Bernhard Brunner's Blog

Link to this comparison view

--- blog:linux_on_usb_stick [2017-07-05 10:40] – brb
+++ blog:linux_on_usb_stick [2017-10-21 14:36] (current) – brb
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
   * Fast and large USB 3.0 Drive (Sandisk Extreme 128GB) (INSTALLSTICK)
   * Any USB Drive with 4GB (STARTSTICK)
-  * Debian Linux 9.0 Live iso copied to a second USB Stick, any brand will do
   * A current full backup of the computer you are using
 Installing Debian on a USB Stick with encryption
-  * Download ISO https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
+  * Download ISO for the Distribution of your choice:
-  * Copy ISO to the STARTSTICK using ''dd''
+    * MINT is easy to get started and looks great: https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=237
+    * Debian is rock solid and easy to install but needs a bit more work to get started:
+      * https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/9.0.1-live+nonfree/amd64
+      * https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
+    * Ubuntu provides an easy start, but has lots of software preinstalled which you may not want: https://www.ubuntu.com/
+  * Copy ISO to the STARTSTICK using ''dd'' or on windows use [[https://www.iseepassword.com/how-to-burn-iso-to-usb-drive.html|''Rufus'']]
   * Boot your computer with STARTSTICK. You may need to enter the BIOS and choose a temporary startup device and/or add the usb stick to the boot options. If the usb stick is not recognized, it may help to try different usb ports.
   * When STARTSTICK boots, choose graphical install
@@ Line 26: / Line 30: @@
 Post install work:
-  * To connect the computer to a wireless network, you will probably need to install non-free drivers.
+  * To connect the computer to a wireless network, you will probably need to install non-free drivers. Open ''/etc/apt/sources.list'' and add ''non-free contrib'' to all lines after ''main'', like so:
-  * To optimize the performance of you USB Stick:
+<code>
+...
+deb http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/debian/ jessie main non-free contrib
+deb-src http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/debian/ jessie main non-free contrib
+...
+</code>
+  * Then do ''sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade; sudo apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree''
+===== Optimizing performance =====
+==== noatime ====
+By default, the ext3/ext4 filesystem updates the access time attribute on a file system object whenever it's read. This results in even the most trivial file reads result in a write operation. Keeping the access time updated is only important for some very specific tasks which we're not likely to come across.
+Open /etc/fstab and for each mount that is on your USB storage, add a noatime parameter. For example:
+  /dev/mapper/vg_root-lv_root /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
+Becomes:
+  /dev/mapper/vg_root-lv_root /               ext4    noatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
+==== tmpfs ====
+There should be no application that writes data that needs to be persistant to the /tmp directory. Let's move it into RAM so there are no disk reads or writes associated with it's usage.
+Append the following to /etc/fstab:
+  tmpfs   /tmp    tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777      0       0
+==== Kernel Boot Options ====
+This one is purely for appearances. It can be disconcerting if you start up your machine and you get a blank screen for an extended period. This does happen though while the Kernel and InitRAMFS images are loaded from your slower storage. There is a simple alteration that makes Grub output a little imformation to let you know that things are happening
+Open /etc/grub.d/10_linux and find the following stanza:
+  linux_entry "${OS}" "${version}" false \
+    "${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_EXTRA} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT}" \
+    quiet
+We're just going to remove the quiet option:
+    linux_entry "${OS}" "${version}" false \
+      "${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_EXTRA} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT}"
+Note: notice that the '\' is also removed from the second line.
+Even more output
+If you're after even more output so you can watch the kernel go through it's startup, you can turn on verbose output.
+Open /etc/default/grub and find the following line:
+  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
+Add the verbose option:
+  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="verbose"
+Now, use update-grub to apply your changed setting to grub.cfg and restart for the change to take effect.
+  sudo update-grub
+  sudo reboot
+==== IO Scheduler ====
+Reference: [[http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/09/04/four-tweaks-for-using-linux-with-solid-state-drives/]]
+The default IO Scheduler used by Ubuntu is cfq. Changing this to deadline will see improved performance during times where multiple processes are trying to read/write to disk. You can change the default scheduler for all devices by adding a kernel parameter into grub.
+Open ''/etc/default/grub'' and find the following line:
+  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
+Add the elevator option:
+  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="elevator=deadline"
+Or, if you added the verbose option earlier:
+  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="elevator=deadline verbose"
+Now, use update-grub to apply your changed setting to grub.cfg and restart for the change to take effect.
+  sudo update-grub
+  sudo reboot
+To see that your new scheduler has taken effect you can query which scheduler is currently in use for a specific device with this command:
+  cat /sys/block/<device>/queue/scheduler
+===== SATA ALPM =====
+To save more power when using sata drives, consider https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/PowerManagementALPM
+Ref: http://ghanima.net/doku.php?id=wiki:linuxtips:runningfromusb
 {{tag>}}