this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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Just picked up a 128GB USB A/C stick that can go on my keyring. What are some things I should put on it to have access to at all times?

I already have self hosted services accessible over my VPN, so this would be for when I can't access that.

I'm thinking at least Ventoy and some common ISOs, then I'm not sure what else.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I hate to break it down but you probably dont need one

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Ventoy with bazzite, arch, think there's a tails or something similar, a few recovery and hacking tools

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

ventoy with medicat, kali, crunchbang plus plus

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Git repos of some helpful scripts and configs.

Music.

Profile backup.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

64 GiB, two partitions, one with my files including Keepass database, the other with Ventoy with ISOs for Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, Debian 13.5 KDE, NixOS Gnome, Win 10 and bazzite

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

right now mine has manjaro+cinnamon. i booted my wife's Win11 laptop to it so she could test drive it and within ten minutes she was asking how to get to the installer. i hope to repeat this process with others as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Eh...

Ventoy (on a comically small external hd -- 8 GiB) and retrogaming/backup-related files on a 1 TB one.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Ventoy with every ISO I've needed to install, and Snappy Driver Installer Origin with its full set of drivers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A medicat install, insanely useful.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A bunch of (totally) legally aquired tools on a ventoy install. https://medicatusb.com/ also check out their discord we got a great community

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I've been using Hiren's, but this seems potentially even better. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Just sticking a USB stick into a bunch of different ports, is going to get you an STI eventually.

How do you make the stick read only? To prevent picking up malware along your journey?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

This is where the physical write protect notch on SD cards would be useful.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

STI

Serially Transmittable Infection?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

No. Don't be stupid. Serial Tract Infection. Duh.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

512GB Ventoy, every version windows that can boot from ISO. Gandalf's win 10 PE, gandalf's 111 PE, Debian live ISO, max versions of Debian and NixOS, silver blue and fedora. Ubuntu along with LTS. I could have put my crypto partition on it, but I actually like keeping that as a separate key.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I had to google ventoy and now I feel like a cave man because I have a dish with 6 flash drives that all have different ISOs

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

My dish still has a flash drive marked "Win 8" which I've since overwritten with... Some flavor of Linux. Mint maybe.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Mine is mostly lighting console show files of various concerts/comedians/dance performances I have been the lighting designer for. I know my use case is different than most people's, but hey, you asked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thats dope. I suppose grandma? Do you keep them around to copy stuff over to your current project?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Mostly Avolites and ETC. Mostly just always save to a couple of USB sticks as backup, one of which lives on my keys and the other in my computer bag. It is nice to have quick access to my user profile and some pre-built stuff though. Some of them I keep around because I do those shows every year but mostly it's just not worth the effort of deleting them because the files are so small. They are also all backed up to my home server.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

If it's anything like mine, this is a great idea that's going to get smashed to fuck

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I got two identical 64gb sticks. One's for a Ventoy setup with a bunch of different ISOs, in case anything has to be done and/or recovered. The other just has occasional random files i might need

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I had one:

  1. Live OS, Fedora KDE or something
  2. 5GB FAT32 for printers and windows, lol
  3. X GB encrypted EXT4, F2FS or BTRFS for storage
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I have a copy of MX Linux installed, as well as encrypted copies of all my most important data and a few commonly used portable utilities for windows and Linux. It's mostly just an emergency backup, but I have used the other parts before, just very rarely.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

A metal 128 GB USB on my keychain next to the U2F key

16 GB Ventoy partition with:

  • Clonezilla ('deploying' my system image and backups)
  • Mint Debian Edition (everything needed to test and recover my Debian systems)
  • Debian netinstall
  • Various manuals and reference documents
  • Portable CrystalDiskInfo and VeraCrypt for Windows
  • Dumping grounds for files that I intended to transfer between machines, particularly the XP retro gaming rig
  • An optimistic IF-FOUND.TXT
  • KeePass
  • Previously Windows, until once upon a time, I booted into WinRE via Ventoy, got confused between X:, C:, and whatever else, and proceeded to nuke my USB instead of another disk. The Windows installer lived on its own USB happily ever after.

And a LUKS encrypted partition in the remaining space with more documents and a backup of almost all of my photos.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I have three partitions: First one is Ventoy with a couple of distros per architecture. Partition two is a standard exfat partition for files. Partition three is a small fat16 partition, since there's always that one device someone has (oscilloscope, 3D printer, UEFI/BIOS, etc.) that only supports very simple file systems. I've had to use the fat16 partition more than a couple of times and I don't even work with legacy hardware.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How have I never thought of partitioning one large USB drive for multiple purposes...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Windows is not very pleasant about dealing with a removable drive with more than one partition.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I've got 3 usb's on my keychain. One for ventoi, one for tails and one for random storage.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I've got a USB stick on my keys but I don't remember what's on it because I've never used it lmao.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

lol, I feel you there. I got a ruggedized, waterproof USB stick about 6 years ago to keep on my keychain and I've used it maybe three times ever. Though I've also been working from home for the last 4+ years so, y'know, less opportunities to use it in general.

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I've got a 15 year old SD/USB combo card on my keychain. I plugged it into a TV around 6-7 years ago because there were a couple of kids movies on there.

I also know I have some Portable apps on there, but probably a little out of date

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