1. Install Macpup From Usb

Yer in the wrong help forums:P How are you installing it? Are you booted from a Macpup LiveCD? Are you doing a frugal install or a full install? USB Installation is Great I plan on partitioning an external hard drive, with one partition capable of installing OS X and the other holding various software installers. With that I should be able to recover from a hard drive failure pretty quickly.

Sometimes you can’t avoid using someone else’s computer. Some airlines limit how much baggage you can bring. Occasionally you have to leave your machine at home. If your computer breaks, you might have to use someone else’s while you wait for a replacement. Except before that happens, you need a way to save your data.

What can you do in this situation? Shove a version of desktop Linux onto a USB drive and boot into it as required. But what’s the best USB Linux desktop you can install?

1. Linux USB Desktop for Any PC: Puppy Linux

For some time, Puppy Linux has been seen as little more than a curiosity. Designed to be used on the most austere hardware, it could comfortably chug away on early Pentium machines without breaking a sweat. But it wasn’t that practical. Many installed Puppy Linux on their antique hardware to just to see if they could.

But Puppy Linux never went away. Updates and new versions are still regularly released. Sure, it’s still stripped down and meant for low-end or underpowered hardware. But you can now install Puppy Linux on a USB stick and get stuff done.

Puppy Linux isn’t a single Linux distribution. It consists of multiple versions based on different code but using the same tool and philosophy. One version is based on SlackWare, which is one of the most well-established Linux distributions.

People continue to use it as their day-to-day operating system. People understand it. Then there are multiple options based on Ubuntu, the most popular version of desktop Linux.

2. A More Modern Desktop Experience: elementary OS

Are you a newcomer to Linux who just wants something simple and attractive to keep in your pocket? Check out elementary OS.

elementary OS offers a cross between the popular GNOME desktop environment and what you get on a Mac. The resulting experience is so intuitive, you can pick it up on your own with a few clicks.

AppCenter provides apps built only for elementary OS10 Elementary OS AppCenter Apps That'll Make You More Productive10 Elementary OS AppCenter Apps That'll Make You More ProductiveHaving an app store of its own has really brought Elementary OS to life with a great choice of apps. I use these AppCenter tools to improve my productivity -- perhaps you will too.Read More along with other essentials, like the LibreOffice suite, the GIMP image editor, and the Audacity sound editor. This way you can hit the ground running even if you have no idea what software is available for Linux.

Since elementary OS shares a lot in common with Ubuntu, you can be confident you won’t have to deal with any hardware compatibility gremlins. Plus, it proves to be buttery-smooth, even on low-end hardware, like laptops and cheap Atom and Celeron-powered machines.

This is important when you’re also dealing with the inherent performance bottleneck that comes with booting your operating system from an USB drive.

3. Tool for Managing Your Hard Disk: GParted Live

Hard drives consist of chunks called partitions. Your computer’s hard drive might have just one partition for all your files and folders. Or it might have one partition for your programs and another for your documents. From time to time, you might need to resize these partitions or wipe them entirely.

GParted is a common Linux tool used to manage these partitions. Many distributions come with this pre-installed. But if your computer doesn’t boot, that does you no good. You need a copy you can load from a USB stick.

It’s called Gparted Live, a USB Linux distro for your flash drive. Loading up this little program will let you reshape your hard drive as you require. Be careful though, as one mistake could potentially render your hard drive unbootable.

4. A Way to Remove Viruses: BitDefender Rescue CD

When malware strikes, it can often be game over. Your machine will run slowly, or perhaps not at all. Your files and folders will be held to ransom. Everything you do on your computer could be monitored. Worse, many viruses and Trojans are designed to actively fight removal.

They’ll prevent anti-malware programs from updating their definitions, or even running. But you have alternatives. By booting into a special Linux distribution, you can scan your system for problems, and resolve them.

One big name in computer security is Romania-based BitDefender, who boast an array of premium and free antivirus and antimalware solutions. In terms of sheer effectiveness, BitDefender’s products tend to rank quite highly. They happen to offer a Linux live CD.

