Create a Live CD that Runs in Persistent Mode on a Bootable USB Drive

 Executive Summary:

We create a bootable USB drive that’s persistent, so you can use it at different computers and save changes to the installation. Ingredients include the Linux installation, Ubuntu; a 1GB flash drive; our expertise; and your brains.

A portable toolbox on a USB drive is a handy thing—it lets you use your tools at any computer without having to install programs on the host computer’s hard drive. Last month, we explored how to create this bootable USB drive and showed you the quick steps for booting off a “live” Linux distro from a USB drive. (See "Create a Live CD on a Bootable USB Flash Drive" at http://www.securityprovip.com/Articles/ArticleID/97928/97928.html.) However, the system wasn’t persistent, which means that any changes you made to your toolbox would be gone at the next reboot. To customize your environment or install your own custom applications, you need an installation that’s persistent. To that end, let’s now walk through how to create a USB-bootable persistent configuration of a Linux installation using Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Edition. Linux distributions vary in the tools that come installed, so if you choose to use a distro other than Ubuntu, you’ll need to search the Internet for instructions relating to that distro. . . .