considerations to move to usb system

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Hi all,

i am considering to move my system away from my old tower PC.
To get rid of a lot of cables and the tower itself, I thought I could move my salix on a USB-stick (or SD card) and let it run via my HP notebook.
Ideally it would become a USB-only system.
Rather than make a complete new install directly to USB, is there a way to make the PC-salix a USB-stick-salix (or SD-card)?

I am also considering to move one of my SSD to an USB attachable SSD (dedicated case with USB 3.x controller) - by that I would maintain my

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/home

tree and data.

But apart from getting support, I would like to know if someone out there has experience with such solution and the reliablity and sustainability of such mobile USB devices? HDD and SSD could last forever, but I am not so sure on the USB things. Sure I have a 4TB external HDD which I use as backup and archive for my photos, which could easily take up the additional salix-backup (at least my data).
Any things I should check before?

The noteook is called HP Omen 015 - AMD Ryzen 5 processor, 16GB RAM and a GeforceRTX graphics chip for the external connector (the laptop display works with the AMD integrated graphics chip), 500GB SSD internal.

Does Salix work with the common docking stations used with laptops to reduce cables plugged in and out when moving?

I want to avoid a dual boot solution on the laptop to be flexible and to not interfere with the MS system I have to use for Capture One and my pictures.

Any idea and comment welcome!

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After some hardware checks, its seems more appropriate to use the SSDs from the PC as external SSDs (via special case with USB controller) than SD card or USB sticks.
I probably dont have the most powerfull USB devices on hand, but even the fastest but affordable USB stick will likely be much slower than the SSDs, even when external.
Only option is to go for an SDXC card with the best speed class index.

But anyway, maybe I missed something..

Thanks

[gapan]

I've never done this, but it should be possible. I think you only have to make sure you use UUIDs in your fstab and your boot manager. And make sure you use an initrd with the necessary usb modules included.

Other than that, once it boots there should be no difference in functionality with a system installed on internal drives. Docking stations should be supported, but I don't know about the specific one you have. I don't expect that to be a problem.

Accessing files on the drives through a USB interface is ofcourse going to be slower than directly accessing them over a SATA or NVMe interface. But maybe it won't be that perceptible, it depends on how you're using your system I guess.

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Hi gapan,

thanks for looking at it.
Well, in the past, when I had more than one OS on my PC, I used PartUUID to assign the disks.
Seems I went away from it after the PC became "salix only". Or I wiped it when I upgraded or so.
At least there is good description around on how to set it up.

initrd I never used.
As the laptop has 16GB RAM it would make sense to use a RAMdisk anyway.
So, looks like I need to do some reading.

Sure USB speed will be slower than the internal SATA interface, but given that I use Salix mainly for Emailing, Word Processing, some calculations and
of course surfing the web, I think disk speed and transfer rates are not that critical.
Honestly, since I went away from the old 486-machines, I could not see any major speed increase whenever I changed hardware.
Sure there was, but as I am not gaming, it never got apparent.
And also I do not compile programs.

So lets see how things come.

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So,

changing to UUID is done and the principles for the initrd are understood.
On slackware documentation I found some aid to get to initrd.
However, my understanding is, that it initrd usually works with the generic kernel and not the huge.
Do I need to install the kernel-generic then?
If so how to?

Thanks

[gapan]

You only need to install the kernel-generic package, then create an initrd with

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sudo geninitrd

and then if you're using elilo copy both the vmlinuz-generic and initrd.gz file from /boot into your /boot/efi/EFI/Salix-Xfce-15.0/.

Also, edit your /boot/efi/EFI/Salix-Xfce-15.0/elilo.conf to reflect the changes:

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image=vmlinuz-generic
  initrd=initrd.gz

All the other lines should remain the same. You could even keep the huge kernel and add a separate boot entry for the generic one. Just copy the existing entry, edit the image line and add the initrd line in the new entry.

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Hi gapan,

my kinda roadmap would be:
in my "alive" system
- switch to elilo or grub - I have just the "old" lilo installed; as grub seems to work independent for kernel versions etc, is this a better way to go? From my understanding, if elilo works like lilo, I need to update the kernel entries for lilo and so initrd. Is that same with grub?
- switch to kernel-generic - UUID only works with generic kernel and initrd (thats what the docs say) and configure initrd
- make sure it all runs "as is"
then
- enable booting as external USB device from laptop UEFI
- now or one step earlier: attach SSDs to SATA2USB converter
- boot from laptop

concerns: I am using the nvidia driver for my graphic card. I probably need to switch to some standard driver for the AMD integrated graphic card.
But how to activate the Nvidia geforce RTX in the laptop, or does Linux support loading both drivers without interference?
How about the other hardware drivers? i.e ethernet/wifi..

Looks like this project is a bit bigger...

And I have not yet found a way to boot SalixLive on the Laptop.
I tried to install Salix via the Laptop on the SD card - which works just half way. I cannot boot it.

So, any hint welcome - but don't expect I do it instantly.
There is no hassle.

Thanks.

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short update:

booting from SD-card seems not supported by the laptop. I made a bootable SD card with the salix-ISO with rufus, and it does not start.

elilo is not an option for my PC - the BIOS is to old.

But on slackdocs there was an interesting article on installing to UEFI systems.

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next update

installed generic kernel
made initrd
switched to UUID (for the generic)

I now can boot huge or generic

[gapan]

Yes, lilo vs elilo is just a BIOS vs UEFI difference. Grub can boot both.