BitDefender has provided helpful instructions, where they explain how you can use the Windows tool Stickifier to create one.

Install Macpup From Usb

5. A Portable Gaming Setup: Ubuntu GamePack

Linux USB sticks aren’t all about getting work done and saving PCs. Sometimes you just want to have fun. With Ubuntu GamePack, your flash drive is like a portable gaming PC. True, you’re limited by the specs of the machine you’re borrowing, but as long as you stick to titles with modest requirements, you shouldn’t have many problems.

Ubuntu GamePack comes with software that makes gaming on Linux easier. This includes Steam, which lets you download your existing library of Linux titles. Alternatively, you can use PlayOnLinux or Wine to fire up supported Windows titles.

If you’re at a friend’s house for a LAN party, but you don’t have your own PC, Ubuntu GamePack can serve in a pinch. You can also keep copies around on different flash drives as an easy way to ensure everyone is using the same game version with the same configuration.

Are Linux USB Sticks Practical?

How does using Linux on a flash driveHow to Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB StickHow to Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB StickWant to install and/or run multiple operating systems from a single bootable USB stick? You can with these tools.Read More work in practice? You might have concerns that running a desktop operating system on a USB stick would be an exercise in frustration. But actually, it isn’t too bad.

Modern USB standards mean there’s far less lag. Plus prices have crashed, while storage quantities have soared. You can now get a 256GB stick with as much memory as your laptop, and it won’t cost you much money.

As for those older 16GB USB sticks you have lying around. You can use them to boost your personal digital securityHow To Use A USB Key To Deal With Security ThreatsHow To Use A USB Key To Deal With Security ThreatsAren't USB flash drives redundant? We don't think so. There are many ways in which a USB drive can still come in handy, including keeping your computer secure. Here's how.Read More.

Explore more about: Data Recovery, Linux Distro, Operating Systems, USB Drive.

1. Seriously, everyone who found this post looking for some good resources and info.. READ THE FULL COMMENTS SECTION!!! It has tons of info and a lot of great resources mentioned. Better than the post itself! The article is good too ?

2. Consider Slax ( http://www.slax.org/ ). Bare bones as they come. Fits easily on a USB drive. Based on Debian.

3. Live Linux systems have advanced since then.

   A common live operating system is made up of one partition, containing the kernel, the initrd, the compressed filesystem.squashfs image and the second stage bootloader, usually isolinux (boot sector code is contained in the MBR). If you need a live OS which does persistence, you will find a second partition, usually an EXT4 one.

   Secure-K OS image contains five partitions; they can assure a “live” experience with encrypted data persistence, plus a native UEFI/Secure Boot compatibility and a partition dedicated to the update of the kernel. As far as I know, it’s the first live operating system which features a complete system and kernel update! Consider also that kernel partition is ISO9660 formatted, so during the update a re-write of this partition is performed.

   Besides the two ISO9660 partitions (system and kernel), data persistence partition is an EXT4 with LUKS, while UEFI Secure Boot complatibility is assured by a FAT partition (most lives do not have proper U/EFI compatibility – and for sure no Secure Boot compliance). And the fifth? Well, it’s actually positioned at the beginning of the key’s space and it can be used as a clean, unencrypted, “data swap” partition between different operating systems.

4. I've tried many distributions from small 'Tiny Core' to larger 'openSUSE' and 'MINT'. I have tried Ubuntu and forced myself to use it and I just couldn't get comfortable with it.
   After a few years on a few computers using many distros to find 'THE ONE', I have gravitated to and found that I am comfortable with 'MX Linux (MX-17 'Horizon')'
   CD and USB 'live MX Linux os' and also dual booting on mac and windows hard drives. It just works great on 10yr. old computers and a recent MacBookPro. It is intuitive for me and looks great aesthetically. I never liked the the Ubuntu GUI, and I've tried other 'skins' but after MX Linux, my search was over to find the 'ideal' distro that would work for me.

