Linux Mint on a USB keydrive

Introduction

Playing

By default, the root password has no password and is, thus, disabled: sudo passwd, followed by "su -"

The standard release doesn't support loadkeys to change the keyboard layout to non-English

To install an OpenSSH server: apt-get update ; apt-get install openssh-server

No alias for ll → alias ll="ls -alF"

Q&A

Why does Mint come in different versions?

Welcome to the chaotic world of Linux ;-)

The main differences are:

The desktop: LXDE, KDE, Mate/Gnome

The underlying OS: Debian or Ubuntu. As of 2012, Mint is moving from Ubuntu to Debian.

Why does it leave space before/after Mint partition?

Starting sda1 at sector 2048 is safer than the traditional 64 because the boot loader (eg. GRUB) might need a few sectors after sector 0 where the MBR is located. It could also be a strategy to avoid lower performance on Advanced Format hard disks where sectors are 4,096 byte-long.

Is it OK to unplug the USB keydrive once Mint is up and running?

Apparently not:

...

SQUASHFS error: Unable to read data cache entry [1981c5bd]

SQUASHFS error: Unable to read page, block 1981c5bd, size 14f05

SQUASHFS error: squashfs_read_data failed to read block 0x1be88f35

SQUASHFS error: Unable to read fragment cache entry [1be88f35]

SQUASHFS error: Unable to read page, block 1be88f35, size 1836d

etc.

Localized version?

Is there a localized release of Mint so that non-English speaking users can use it?

Resources