A live USB is a USB flash drive or external hard disk drive containing a full operating system that can be booted. They are the evolutionary next step after live CDs, but with the added benefit of writable storage on the live USB itself, allowing customizations to the booted operating system. Live USBs can be used in embedded systems for system administration, data recovery, or test driving, and can persistently save settings and install software packages on the USB device.
Puppy Linux, an example of an operating system for live USBs.
Ubuntu 8.04 running Firefox, OpenOffice.org and Nautilus.
Many operating systems including Mac OS 9, macOS, Windows XP Embedded and a large portion of Linux and BSD distributions can run from a USB flash drive, and Windows 8 Enterprise has a feature titled Windows To Go for a similar purpose.
Background[edit]
Writing an article about FreeDOS? Find quotes, background information, history, screenshots, and other images via our press kit (zip file) or press kit (website). For more information about FreeDOS, see our free 2018 e-book Using FreeDOS. Read about the history of FreeDOS in our free 2017 e-book: 23 Years of FreeDOS. Jun 01, 2019 In the dialog box that appears, click Burn files to disc. In the Burn a disc dialog box, type a name for your new disc. Click Show formatting options, and then click one of the following formatting options: Live File System. Click Next to prepare the disc. Now you can copy files to your disc using whichever method you selected.
To repair a computer with booting issues, technicians often use lightweight operating systems on bootable media and a command line interface. The development of the first Live CDs with graphical user interface made it feasible for non-technicians to repair malfunctioning computers. Most Live CDs are Linux based, and in addition to repairing computers, these would occasionally be used in their own right as operating systems.
Personal computers introduced USB booting in the early 2000s, with the Macintosh computers introducing the functionality in 1999 beginning with the Power Mac G4 with AGP graphics and the slot-loading iMac G3 models.[1] Intel-based Macs carried this functionality over with booting macOS from USB.[2] Specialized USB-based booting was proposed by IBM in 2004 with Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads and Boot GNU/Linux from a FireWire device.[3][4]
Benefits and limitations[edit]
A USB flash drive.
Live USBs share many of the benefits and limitations of live CDs, and also incorporate their own.
Benefits[edit]
Limitations[edit]
Setup[edit]
Various applications exist to create live USBs; examples include Rufus, Fedora Live USB Creator, UNetbootin, WinToUSB, Win32DiskImager, and YUMI, which works with a variety of distributions. A few Linux distributions and live CDs have ready-made scripts which perform the steps below automatically. In addition, on Knoppix and Ubuntu extra applications can be installed, and a persistentfile system can be used to store changes. A base install ranges between as little as 16 MiB (Tiny Core Linux) to a large DVD-sized install (4 gigabytes).
To set up a live USB system for commodity PC hardware, the following steps must be taken:
Knoppix live CDs have a utility that, on boot, allows users to declare their intent to write the operating system's file structures either temporarily, to a RAM disk, or permanently, on disk and flash media to preserve any added configurations and security updates. This can be easier than recreating the USB system but may be moot since many live USB tools are simple to use.
Full installation[edit]
An alternative to a live solution is a traditional operating system installation with the elimination of swap partitions. This installation has the advantage of being efficient for the software, as a live installation would still contain software removed from the persistent file due to the operating systems installer still being included with the media. However, a full installation is not without disadvantages; due to the additional write cycles that occur on a full installation, the life of the flash drive may be slightly reduced. To mitigate this, some live systems are designed to store changes in RAM until the user powers down the system, which then writes such changes. Another factor is if the speed of the storage device is destitute; performance can be comparable to legacy computers even on machines with modern parts if the flash drive transfers such speeds. One way to solve this is to use a USB hard drive, as they generally give better performance than flash drives regardless of the connector.
Live File System Format DownloadsWindows[edit]
Although many live USBs rely on booting an open-source operating system such as Linux, it is possible to create live USBs for Windows by using Diskpart[citation needed] or WinToUSB.[11]
Examples of Live USB operating systems[edit]
Bootable Windows To Go USB flash drive
Comparison[edit]
Syslinux is a common program to make a bootable USB storage device.
See also[edit]
Live File System Format Download PdfReferences[edit]
External links[edit]
Windows 7 File System Format![]()
Live File System Download
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