5. Yeah, I tried DSL (Damn Small Linux) due to it small size because my internet is kind of sloq but the system was a nightmare. Not all drivers were able to run and was unable to connect to internet because i never recognized my ethernet nor wlan card. Now I came to your blog to test some of the one you recommend. I am downloading Puppy now.

6. Hi ! I'm running Linux Knoppix Live! on a 8GB USB stick and runs great, it comes with lots of internet, multimedia, desing, games and utilities tools.

   I can use partition tools, back up unbootable os ( like windows ), even burn Blue Ray, DVD or CD's

   It[s a very good Linus OS to work with and take it every were you go.

   Thanks, for lookking

7. I run full version Linux Mint on USB sticks with native Ext4 partitions. And being Linux it's a breeze booting and running them on most modern machines. I prefer to use a minimum 32 GB stick for the same. And these days these sticks don't cost much. 64 GB sticks too. GNU/Linux is awesome.

8. I tried to install Slacko Puppy 6.3 and Tahrpup 6.0, both UEFI 64-bit, secure boot off as needed, using YUMI UEFI and both OS's booted into a black terminal screen thing after showing all the text as it boots up, the text saying 'If you're seeing this screen, X has not started. Run xorgwizard to set up X'. I do that, selecting 'use Intel drivers, 800x600 resolution' (I used all the options, I tried with both versions trying all the options, to no avail. I pressed enter when it said a nice dialogue box should appear, it came up with a lot of text, not a dialogue box. Run xwin, fails to boot, says to re-run, I do, still doesn't work. I even burned one of the .iso files to a DVD, same thing. I don't know if it's my hardware or not, I can run Linux Mint Cinnamon 64 bit perfectly fine off of the USB.

   I have an Acer Aspire R5-471T, Windows 10 64-bit, 8GB RAM, CPU is Intel Core i5-6200U CPU @ 2.30GHz, 2401 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s). I have no idea why it won't work. I reinstalled both .iso files about 3 times each, removing them and putting them back on using YUMI UEFI. I even tried using a different USB, still no difference.

9. Have you tried Qubes OS? It's Based on Fedora and the Xen Hypervisor and Needs to be installed onto a Large USB stick, 32GB or Larger to work properly. The installation is just like installing it on a Hard Drive, so Rufus, Unetbootin or some other USB utilty won't suffice. The Operating system provides security through separate App Vm's and even provides anonamization with Whonix/Tor workstation and Gateway.

10. 'It’s often overlooked, especially by its larger brothers like Ubuntu and Linux Mint. I’ve never understood that, because in addition to being fast, and built upon the sturdy foundations of Ubuntu LTS, it’s also a pretty'

    It's only pretty. It's behind Ubuntu and Mint with everything (if we ignore that all three are same under the hood).

    Everything in Elementary is too minimalistic. Even file manager don't have any features except basic one, unlike one in Linux Mint. Choice of applications is terrible. You cannot choose which one is worse but they all have one thing in common, they all look good.

    There is no reason why would anyone choose Elementary (based on newest Ubuntu) but worse in everything than Ubuntu itself or Mint.

    Mint is spaceship compared to Elementary in everyway and comes with multiple GUIs (Cinnamon, MATE, KDE and XFCE).

11. did you forget how to count or was this the whole reason for the article, to sucker people in with the promise of 5 distros and only show 2!. puppy and elementary!.

    • Puppy, Elementary, GParted live, Bit defender, and AVG. I count 5 ? I think you may have forgotten how to count.

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      • Um..David is correct. Puppy and Elementary are the only two distos here. The others are not operating systems. @Hate Ignorance..how unfortunate that you chose that user name.

        • WRONG! Firstly, Puppy is the 'mother' several different types, three of which are named in the article, Slacko, Tahrpup and Quirky. Each have different kernels, and Quirky has a different package manager by default. Unfortunately it doesn't mention FatDog64, but including the original defunct Puppy, that's four. Also GParted LIVE is a full distro, actually two now; one based on Debian, and another Ubuntu. They are not full Desktop distros, but they have file managers, networking software, and can use repos or PPAs. Adding additional repos, you can even build it into a full desktop distro. The two others also count as distros, because you can't boot into their applications alone, you need an underlying OS. You sort of have a point, there are EIGHT distros mentioned, not five. TEN, including the second GParted Live, and FatDog which is referred to in the Puppy discussion boards and various other Puppy sites. I forgive Hate Ignorance, because he posted on April Fool's Day. Haha.

