[HowTo] Install Manjaro on USB drive (with and without VirtualBox)

[Shirshendu]

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

This tutorial is the result of an experiment trying to install Manjaro Linux on a USB Drive using graphical tools as much as possible (in a relatively hassle-free way) and so as to create a portable installation which one can carry in one’s pocket.
(Respected Forum members, this tutorial was done using Manjaro KDE in UEFI mode, please feel free to update this if anyone succeeds to follow this and install in any other case.)

Method 1: Using VirtualBox

Method 1: Using VirtualBox

Prerequisites:

Manjaro or any linux distro installed on a computer (Windoze or MacOZ should work, too ), VirtualBox installed along with proper version of the Extension Pack (VirtualBox - Manjaro); and USB support enabled in VirtualBox (How to Enable USB in VirtualBox).
… And a USB Stick (>= 3.0 recommended for usable speed).

Actual Process:

1. Download the latest Manjaro ISO you want to install.
2. Fire up VirtualBox.
3. Create a new Virtual Machine.
4. Open the settings of the virtual machine and do as follows.
   a. Go to Storage → Controller: IDE → Add Optical Drive
   
   
   
   Then in the following popup click add and then select your downloaded iso and then click choose.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   b. Insert your USB stick. Go to USB section in the settings of the virtual machine and in the USB controller section select USB 3.0
   Then click the add button in the right and select your inserted USB drive.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   c. Go to System section and enable EFI (and adjust the RAM and CPU cores assigned to the VM, if you want).
   
   
   .
   d. Grab a cup of tea (or coffee, if you prefer) and get ready to fire up the VM!
5. Start the VM and after it loads, launch the installer.
   
   
   
   a. Proceed through location and keyboard of your choice and stop at partitions.
   b. Select your usb drive from the dropdown at top.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   c. Do the partitioning as you like. For the sake of “simplicity”, I shall erase the disk and let the installer do the partitions. Then press next.
   d. Setup your user and click next.
   e. In the next screen go through what is written and check everything is ok and then press Install .
   
   
   
   f. Take a break and let Calamares do its job. After it is finished check Restart and press Done.
6. Now shut down the VM. Eject the USB stick, shut down your computer.
7. Select your USB stick from the boot menu. If it boots, and I sincerely hope it does, your Manjaro-in-USB is ready for use!

---

Why VirtualBox is used in this tutorial?

• No chance of mistakenly affecting your hardware.
• The installed USB is a standalone system. It won’t overwrite the grub of your existing system in no scenario (As the installation was done in VM) (Overwriting the grub is a slight possibility when you install the OS into the USB directly from live media in your hardware).
• It requires only one USB drive instead of two.

---

Method 2: Using 2 USB drives (VirtualBox not needed)

Method 2: Using 2 USB drives (VirtualBox not needed)

Contributed by: @nl.smart

Prerequisites:

A working computer and two USB Sticks [One contains the ISO file, other one for installing Manjaro] (>= 3.0 recommended for usable speed).

Actual Process:

1. Create the bootable live media in one of the USB drives using softwares like Etcher and likes or using Ventoy
   For more security and avoid any damage on the hard drives I unplugged the other drives (ssd, m.2-sata, …)
   The USB keys are from different size
   USB key with the image => 32 Gb
   USB key for the future OS => 64 Gb

2. Attach the two USB drives to your computer.

3. Boot up the live media and
   a. Either launch KDE Partition Manager (or install and launch GParted if you wish).
   

   
   
   Erase the USB drive on which you want to install Manjaro and do create the necessary partitions.
   [1] Select the USB key to format
   [2] select the partition
   [3] delete
   
   
   
   Apply all operations
   Format the USB key
   
   
   
   Confirm your chooice.
   Apply Pending Operations
   
   At the end format process this message appear, click OK
   
   

4. Next step is to launch Calamares:
   a. Go back on the desktop and double click on the icon Install Manjaro Linux
   

   
   
   b. Set up your preferred Location, Keyboard…
   c. Select the target USB drive in the dropdown of Partitions section and partition the disk there as wanted.
   
   
   
   d. Setup your User
   
   
   
   e. Proceed to installation only after double checking everything with the Summary.
   
   
   
   A last pop-up before the install, confirm with Install now.
   
   
   
   In the beginning the Manjaro install is looking so and describe the process
   
   
   
   Congratulation, The installation is done, select Restart now
   Click on Done to reboot your device.
   
   
   
   After the machine is turned off, remove the live media and during boot select the USB in which you installed Manjaro and … voila!
   At first boot the user is clearly able to differentiate from the live media.
   
   
   
   After a few minutes, you’ll be able to update your new OS.
   Enjoy !
   
   

---

[@moderators should I make it a wiki post so that people can correct if something’s wrong?]

---

Possible keywords and phrases for indexing engines

Install Manjaro on USB.
Portable installation of Manjaro on USB.

