# can you use ubuntu without a hard drive?



## regan1985 (Nov 26, 2007)

its a easy question really, i have a p4 laptop with 512 of pc166 ram and i dont have a hard drive for it,only a dvd rom! so i was thinking of running ubuntu as i cant run xp on it!!


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 26, 2007)

Yes, look for the live CD, however it is not recommended for every day use. XP can be run from CD as well though. 
I'd recommend buying a harddrive however.


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## xfire (Nov 26, 2007)

You can use the live cd but it will be very slow. When installing ubuntu it will let you resize your XP partion and after installation you will get the option to choose to boot either XP or Ubuntu.


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## Deleted member 3 (Nov 26, 2007)

xfire said:


> You can use the live cd but it will be very slow. When installing ubuntu it will let you resize your XP partion and after installation you will get the option to choose to boot either XP or Ubuntu.



He has no XP partition since he has no harddrive.


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## xfire (Nov 26, 2007)

oops!
Get a harddrive. If you use the live cd you wont be able to modify anything(even if you modify it will go back to default every time you restart.


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## EnglishLion (Nov 26, 2007)

If you have a USB port you might prefer to look at a linux on usb alternative.  You can run ubuntu straight from the install cd but it's slow and you cannot save anything.


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## Yin (Nov 27, 2007)

EnglishLion said:


> If you have a USB port you might prefer to look at a linux on usb alternative.  You can run ubuntu straight from the install cd but it's slow and you cannot save anything.



I didn't know u could install it on a usb, could u boot from it too?


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## Dandel (Nov 27, 2007)

you can also  run ubuntu off of a USB thumb drive, however i'd suggest picking up a small hard drive that is about 20gb... anyways more information that you'd want to read about this is on the ubuntu wiki page here. ( includes information on how to create your own custom liveCD disks.


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## regan1985 (Nov 27, 2007)

think i might invest in a small 40g usb hard drive as i have lost my connector on my mobo so i cant install a hard drive!!how much slower will it be on a usb hard drive i wonder compared to a 4800rpm drive


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## Necrofire (Nov 27, 2007)

running a hard drive off of usb will eat cpu cycles like mad while accessing the hard drive.

It will work, just don't count on it being very fast.


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## EnglishLion (Nov 27, 2007)

Yin said:


> I didn't know u could install it on a usb, could u boot from it too?



http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/21/usb-ubuntu-704-persistent-install/

See here for USB Ubuntu.  You can boot from usb as long as your motherboard allows it.  Booting windows from usb is a different matter though as windows re-initialises usb during boot - and you can't initialise the device you're booting from!


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## Dandel (Nov 28, 2007)

I don't recommend running off of usb, however i do suggest getting a small hard drive for that laptop as cheap as you can get ( about 8b should do the trick nicely), and run ubuntu on that.


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## EnglishLion (Nov 28, 2007)

http://www.bioslevel.com/index.php/reviews/aid/1190315496/1

You could try replicating this USB Flash RAID0 setup found at this link.  I'd be eager to hear how it goes if you do!


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## Yin (Nov 28, 2007)

EnglishLion said:


> http://www.bioslevel.com/index.php/reviews/aid/1190315496/1
> 
> You could try replicating this USB Flash RAID0 setup found at this link.  I'd be eager to hear how it goes if you do!



lol so i am the experimental rat?


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## EnglishLion (Nov 28, 2007)

Yin said:


> lol so i am the experimental rat?



OH, we all are!     

...I'm planning on doing it too, having Ubuntu in my pocket sounds like a fine proposition.


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## panchoman (Nov 28, 2007)

interesting link, i've got a 2 gig rally 2  maybe i need a second one for raid


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