Running LibreELEC from USB flash drive

sandrot · May 2, 2016 at 2:22 PM

Maybe it's just me, but I find they way LibreELEC and OpenELEC run from USB flash drive unsatisfactory:
- you need to use the keyboard to choose "live" mode;
- in some cases you don't have enough time to choose "live" and installer is started;
- live mode forgets all of your settings once you power off.

Looking at what is written to USB flash drive, i see a FAT16 partition and an ext4 partition of just 32 Mb. When you run live, that partition will store lost+found data.

I therefore made the following:
- plugged USB flash drive in my laptop running Ubuntu;
- used GParted to expand the ext4 partition to fill USB flash drive;
- used

Code

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

to find out what the ext4 partition uuid was;
- modified syslinux.cfg to include ext4 partition as disk under "live" label, and
- removed prompt, and
- removed "installer" label and related instructions, and
- changed default to "live"

Now I can run from any x64 PC or laptop that can boot from USB and I get to keep my plugins and settings.

trogggy · May 2, 2016 at 2:43 PM

Live mode is horrible, I agree. But you can use the installer to install properly to another usb stick - just choose that instead of your hard drive - if you want.
Personally I muck about much more than that - I run from a fat32 partition on usb / sd, pointing at ext4 partitions on my hard drives for storage.

sandrot · May 2, 2016 at 2:56 PM

Quote from trogggy

Live mode is horrible, I agree. But you can use the installer to install properly to another usb stick - just choose that instead of your hard drive - if you want.
Personally I muck about much more than that - I run from a fat32 partition on usb / sd, pointing at ext4 partitions on my hard drives for storage.

I wish that was possible... I traveled "back in time" down to OpenELEC 4.2.1 and installer never shows a 2nd plugged USB flash drive on my HP laptop.

trogggy · May 2, 2016 at 3:01 PM

Ah... not used that method for years - it certainly used to work, I'm surprised it doesn't still.

**aptalca** · May 2, 2016 at 3:26 PM

Really? I did that many times in the past.

I had loaner flash drives with oe on them, set up with mysql.

When we had guests, I would just hand them a usb stick they could boot from, and they could access all the media on their laptops

sandrot · May 2, 2016 at 3:37 PM

Consider it may just be my HP laptop. I saw tutorials on how to choose other USB drives for install, but I could never follow through, and also I don't know what version of OpenELEC they refer to.

Larry · March 26, 2017 at 4:03 AM

I am new to this OS. I am installing it on a 8GB stick right now. I guess I just boot to it? there is no way to modify the disk space when installing on hard drive. it only used 512mb out of a over 500GB drive. telling me it was already using 40% of the first partition right and end of install. that's crazy, they need to allow us the change partition size. anyhow i ran across your post and wanted to input what I am experiencing. I guess I can install a OS on the laptop after the install to the USB drive. no OS on it now.

**aptalca** · March 26, 2017 at 4:32 AM

Quote from Larry

I am new to this OS. I am installing it on a 8GB stick right now. I guess I just boot to it? there is no way to modify the disk space when installing on hard drive. it only used 512mb out of a over 500GB drive. telling me it was already using 40% of the first partition right and end of install. that's crazy, they need to allow us the change partition size. anyhow i ran across your post and wanted to input what I am experiencing. I guess I can install a OS on the laptop after the install to the USB drive. no OS on it now.

During first boot, whether it's installed on hdd or from a flash drive, it resizes to utilize the entire drive. First partition is the read only system partition, that stays the same. Data partition is mounted as /storage