12. I use a persistent xubuntu live on my 64gb USB . It's a bit bland but iI like the simplicity and the few useful programs that are preinstalled. It also feels faster and less clumsy than other distorts.

    Are there any distros which support a persistent partition so I can use all the USB instead of just 4gb

    • Instead of running from the live USB with persistence enabled, you can install to a USB drive like you would a hard drive. That way you can use the entire drive (unless you want a few GB as a linux-swap partition, which it might do automatically anyway). That way you can also install programs and even run system updates, plus it works faster than the live option too.
      You need 2 USB drives, or to use a live DVD for the initial installer, but other than that it works fine (with Ubuntu at least, haven't tested anything else). Be careful when you do it to avoid installing anything to the hard drive, make sure the 'drive to install bootloader' (or something like that) is set to the USB. Much better and more detailed instructions are available if you search 'how to full install ubuntu to a USB drive'.

13. My Arch Linux root partition stopped booting for some reason. I put BunsenLabs Linux (a community continuation of the defunct Crunchbang #!) on a Live USB stick and chrooted into my Arch install to recreate the boot images. It's been so useful that I'm going to do a permanent install on another USB stick to keep around in case of emergencies like this one.

14. I prefer smaller distros like Slax or DSL. Easyest to install on usb is Slax.

15. I run Porteus on a machine that has lost all contact with harddisk and CD.

16. I installed Elementary OS to a 16GB USB, to use on my laptop. This is because the laptop uses a proprietary form factor, and I cannot buy the SSD that will fit in my laptop, and still waiting for it to be shipped.

    Anyways, I could not find the 'appstore' equivalent on the OS, and also had problems installing Google Chrome directly to the USB. My third problem was installing an additional language (in my case Korean).

    Are there any workarounds to the problems above, or at least find a Linux distro with Business and Productivity programs pre-installed?

    I mostly use:
    Microsoft office
    Google Chrome
    GOM media player
    AIMP music player

    Thanks,
    JC

    • Why yes, you can use Libre Office along with VLC Media player, the Libre Office is similar to Microsoft office but is for free and VLC Media player will at the very least try to play any media created under the sun

    • Knoppix Live! comes allready with a bunch of pre-installed programs and utilities, try it, you can instaled from the Live DVD.

      Even yu can use Wine to run windows apps.

17. Hello!

    First, sorry for my poor English: it's not my native language (I'm from Italy).

    Well, I repair PCs and I use to keep in my pocket a multiboot USB with tons of tools which can help me to solve most of the problems I face almost every day.

    These are my favorite live tools:

    > Antivirus: Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Dr. Web. Both Kaspersky and Bitdefender can have some wifi issue with some (few) cards, but everything works fine if you use them from the new UEFI-BIOS YUMI (it's still a beta but it works fine). Don't ask me why! :-)

    > System Tools: Boot Repair Disk, Rescatux, Super Grub 2 (included in Rescatux) Gparted, Mini Tool Partition Wizard and my favorite ones: Clonezilla and System Rescue CD (which among hundreds of tools includes Gparted and Super Grub2). Clonezilla never failed me and System Rescue CD, though it's not for newby, is absolutely one of the best multitool, if not THE best. I repeat: not very easy for beginners, but very powerful: you can clone, image, save data from failing disks, manage partitions etc.. Many of its features are good for Windows too.
    For Cloning you can also use Ghost 4 Linux but it doesn't still have UEFI boot support.

    > Distros: Porteus, on my opinion, is the best live OS you can use: it's customizable BEFORE you download it and it's very light (about 300 Mb). You can have more than one, depending on your needs: for example you can have one for BIOS 64 bit, on for UEFI 64 bit and one for BIOS 32 bit. Debian live it's a good choice too. Puppy and Elementary are good but I don't like them very much (it's my opinion).

