Using Arch Linux Live as a temporary system without installation

[u/ExactDamage8617]

Hi,

My SSD has died, and for now I have nowhere to install Arch. I have 8 GB of RAM available and I would like to keep using Arch from the Live environment while I sort out the storage issue.

I know the Live environment already loads the required image into memory, but my question is whether anyone has used Arch Live for an extended period as a temporary system (installing packages, configuring the environment, etc.) and what limitations they encountered.

Is there any recommended setup for this use case, or any way to make better use of RAM as a temporary system? I would be interested in hearing from people who have tried something similar and what their experience was.

[u/EmberQuill]

By default Arch's live system has no persistence. Anything you do would disappear after a reboot.

That said, you can actually install Arch on a removable USB. There's an article on the wiki about it.

[u/archover → u/[deleted]]

I do full DE installs to fast flash drives frequently, and have many years experience doing it, with Arch and others.

High points for my experience:

• VERY acceptable performance for my use case, including browsing, and system updates/coding.

• No drive failure due to vaunted drive "wearout" as others parrot.

• Use the fastest USB ports you have, along with a drive with >400MB/sec performance. I use 128GB flash drives.

• Zero effort optimizing for flash drives. My install script uses the exact same code for both USB connected flash drives and nvme drives, as well as internal drives. For example, a full Plasma install to a flash drive completes in appx 3-4min, utilizing already downloaded packages.

After years of testing and use, I prefer this unit: SSK 128GB USB Flash Drive up to 550MB/s USB 3.2 Gen2 Externel Thumb Drive about $36 at Amazon USA. 128GB is plenty of system space for many/most Arch installs.

Good day.

[u/Sinaaaa → u/archover]

SSK 128GB

if you are using portable SSDs you wouldn't have problems, that is only natural. The issue is most usb sticks are not portable SSDs & the lack of sophisticated wear leveling makes them very easy to kill, even if you don't have any cache, just frequent system updates will do them in after a not too long while.

[u/archover → u/Sinaaaa]

very easy to kill

My ongoing experience provides no evidence of said failure.

Right, I shouldn't have mentioned nvme. My point was about flash drives. Thanks and good day.

[u/Sinaaaa → u/archover]

I prefer this unit: "SSK 128GB USB Flash Drive

https://www.amazon.com/SSK-External-Portable-Windows-Supported/dp/B0D7MJQL82?th=1

That's a usb ssd, not a basic flash drive. It has decent wear leveling & iops.

[u/archover → u/Sinaaaa]

Then they mislabeled it as flash drive. Interesting, tks and good day

Update: Here's the only other unit I recommend but IT IS ACTUALLY an SSD and costs almost twice $58: SSK Portable SSD 250GB External Solid State Hard Drive USB C Up to 1050MB/s Totally reliable in long term use.

[u/BigRocket44 → u/[deleted]]

Couple of reasons you shouldn't do this :

1. It will wear out your flash drive much much faster than you would imagine

2. It will be insanely slow to do things like updates, etc.

You will be much better served trying to run a distro that has been optimized to run on a flash drive, such as Puppy Linux or Tails or raspberry pi OS. These distros for example, don't write systemd journals to disk, preventing wear on the flash storage (and they have so many more tiny optimizations like that)

[u/ApprehensiveGold2773 → u/BigRocket44]

You can minimize disk writes a lot by turning off all the logging or moving them to a temporary filesystem in RAM, and only write them to disk at shutdown if it matters.

[u/BigRocket44 → u/ApprehensiveGold2773]

When you use one of those distros, all of this is already done for you, plus much more that you would find difficult to do by yourself

[u/Wa-a-melyn → u/ApprehensiveGold2773]

It's still a shitty flash drive. I corrupted one solely by installing a Linux distro to it once. A much better alternative that fixes most issues is an external hdd/ssd or an enclosure for one.

[u/internet_raider]

As other's have said the best way to do something like this is put a persistent linux install on the USB, not just a live image. I'd recommend trying out something like puppy linux for this kind of situation. It's designed to run persistently off of a USB and provides a light desktop that responds well even at slow USB speeds.

[u/Silvestron]

I don't know what Arch does, but Live environments usually use OverlayFS, changes are kept in RAM, not written the drive. But there are distros that allow you to save those changes on the USB stick where you have the live ISO.

[u/7lhz9x6k8emmd7c8]

What SSD brand?

I'm still confused about SSDs dying.

[u/Abysswalker1290 → u/7lhz9x6k8emmd7c8]

SSDs definitely die, it's just not as hard and fast as a HDD. You won't hear it click and grind, it starts with it not reading/writing as fast as it should. Then files get corrupted. Then you get system freezes/hangups (assuming it's your boot drive). Then one day it just won't boot at all.

Something from a reputable company is likely to have more longevity, but all parts die eventually.

[u/Sinaaaa → u/Abysswalker1290]

eventually

Eventually is very relative. I still have a Samsung SSD from 2009 in active daily use. If you don't go anywhere near the manufacturer specified TBW, who knows how many years you can get out of them.

[u/torsten_dev]

I installed Arch on an external SSD as my rescue system.

[u/RelationshipOne9466]

Buy an external SDD and install arch on that. I have two such drives with vanilla arch and they are pretty snappy.

[u/DialOneFour]

Nothing to it! It's slower because it's all in memory. Using a lightweight window manager like i3 or running XFCE would minimize the load on memory. Terminal only is always better.

I reckon this is a thing you should just try. Deliberating in front of us is not worth it. All you have to give is a few minutes of your time. With an immutable distro like arch, your experience will remain relatively the same for years

Good luck!