[Cialug] Linux on locked machines

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 3:56 PM, jrnosee <jrnosee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Again, thanks for all the replies.  The SD card option didn't work out.  My
> laptop doesn't see it as a USB device and doesn't give a boot option for
> it.
>
> Matthew's idea was spot on for me though.  Staples ran a deal on their
> nice, tiny USB drives and I picked up a 16GB for a steal.  I got Mint 13
> Cinnamon loaded to it as a persistant live install.  Now I need to find out
> exactly what that does and does not allow.  I've read a few things about it
> being hard to change system configurations as part of the os is still
> considered read-only (like the CD image it was built from).  So far it's
> been ok with installing updates from apt-get and saving items like desktop
> files, firefox favorites and such.
>
> So far one of the hurdles I know I need to jump is to lock it down since it
> boots and auto-starts with the default Mint account on the Live CD.  I'll
> try creating a user on my next boot up of it and then try to remove Mint.
>
> P.S. Sorry to let this stagnate, but I've been working on a number of
> projects with limited time to spread around :(
>

Awesome news! A "feature" (or bug) of some of the tools based on Ubuntu for
making live usb drives is that they're limited to 4GB for persistence. This
can be a bummer if you want to install a lot of stuff or it can be an asset
if you want to also use it as a thumb drive when not booting off of it.

If this problem pertains to you, here is a tutorial to go beyond the 4gb
limit. It's a little work but now that you know you can run Linux it may be
worth it:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/create-a-larger-than-4gb-casper-partition/


-- 
Matthew Nuzum
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