    > More: if you want to be 'bad boys' :-) you can use Pentesting and 'Hacking' distros like Kali, Backbox or BlackArch. They are not so easy to use if you want to be a pro, but they are worth a try even if you are not interested in this kind of operations.

    If you want to be anonymous you can use Tails, a Debian base distro that uses Tor for anonymous browsing.
    Parrot OS is another distro which combines anonymous browsing and pentesting.

    For forensics purposes i suggest CAINE and (but it's not very updated) Deft. CAINE can be used like a regular distro, having LibreOffice, Browsers etc.. The good is that it has a gui for Photorec and DDrescue, for those who are scared by command line: for example System Rescue CD has only the command line version of both.

    Finally, I want to mention some discontinued tools that cannot be used on modern PCs (especially the UEFI based ones) but if you have an old machine they can be still useful: Trinity Rescue Kit, Falcons Four and, above all, Ultimate Boot CD. In fact, Ultimate Boot CD should be developed into a new graphical version that now is in a beta.. I don't know if it's dead or not. Let's wait and see!
    Remember that none of these three tools are UEFI boot compatible.

    Well, there are many, many other live tools, but on my opinion these are (among free ones) the best, and if I should mention all the rest I would take the risk of writing a boring, endless post! :-)

    Just a tip: most of the times you (me too!) don't really need all these tools, but I can be a good idea keep them in a multiboot USB. Easy2Boot and Yumi are the best multiboot USB creators. We're waiting for Yumi to became stable in its UEFI compatible verisions. Yumi is also being rewritten for Linux but there's not a ETA.

    Cheers, :-)

    Bert

    • Wow, thanks for such a detailed comment on the best tools! bookmarking now.
      :-)

    • This is better than the original article. Thanks.

    • Again: Thank you so much.

    • Awesome and your English is great!!!

18. MX Linux (Xfce version of AntiX Debian distro) is working extremely well for me as a persistent USB-stick linux.

    [Broken Link Removed]

    It boots fast and runs fast. I've added a half dozen apps (Chrome, Remina, Inkscape, and some monitoring applets). Chrome was very easily installed via the MX-installer, and by also clicking to download the codecs it was easily made Netflix ready. I'm getting significantly faster Chrome browser benchmark Octane 2 Scores running off of this persistent USB than I've gotten from any other HDD-installed Linux distro (even slightly faster than the Chromium OS CloudReady) while running off the same six year old Dell Latitude E6400 (4GB RAM, USB2). Another plus has been that packaged Chrome apps (like Google Keep) are in the menus and easily added to the launcher dock. I'm finding the Xfce desktop to be very slick, quick, and intuitive. I can switch the same USB stick from a Dell laptop to an Asus and back without configuration upsets. And each time I shutdown, MX Linux then conveniently asks me if I want to save persistent changes that I've made during that session.

    MX makes it very easy to setup the stick. You install MX Linux onto a HDD, install the apps, configure everything as you'd like, and then use a MX tool to compress your customized system into an ISO (with options like including your user accounts), and then use another MX tool to setup that ISO onto a USB stick (with options for setting up persistence and such). It's surprisingly easy to setup. It also has a 3rd tool for remastering your USB stick later if you want changes or you used up your root persistence space.

    I've only been using this configuration for a few days, but so far everything has just worked and worked well. Just for fun, I've even ran the stick on a computer with no hard drive. Plus, even with these cool USB stick features aside .. MX Linux is now in the running as my first choice Linux distro (competing against Ubuntu MATE). That said, I'm finding the faster boot speed and running speed and system portability of the USB-stick to be a compelling feature that may just convince me to stop distro hopping and settle down with MX Linux.

    • I agree with the statement about MX Linux. I never heard of it or seen it before 2017 but I found it while searching for a distro that I could stick with and stop 'trying' one or two distros a week. MX-17 ended up being the easiest, fastest, best looking and easily configurable distro I've tried.

