Arch Linux

savithari

Member

From: Marietta, GA

Registered: 2012-01-28

Posts: 45

Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

Friends:

I have installed Arch (with XFCE) on a 16GB USB stick on a laptop. (thanks to Trilby and alphaniner for their help)

Now can I move the USB stick to my desktop and boot from  that USB stick or will I have to reinstall to another USB stick exclusively for that desktop ?

I would prefer to move the USB from Desktop to Laptop and vice versa.

Just curious if anyone has done this before or am I way off.

Regards,
-N

2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,645

Re: Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

You should be able to boot from the USB stick on a different machine, but you may have to install new drivers (video, wireless, etc) for that machine (and configure them appropriately) before everything works correctly.

Look at it this way -- the Arch install iso boots on all kids of hardware, and there are many other Linux Live CD/USB images that boot and run on almost anything.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-12-28 18:03:16)

savithari

Member

From: Marietta, GA

Registered: 2012-01-28

Posts: 45

Re: Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

Thank You for the answer.

I am a bit apprehensive because this is a full blown install and not a Live USB.

I will try  on a Desktop and see if it works.

-N

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,356

Re: Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

It is generally less work to create a backup and just try, than ask in a message board. :-)

However, if you keep the system as basic as possible, e.g. no fancy drivers for the video adapter or no X.org configuration beyond the autodetected default, then you should be fine with your mobile emitter system.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,665

Website

Re: Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

I do this with a couple of my usb installs.

The video drivers are the main thing.  To cover all your bases you can install the full xorg-driver meta-package, but I went much simpler.  I installed xf86-video-ati ati-dri xf86-video-intel intel-dri xf86-video-nouveau nouveau-dri xf86-video-vesa.  The first 6 of those will cover you for a vast majority of video cards, and vesa will be a backup for the remaining minority.  That's the only extra precaution I had to take.  I can't claim to have tested these on *all* possible hardware, but I've used them on a variety of machines without any problem.

If you need internet connectivity that will bring in a small handul more packages for wired and/or wireless.  But similar to the video drivers, wise selection of a few of the major ones will do pretty well.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

ninian

Member

From: United Kingdom

Registered: 2008-02-24

Posts: 726

Website

Re: Moving around installed stick from machine to machine

... And of course, use UUIDs instead of devices in your /etc/fstab and boot configuration.