Portable Linux on an Old Mini Disk

My oldest mini disk had the capacity of 320GB.

I had to go to Singapore to buy it.

It had Windows in it and I have erased it and mounted Linux on it.

It had an attractive box and USB had two ports one probably for power and other for data.

Using Debian Disk Utility I securely, erased it.

Then I had another with 500GB capacity and another with 1000GB.

None had data and old my data is in my PC or in DVDs.

I was a cricket addict and I recorded almost all the cricket matches, after we won the Cricket World Cup.

I do not watch cricket after it became commercial and especially after Indian IPL.

Having said that it looks like we have a good set of young players and given the right attitude we can repeat success.

Good luck to all but I do not like names like kusal, akusal, dhaham and like names.

The players should use their surnames in public and among players calling any other Christian name is OK for comradeship and status.

I think these names killed some players and there is no cricket in Buddha Dhamma.

Buddha played the greatest mental game of all time and absolute concentration on the next ball to play, may be helpful.

I use this in my Linux work.

Coming to the portable disks I installed Ubuntu, Debian, Magiea and Mint in over 350GB each taking roughly 50GB and the rest for the large Home Partition.

With 64 bit Distributions ESP partition is vital for booting and both Debian and Emmabantus have problem with GRUB boot loader and by convention do not use ESP.

If one is using only one distribution and one disk, there is no problem but guy like me who tests and use multiple distributions, in one or two disk ESP is essential.

Step 1
The way about is to install Ubuntu and allow it to take over the disk.
It makes a GRUB boot partition and ESP and one big Root partition.

Then use Gparted and delete the Root partition.

Step 2
Install Debian and let it take over the disk with a Very Big Home Partition.
Delete the home partition and make it smaller.

Repeat this with the 3rd or 4th distributions.

Finally, reinstall Ubuntu and it reads all the distributions and make nice boot menu.

I used to edit the boot menu in the good old days but by this method no editing of the boot menu is needed.

Mint coming from Ubuntu also make a nice GRUB boot record.

1000GB disk was formatted with FAT 32 and NTFS for data.

By the way, I generally use E4 partitioning but for UBUNTU, I used btrfs or butter partitioning.

My understanding of partition types is rudimentary but for Puppy I use FAT 32 and for Knoppix I use Knoppix dedicated partition type.

Forget it's name.

MultSystem also use FAT and I still use it's old (both 32 and 64 bits) iso in a USB, an Ubuntu derivative and only single distributions with single sfsk isos can be mounted (in a USB stick).

Unlike other systems one can delete an iso after installation and it edit the GRUB file accordingly.

It comes from France and make sure to Press F2 to get English language.

No German version available.

I think French hate Germans.

By the way, Linux English magazine is published in Germany and is a very good magazine.

Linux Voice magazine is incorporated.

Since, I do not do any coding I stopped subscribing to it 5 years ago.

With every magazine there are two Linux distributions on DVD.

That alone is worth.