19. UBCD - Ultimate Boot CD, which you can also write to a USB thumbdrive

20. I have been using boot-able USB for some time, even before there was unebootin.
    Back then had to modify sis-Linux.
    But what is new lately is my multiboot USB for the past year.
    Now I not only boot in to any of 10 images and have persistence on my files on any image.
    I started with and 8 GB moved to a 32 GB and now I am on 64 GB USB.
    I even carry some of my music, wild I install or correct any of the millions of problem MS has.
    Can I boot from Windows yes, but would I do something as stupid as that.
    Since Xp is dead I have moved so many people to emmabuntus 3, elementary, LXLE, MakuluLinux.
    This by far are the most like, when I boot into them.
    So this are the ones with most eye candy but do not lack in productivity.
    Yes I do have Slack, SUSE, Fedora, and Linux mint, puppy.
    But for older PC or low end, this are ones to install use puppy is just so ugly.
    Yes I could use mac-pup, but it so limited only one application per function.
    People like the ability to pick from different applications, wild the PC still functions correctly.
    Ho so what is the software multibootusb 7.5.0 from sourceforge.org
    And yes it boot from Gparted, Ultimate boot disk, and other recovery disk.
    Now days I just recover the data, and just format and start from zeros if it is a windows PC.

21. I have been playing with Puppy Linux for many years and Slacko 5.7 in the video you have here of is more than 2 years old. I always carry it on my keychain.

    I use Gparted exclusively for partitioning and manipulating them regardless of the OS I plan to install. In fact almost all full versions of Linux include it for the purpose, even the live ones. In fact it is the only one that fully supports absolutely any video hardware at best resolution even where Mint and Ubuntu fall short.

22. I still keep a 'Puppy on a stick', though, and take it everywhere with me. Puppy runs entirely in RAM, and saves to the stick only periodically, every 30 minutes or so, so the stick will last far longer.

23. I am an unashamed 'Puppy' fanboi!! (lol) I started using this miniature marvel over two years ago, running from USB stick on an ancient Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop. I started out with 'Slacko' 5.7.0, and 'Precise' 5.7.1, but ran into graphics problems with the awful onboard Intel graphics adapter...the 82845 G/GE/PE 'Extreme' graphics chip.

    I put Puppy side for a while, then came back to it again in November 2014, days after 'Tahrpup' was released. Wonder of wonders, absolutely everything worked OOTB; even my TP-Link wifi adapter.

    The Inspiron has been seriously upgraded; RAM maxed to 1 GB; 2.2 Celeron to 2.6 P4; and a 64GB SSD bunged in. It currently triple-boots Win XP (I know, don't say it!), Puppy 'X-Slacko'; (Slacko with XFCE)...and 'Precise' 5.7.1.

    I learnt how to make the awful Intel adapter work with the system; BIOS upgrade, and enabling maximum VRAM (borrowed from the system)...plus an added kernel line parameter in Grub4DOS, Puppy's bootloader.

    My big old 2004 Compaq desktop (pre-HP, so good quality) currently runs EIGHT 'Pups'. :D

    It's my everyday system, and does everything I ask of it; NetFlix, running Photoshop under WINE, plus a few other Windows apps...and a whole host of Multimedia stuff.

    Best distro ever.!

24. I Have been using USB's with Linux for quite some years. Installed a lot of distro's on it, but sticked to Ubuntu for a couple of years. I use IT as my personal computer, storing most of my files on it. The latest one is a 64 Gb.
    What I use most these days however is an external harddisk with Ubuntu. It simply has more storage than the usb-drive.

25. Currently, I have a 16GB flash drive with YUMI and about 15 different distros and a few rescue tools on it. Nearly all of them work perfectly.

26. I use a USB with Ubuntu 16.04, and it runs very well. Mostly use it on my school computers so I can use my VPN. The Unity desktop doesn't run too well, but LXDE runs nearly perfectly.

27. I use Parted Magic https://partedmagic.com/ and have been using it for years. This little tool has saved me a ton of time, and my user base a ton of lost files. I have used this for testing hardware, and wifi. It is a donate software, so I donate twice a year and get the latest version. It is under $10. and worth every cent.

