[sf-lug] RW running distro on USB flash! 8-O: Re: USB 3.0 Flash Drives - Penguin shaped and others

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] USB 3.0 Flash Drives - Penguin shaped and others
> Date: Wed, 1 May 2019 06:26:17 -0700

>   USB flash drives are _painfully slow as main storage_, compared to an
>   internal hard drives or SSDs.  Although running a live distro from one
>   is very useful for utility purposes, to test-boot a distro, or to
>   evaluate Linux driver support for hardware, it's very suboptimal for
>   ongoing computer use, because of the mass-storage performance
>   bottleneck.
>
>>> But if you want a minimum-commitment OS installation, I can recommend
>>> installing into VMs (e.g., with VirtualBox).  For one thing, then you
>
> What I was saying is that this mode of deployment portrays Linux badly
> because of dreadfully bad mass-storage performance, and that the running
> system cannot be reasonably maintained and expanded, hence the user

Yes, ... painfully slow - I'll certainly attest to that (though it is
still significantly faster than optical (CD/DVD).

I've got an *installed* Linux OS distro (actually an old i386) on
a USB flash drive.  And yes, it *is* painfully slow - even with pretty
minimal use, it sort'a mostly seems okay some fair bit of the time, ...
then periodically takes bloody forever (well, a long time) to finish
writing stuff out (and things stall, and kernel issues warnings ...).
And, why the heck would I have ... even *maintain* 8-O
one of those?  Well, that story goes about like this ... (it is a
somewhat odd special case):

Ye olde laptop (my very first personal one):
IBM ThinkPad T40p TYPE 2373-G1U
circa 2003 vintage (ordered new 2003-06-24, received 2003-07-02)
(Pentium M, 32-bit ...)
by around 2011-11-27 the hardware was seriously flaking out
(hard drive having gone failed / highly unreliable - and not just
a bad spot or two - often totally failing to even initialize).
So, given the vintage, etc., I opted to "replace" laptop ...
though I still kept the old one around - I figured I might
(more-or-less) "fix" it (it later also developed more hardware
problems), and perhaps use it as a glorified "terminal" /
(mostly) "client" system.  And given vintage, I wasn't
inclined to replace the hard drive.  So, I (later)
did an install to ... egad - USB flash.  But used and use it
for that relatively rarely, as I'd primarily switched to my
then new laptop (the USB was also moderately less capacity than
the hard drive that had been in that old laptop).  For the most
part, all the data I cared about, was migrated/copied to the
new laptop (significantly larger capacity SSD).  The image on the
USB, was essentially a spare/"beater" image, that maybe some day would
(might yet?) get installed onto an actual hard drive or SSD ... or
not?  The old laptop drive/bay is IDE/ATA/PATA ... not SATA, so can't
exactly drop in a SATA SSD replacement (even a cheap one) ... though
I do understand there are adapters (so ... maybe some day ...
if I get the other significant hardware issue(s) on that old laptop
fixed).  Anyway, on USB flash ... - I *also* set up virtual machine ...
one that uses that same USB flash as its raw storage, and the virtual
machine to be, at least as feasible, (virtual) hardware quite like
the old laptop.  So, then I've got that USB flash - can boot and run it
as virtual machine ... or boot and run it native.  E.g. on (at least
when it is/was working) the old laptop, or on rare occasion, have even
booted some other 32-bit laptop to see that it works okay on that
32-bit installation.  But for the most part, I run it pretty rarely,
as yes, it's painfully slow - even as virtual, because it's still
using that same slow USB flash storage.  I'll likely end up retiring
it (more) fully "some day".  At present it's got Debian oldstable+LTS.
That might be the last Debian that that older laptop can run, as the
i386 minimum hardware requirements continue to creep up (I think the
current Debian stable may not run on the Pentium M on the
IBM ThinkPad T40p TYPE 2373-G1U).  So, supported/supportable software
for that older (circa 2003) hardware is inevitably dwindling.
Could go to some other distro that might support it even longer ...
but, I really don't want to bother.  So, probably just some matter
of time before I fully retire that image & hardware ... or maybe if I
get the hardware more functional again, I still keep it around somewhat
longer for extreme backwards compatibility testing ... and/or nostalgia.

VMs ... it is kind'a cool, though, to have a physical "drive" - of
whatever type (e.g. USB flash, IDE/ATA/PATA/SATA/...) that can be used
and run direct physical - *or* used and operated - same image/data -
as drive - even primary and only - for a virtual machine.  Certainly not
the first time I've done that, and certainly won't be the last.
Also very handy for examination/repair ... e.g. once worked out
software/config issues of linuxmafia.com host that way ...
physical --> virtual ... fix on virtual ... virtual --> physical
... at least essentially (worked out on virtual, the "recipe" to
fix the physical image, then did same on physical).

But yeah, ... egad, ... USB flash, ... writing there, very painfully slow,
even compared to ye olde spinning rust (hard drive).

And that *installed* image on USB flash ... yeah, ... I typically fire
it up and update it about once a month or so, ... then shut 'er down,
... at least thus far.  If I was going to regularly use it much more
than that I'd use (or at least copy it to) something else.