all I can say, hope things go well!
woodhopeshelikesitsmoke

[woodsmoke]

woodthinksyoushouldpostsomehowtossmoke lol