Ubuntu on a Stick

[websquad.com]

I'd like to load Ubuntu and it's core apps on a 32GB USB drive so that I could, from a cold boot, boot up in Ubuntu without ever touching my hard disk drive.

Also, I'd like to be able to do this on a big RAID machine (two RAID-1 arrays) without touching their drives: I've tried this in the past (it has been several years) and it had the tendency to break the RAID array for the system drive.

BOTTOM LINE: I want everything to be done on the USB stick.

Is this possible? Is Ubuntu the best choice? For what it is worth, I want a Graphic User Interface.

[Rubberman]

Unetbootin allows you to create a USB thumb drive that has a writable data partition for Ubuntu. Check out UNetbootin for more information (and downloads).

[jonyo]

pup can boot and save to usb, no hard drive required, however

haven't fiddled with a 'two RAID-1 arrays setup' myself,

pup does a scan of available drives on boot, whether that is a prob for you, dunno,

i think it's your choice if you wanna mount 'em or go there

pretty sure you can use pup (and prob others) without leaving a trace

[sgosnell]

Any modern distro will boot and run from a 32GB USB drive. I don't think Ubuntu is the best choice, but that's subjective. It will run, it's just not my choice. I prefer Debian, but other people prefer Fedora, or something else. The best distro is the one you like best. They will all work.

You should be able to install your distro of choice to the USB drive, put grub2 on it, and never touch your internal drives. At boot time, press Esc and choose which drive to boot from. You can change the boot order in the BIOS, but it shouldn't be necessary.

[websquad.com]

put grub2 on it...

What is grub2?

[jayd512]

GRUB2 is the most common bootloader for Linux.
It tells the Computer and the OS where to look for all needed startup files.

Excellent info on that can be found on the Ubuntu help pages.

[sgosnell]

GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2. It's what boots the OS. It can go on the internal HDD or on the external drive, and in your case it should go on the external drive, so it can be booted on any computer.