Has anybody else had problems running Ubuntu 11.04 from a USB stick? I'm fairly new to Linux, but I figured I'd familiarize myself with it, learn more about building computers, and mine some bitcoins by setting up a cheap mining rig. I was trying to avoid buying an HDD by using Linux from a USB stick instead, but I've had all kinds of problems trying to get the rig set up software-wise.
I've tried both the 32bit and 64bit desktop versions (on an AMD Athon II X2). And I've used persistence, installed via Unetbootin. It just hasn't been stable at all. Many times, it has started in desktop mode, and then when I reboot, it goes into netbook mode on its own. A few times, the desktop has failed to load at startup and it went straight to the command line. One time, after reboot, the desktop image and color scheme had completely changed to a neon green all on its own. Another time, it starting telling me there was zero disk space when there should have been over 2GB available. And this last time, it started giving me a bus error and input/output errors.
I finally gave up and ordered a hard drive from Newegg. Has anyone else had problems like this running Linux from USB, or do I just fail at Linux?
And any tips on what I'm doing wrong would be appreciated.
