UNetBootin Ubuntu 9.0.4 Saving information between sessions?

Hey, I'm new to Linux and just signed into this forum, so not sure if this is exactly the right forum to post under, but here goes :P

I've wanted to try Linux for a while, so downloaded the .iso for ubuntu, but couldn't find my blank CDs, so after a bit of googling discovered UNetBootin and installed it to my 4GB USB stick (formatted completly before hand). When I went into BIOS and raised prioroty etc, it worked perfectly! However, after shutting down and coming back to my computer a bit later, all my stuff had gone and things like internet, applications (WINE), and users had disapeared.

My current/main OS is Windows Vista (home premium)

What I want to know is, how can I save stuff like apps and user accounts between sessions using UNetBootin? I did a bit of searching around, but couldn't find anything. Any help please? :)

Unetbootin creates a liveUSB drive, much like a liveCD/DVD disc. It looks to the OS like a CD and is thus mounted read-only. Once it boots, the OS and file system are in ramdisk, so changes aren't written back to the drive. I'm looking into the same problem myself and so far I think the best option is to have another USB stick and actually install the OS there. Then you should be able to boot from the thumb drive and it will look to the system as a regular Linux system disc, hence modifiable.

Installing Linux to a USB stick (flash memory) as a normal installation is not advisable. Flash memory has a limited life -- you can only rewrite it 10,000 -- 100,000 times. Installing Ubuntu as a livecd to a USB stick is a better idea -- such installation does not use swap memory -- physical memory only -- so the OS does not constantly write stuff to your drive. Also, after you install, make sure your browser does not cache anything (in Firefox's address bar type "about:config" and configure).

Here is the link with the install information:

pendrivelinux.com/usb-ubuntu-904-persistent-install-windows/

They only provide a 4 Gb maximum for a persistent installation, there is however a way to use a larger space for persistent storage -- in general, you will need to create two partitions on your USB stick -- one about 700-800 MB (FAT 32) for Ubuntu and another (ext2/3) as big as you want. You van find more info on that website, if you dig deep. Although here is some pretty full information:

pendrivelinux.com/ubuntu-810-persistent-flash-drive-install-from-live-cd/

I installed Ubuntu livecd on a 8 GB USB stick and it works very well. I have two partitions: 750 MB FAT 32 for Ubuntu and the rest for storage.

Of course, one can disable a swap partition -- "swapoff" command -- I never tried it, but I guest it should work.

You can also try to limit your persistence space to under 2 GB -- I think there is an issue with that when installing to one partition.