USB bootable and Ricing (i'm a noob)

[solarieo]

Hello! I recently discovered this distro. I have had some experience with linux before. namely installing Zorin OS and Arch linux on my older laptops but I have no clue about ricing. So, I had a few questions regarding this:-

1. The flashdrive I plan to use is a sandisk generic 16gb flashdrive, as it's the one I have laying around, of which I have no idea how many times it was used. So, what could be a expected life span of such a pendrive?

2.I have no clue about ricing, especially on bootable usb's, so how can I rice porteus and save it somewhere else (probably github) so when the usb's life span ends, I can just start on a new flashdrive with the same rice??

3. Is it even possible to have a decent rice (i,e minimum 1/10th of the ones found at r/unixporn) on porteus??

and lastly,

4. Is there any way to setup and automated process such that every time I switch off my laptop, it firsts syncs all the changes made into github or google drive, so that I never lose my work or should I just do it manually??

-------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks!

[Ed_P]

Hi solarico, welcome to the forum. As for being a linux noobie, many of us were at one point. I was.

As to your questions:

1. Don't worry about it. I have old USB drives also that still work.

2. Me either. I''ve never heard the term used here before. As for saving changes my suggestion is to create a Porteus save.dat file. Normally the save.dat file is saved on the USB drive and can be copied to other locations for backups.

3. & 4. When booting use the changes=EXIT option when causes all changes made to be saved to a file when exiting Porteus. Less USB usage. A save.dat can be 500MB or 10GB depending on how much you download and save.

To install Porteus to your USB drive delete all the files/folders on the drive then copy all the file in the ISO to the drive and on the drive run the /boot/porteus-installer.

[nanZor]

FWIW, I'd cut down the variables, and just dedicate a brand new one right out of the box, although certainly one can just use one laying around.

These days, if you have usb3 ports, I'd use one that is usb-3 compatible, although that is not mandatory. Counterfeit? One utility if you have a windows box hanging around is nice freeware from grc (and yes, direct download is possible without getting notifications) :

https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm

Helps to spot counterfeits, OR in my case, I found several brand new ones that had bad manufacturing, and took forever for this process to complete. I suspected counterfeit, but it was just a really bad run internally.

Even though Porteus and family is generally small, there is no need to use tiny thumbdrives. It seems ludicrous for say a small installation of Porteus to be put on a very large drive, but what you gain are multiple internal hardware controllers, and plenty of "spare" cells that the drive can allocate or deallocate for wear. That being said, if one wants the "classic" experience of using fat32 drives, and is not familiar with partitioning and such, use drives that are 32gB or less. That ensures that they are formatted out of the box as fat32, and simplifies the noob experience since fat32 is needed for uefi boot.

Like Ed mentioned, one can use the EXIT: kernel cheatcode to only write at the end of a session, but remember that Porteus is not like your typical live-usb installation where one is constantly writing massive little daily update/upgrade routines.

I'd say before trying to get tricky, do the simplest install and environment first. If it floats your boat, you'll find that Porteus drives are like potato chips. You'll make more than one!

[solarieo]

Hi solarico, welcome to the forum. As for being a linux noobie, many of us were at one point. I was.

Thanks for the response!

2. Me either. I''ve never heard the term used here before. As for saving changes my suggestion is to create a Porteus save.dat file. Normally the save.dat file is saved on the USB drive and can be copied to other locations for backups.

I'm sorry I did not explain it neatly
Ricing as far as i know is a term for customization of desktop environment, with some being basic to some being very advance (see r/unixporn)
Also, i have no clue how to create a save.dat, could you please tell me how to make an save.dat file

3. & 4. When booting use the changes=EXIT option when causes all changes made to be saved to a file when exiting Porteus. Less USB usage. A save.dat can be 500MB or 10GB depending on how much you download and save.

To install Porteus to your USB drive delete all the files/folders on the drive then copy all the file in the ISO to the drive and on the drive run the /boot/porteus-installer.

Thanks for the information

[solarieo]

FWIW, I'd cut down the variables, and just dedicate a brand new one right out of the box, although certainly one can just use one laying around.

Oh no, I forgot to explain that the drive I had was a one i found laying around! I am planning to use it to see how well porteus works (even tho i know it works very well!) I have laready ordered a more suitable flash drive for my experiment

These days, if you have usb3 ports, I'd use one that is usb-3 compatible, although that is not mandatory. Counterfeit? One utility if you have a windows box hanging around is nice freeware from grc (and yes, direct download is possible without getting notifications) :

https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm

Helps to spot counterfeits, OR in my case, I found several brand new ones that had bad manufacturing, and took forever for this process to complete. I suspected counterfeit, but it was just a really bad run internally.

WOAH! I did not have any information about this, thanks

I'd say before trying to get tricky, do the simplest install and environment first. If it floats your boat, you'll find that Porteus drives are like potato chips. You'll make more than one!

Yes I definitely plan to use porteus for a long time

[solarieo]

Hello! I've finally decided to use the kde version of porteus since it's seems to be better (idk tho)

Are there any pitfalls I need to look out for??

[Ed_P]

Ricing as far as i know is a term for customization of desktop environment, with some being basic to some being very advance

Ok. Thank you.

Also, i have no clue how to create a save.dat, could you please tell me how to make an save.dat file

After you boot Porteus click on the Menu then on Administration and the Porteus SaveFile Manager option. Once created and your boot parms tweaked to reference it, reboot and all changes will be saved.

I use the changes=EXIT; option which gives one the option to have their changes saved when shutting down/rebooting rather then constantly. I also have a script to warn of the save.dat file overflowing which can be a disaster when shutting down which I will share if you choose to use this approach.

[rych]

Rice(v), ricing: Force (cooked potatoes or other vegetables) through a sieve or ricer

[Ed_P]

Thank you rych. I certainly never knew that ricing related to a sieve, or that a sieve was a ricer.