28. Currently I have 2 Linux USBs, both only 4GB because I don't use them for saving files, I'm not advanced enough to know how to partition it to save files after my USB is unplugged. One of them is Linux Mint with Xfce desktop. I use that one if I have to use someone else's machine and when I need GParted. The other is Knoppix, which I used just once, I should replace it. I used to just have one Linux USB and it ran Crunchbang #!. I was pretty upset when that distribution ended as it was perfect for all of my needs, small, included GParted, and functional if needing to use it for personal reasons on someone else's machine. I'm definitely considering replacing my Knoppix USB with GParted Live after reading this article.

Puppy Linux is a lightweight Linux distribution designed to run from removable devices such as DVDs and USB drives.

There are a number of Puppy Linux variants including Puppy Slacko, which utilizes the Slackware repositories, and Puppy Tahr which utilizes the Ubuntu repositories.

Other versions of Puppy Linux include Simplicity and MacPUP.

It is possible to use UNetbootin to create a bootable Puppy Linux USB drive but it isn't the method that is recommended.

Puppy Linux works great on older laptops, netbooks, and computers without hard drives. It isn't designed to be installed on a hard drive but you can run it that way if you want to.

This guide shows you the correct way to install Puppy Linux Tahr to a USB drive.

Download Puppy Linux Tahr

If you choose to, you can use UNetbootin to write the Puppy Tahr ISO to one of your USB drives.

Note that Puppy doesn't play well on UEFI based machines.

Boot into Puppy Linux using either the DVD or USB that you have created.

Install Puppy Linux Tahr to a USB Drive

Click on the install icon on the top row of icons.

When the above screen appears click on the Universal Installer.

Using the Puppy Linux Universal Installer

The Puppy Linux Universal Installer gives you options for installing Linux to a flash drive, a hard drive, or a DVD.

Make sure that the USB drive that you want to install Puppy Linux to is plugged in and click on USB flash drive.

Choose Where to Install Puppy Linux To

Click on the USB device icon and choose the USB drive that you wish to install to.

Choose How to Partition Your Puppy Linux USB Drive

The next screen shows you how the USB drive will be partitioned. Generally speaking, unless you wish to split the USB drive into partitions it is safe to leave the default options selected.

Click on the little icon in the top right corner next to the words ​Install puppy to sdx.

A window will appear confirming the drive that you intend to write Puppy to and the size of the partition.

Where Are the Puppy Linux Files?

If you have followed this guide from the beginning then the files required for booting Puppy will be on the CD. Click the CD button.

The files will also be available from the original ISO and so you can always extract the ISO to a folder and navigate to that folder by clicking the Directory button.

If you clicked on the CD button you will be asked to make sure the CD/DVD is in the drive. Click OK to continue.

If you clicked on the Directory button you will need to navigate to the folder where you extracted the ISO to.

Installing the Puppy Linux Bootloader

By default, you will want to install the bootloader to the master boot record on the USB drive.

The other options listed are provided as backup solutions for when the USB drive won't boot.

The next screen asks you to 'JUST KEEP GOING'. It seems a bit pointless but if you have been through the process before and it didn't work it gives you a couple of extra options to try.

The recommendation is to just leave the 'Default' option selected and click OK.

Puppy Linux Installation - Final Sanity Check

A terminal window will open with one final message telling you exactly what is about to happen to your USB drive.

If you are happy to continue press Enter on the keyboard.

The final sanity check isn't the final check however as the next screen tells you that all the files on the drive are going to be wiped.

There is one final screen after this which asks whether you want Puppy to load into memory when it boots up. If your computer has over 256 megabytes of RAM it is recommended that you answer Yes otherwise enter No.

Pressing Enter will install Puppy Linux Tahr to the USB drive.

Reboot your computer and remove the original DVD or USB drive and leave the newly created Puppy Linux USB drive inserted.

The first thing you will want to do is reboot again as this will ask where you want to save the SFS file.

An SFS file is a large save file which is used to store any changes you make whilst using Puppy Linux. It is Puppy's way of adding persistence.