How to install Linux Lite to a USB drive

[minesheep]

You need                                recommended                      Other
2GB USB drive                      4GB USB drive                    Difficulty:easy
16GB USB drive                    32GB USB drive                  Up to date on:August 2020
60minutes of time                120minutes of time


Start by booting to live desktop with live USB or DVD:



Connect another empty USB drive to your computer this drive will be erased and linux lite installed to this (now) empty drive.

Double click the install icon:



Select correct language and keyboard layout:





You can connect to wifi network now if you want but this is not needed for installing the OS:



Do NOT install any proprietary drivers they often break compability between multiple computers:



Select "Something else" for manually installing to USB and not to the internal hard drive:



Now the installer shows your internal hard disk drive partitions. Do NOT make any changes to them.

Select "Device for boot loader installation:"



Select your own USB drive:





Select your own USB drive from the upper list for me it's sdc:



Remove the fat32 partition from the targer USB drive, but make 100% sure it's your stick partition my partition is 15,6gb in size and my USB drive is 16gb so it must be the correct partition Remove it with the minus icon after selecting it from the list (sdc1):



Select the free space you just made and select the plus button to create your system partition:



Choose the size to your system partition it must be at least 9GB but I recommend to make it at least 12GB otherwise you instantly run out of space and the mount point must be "/":



Select the free space again under sdc or whatever it is on your computer:



Add a "swap area" it needs about 2GB but if you want to use hibernation make it bigger than your RAM and then you must install to at least 32GB USB drive:



I also made 1550MB partition to fill the unused space with windows compatible fat32 partition and it shouldn't have any mount points:



My final partitioning looks like this:



That is OK:



Continue when it asks it:



Select your time zone:



Make user:



Wait, it say when it's done:




Note: If your swap area is bigger than biggest RAM in your computers you can use hibernation even when your stick is not connected to your computer(s).
Note2: Suspend works too, but you must keep the USB drive connected to the computer.

[Sprintrdriver]

Thank you for providing this nice guide.

There is one concern I have to ask. Doesn't the installer automatically place the boot sector on the first disk found? If that is true, I think you also should disconnect any physically drives installed in the computer.

[minesheep]

I have had no problems with two computers, one with LL 4.4 and one with nothing. Works with windows too as long as it boots from USB

[firenice03]

Thank you for providing this nice guide.

There is one concern I have to ask. Doesn't the installer automatically place the boot sector on the first disk found? If that is true, I think you also should disconnect any physically drives installed in the computer.

If choosing "Something Else" you can relocate the LL boot sector to another disk - in this case the USB...

[Joe Moukarzel]

This didn't work for me - the usb didnt boot on other systems because its EFI files are on the ESP partitions of the system which was used to install Linux on the USB.

I suggest following this guide instead, as it shows how to hide the actual ESP partition from the Ubuntu installer:
https://itsfoss.com/intsall-ubuntu-on-usb/