Linux Tips - Install Full Ubuntu Desktop on a USB Drive (2021)

What should I do if I get the error message "There was an error creating the folder "EFI". Error creating directory (filepath): Cannot allocate memory" when I try to copy EFI file from live usb to full install usb? This can't actually be due to a lack of error as folders can be made in other directories and I've tried this on two machines which each have sufficient memory.

I dont understand why the EFI ubuntu entry was installed on the Windows partition. Was this a mistake that he had to fix?

So this is happening on a computer with a main Windows installation? That is taken for granted?

brother, can you show us how to do this with POP OS or Quark OS ? specially Quark OS ...

nice, but you dit not create space for "home" folder and just allocated rest of the free space for "/" (root)

thank you bro,this was exactly what i was looking for

Thanks a lot. Exactly following you helped me make an os from external drive

I said bro he has at least 100k subs

After the reboot after the installation, I'm only getting the grub command line screen, how to I get rid of this?

Is the USB drive going to be fast enough to run the OS (e.g. Ubuntu) and be responsive ? also would running OS from usb going to damage the USB over time > since the USB drives are not meant to be read/written over and over ?

Thanks for the tutorial. Everything works.

What was the purpose of the last step, changing what the boot partition automount?

It seemed to work fine without changing it.

Very precise and straighforward tutorial. I installed Zorin OS and it worked flawlessly, so I believe any Ubuntu based distro will work too.

Anyone know where I can access a copy of the shimx64.efi file?

Can you do a tutorial for this with Lubuntu 18.04? Since I don't think 18.04 sets partitions automatically. But it is one of the lightest ubuntu distros on system resources which is still supported and is compatible with many applications. Which may in turn help with performance via USB v2.0 (for those like me stuck with it lol)

I'm oldschool baby! One extra tidbit is that some older PCs (unless the two I have with nearly identical Geforce61xx/nForce4 chipsets are just special cases) will not register additional USB devices when booting into a live environment via USB. So, in my case, I need to boot into linux live using a live CD in order to utilize any USB devices.

Thank you so much. I watched so many videos about this, but none of them seemed to work. You rock! :D

When you create the Linux usb is it machine specific or can you use the drive on any pc?

Efi system partition option is not there bro for creating 100 mb

Thanks for this video, it's very helpful.
But the Ubuntu USB drive created is not booting in other laptops. It says Authentication failed. This means the config files copied from laptop's windows partition EFI/ubuntu folder belongs to that particular laptop?

2 years ago I created similar standalone USB drive from the same laptop and the EFI was fully copied automatically to the USB EFI partition. Nothing is touched on my Windows HDD. And that USB Ubuntu drive boots on every laptop.
Why they changed this and made it complicated?

Thanks for the tutorial

When I followed the step and restarted the computer it worked fine. But when formatted the Ubuntu usb drive for reinstalling the installation process is very slow.

my computer doesn't boot the usb

So when i remove the usb drive and boot again will windows just boot normally?

which kind of usb should i preffer
i mean how much min size usb i shoud for minimal installation

why 2 usb ?
which usb will have live ubuntu
which will be live

that is very useful

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!

Are you using two usb's one for os and one for installation

bro you are amazing !

Now I am unable to boot from the OS from my main internal ssd without the portable drive :(

Damn this tutorial is on fire! It totally did things the way I needed them to be!

Hey, thanks a lot for the video! I just don't really understand what the purpose of the last step is (i.e. Switch EFI partitions). Indeed, I didn't do it, and my usb drive seems to work perfectly with ubuntu installed on it.

Thank you so much for this.

Perfect setup guide, fast paced - slightly too fast at times :d

Can I use a external ssd

This is painfully slow in a USB 3.0 on a 3.0 port, any ideas ? (my machine is a ryzen 7 3800x, and 32gb of ram, so it's not that)

Dude he's really amazing

There is no /dev/sda on my pc. I mean I can't see the USB drive. Help

Amazing tutorial, straight to the point!

I have one suggestion; if you can remove your main storage device when installing the additional os, you don't have to copy and paste all those files

Are the steps same for Kali Linux and parrot sec os?

hello. can you help me ? when i install LINUX, i do not see the efi option

Excellent

Does it corrupt my installation of ubuntu on the HDD ???

can you make a new video for ubuntu 22.04 lts

Awesome video, worked for mac.

Your method for the most part worked for me, however:
Is it likely that it added a partition to my windows drive which was using the guid format? Can the guid be on the same partition as Windows 10/11? I see grub files on the windows partition... isn't that for linux?

Can u do the same in a external hard drive?