---

Issues & Solutions

• [HowTo] Install Manjaro on USB drive (with and without VirtualBox) - #13 by mehran

[Aragorn]

@Shirshendu

[@moderators should I make it a wiki post so that people can correct if something’s wrong?]

Done.

[alven]

@Shirshendu

Windoze or MacOS

a typo: MacOZ

[vagrous101]

Can I appy this is other DEs of Manjaro and KDE Neon?

[Shirshendu]

@Shirshendu

This tutorial was done using Manjaro KDE in UEFI mode

I haven’t tried other ones till now. But any distro with calamares should work.

[linux-aarhus]

While I appreciate the work - and I am not questioning the author of the guide - it is not always possible for an end-user to make it happen. See below which is shortly after this guide was created

• Manjaro Linux Installer doesn't show my USB drive

Some users have success with it - others don’t - but it boils down to: is the device listed as removable or not.

To my knowledge Calamares is designed avoid installing to removable devices - as it could create an issue where one accidently selects the device containing the installation source.

To check if your device is listed as removable - use lsblk and list the recognized devices then check the RM column of the output.

The number 1 designates a removable device - which Calamares won’t install to.

Sample (incomplete) output from my system and as you can see it is quite arbitrary how the system see’s the devices.

• sdd is USB connected backup device (Seagate 2TB spinning HD)
• sde is USB stick (Kingston DataTraveller)
• mmcblk0 is SD-card (Transcend)

➜  ~ lsblk
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdd       8:48   0   1,8T  0 disk 
└─sdd1    8:49   0   1,8T  0 part
sde       8:64   1  14,4G  0 disk 
├─sde1    8:65   1   250M  0 part 
├─sde2    8:66   1     1M  0 part 
└─sde3    8:67   1  14,2G  0 part 
sr0      11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
mmcblk0 179:0    0    15G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk0p1
        179:1    0    15G  0 part 
nvme0n1 259:0    0 476,9G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1
│       259:1    0   300M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p2
│       259:2    0 467,8G  0 part /
└─nvme0n1p3
        259:3    0   8,8G  0 part [SWAP]

[Shirshendu]

First of all, thanks a lot for pointing out one potential problem of the tutorial .

@linux-aarhus

While I appreciate the work - and I am not questioning the author of the guide - it is not always possible for an end-user to make it happen. See below which is shortly after this guide was created

• Manjaro Linux Installer doesn’t show my USB drive

Some users have success with it - others don’t - but it boils down to: is the device listed as removable or not.

Well, I installed Manjaro on three USB sticks (2 SanDisk, 1 Sony) [not a large number, of course] using method 1; all three are designated removable by lsblk and the install was successful in all three cases. Is there any other factor also at play here?
Also, will let you know after doing a bit more testing .

[linux-aarhus]

@Shirshendu

I installed Manjaro on three USB sticks (2 SanDisk, 1 Sony) using method 1; all three are designated removable by lsblk and the install was successful in all three cases.

That is a bit confusing - tøhø - bit as Removable Medium Bit …

Warning: It is not possible to flip the Removable Medium Bit (RMB) on every USB mass storage device and attempting to use software that is incompatible with your device may damage it. Attempting to flip the RMB is not recommended. - Install Arch Linux on a removable medium - ArchWiki

@Shirshendu

Is there any other factor also at play here?

Could be - but what? Firmware maybe?

I have for years been using Lenovo hardware. I cannot remember I have tested installing to USB on other hardware.

So when I have tried to accomplish the same thing - I have always failed.

Just checked with some other devices I have available - a 64G Sandisk Extreme and a Western Digital USBC 500GB

sdf     8:80   1  59,6G  0 disk 
├─sdf1
│       8:81   1     1M  0 part 
├─sdf2
│       8:82   1    50M  0 part 
└─sdf3
        8:83   1  59,6G  0 part /run/media/fh/USB64_BOOT
sdg     8:96   0 476,9G  0 disk 
├─sdg1
│       8:97   0 220,9G  0 part /run/media/fh/wd-usb
├─sdg2
│       8:98   0    32M  0 part /run/media/fh/VTOYEFI
└─sdg3
        8:99   0   256G  0 part /run/media/fh/wd-data

[Shirshendu]

@linux-aarhus

I have for years been using Lenovo hardware. I cannot remember I have tested installing to USB on other hardware.

Well, I have tried using just a HP 250 G6 (i3-6006U) laptop .
Two drives which were tested :

sdc      8:32   1  57.3G  0 disk 
├─sdc1   8:33   1   300M  0 part 
└─sdc2   8:34   1    57G  0 part
sdd      8:32   1  28.6G  0 disk  
├─sdd1   8:33   1   300M  0 part 
└─sdd2   8:34   1    28.3G  0 part

[linux-aarhus]

Hmm - this is pattern breaking to me.

Since all my attempts had failed and the only denominator was the removable media bit - I have been fairly certain the bit was the deciding factor for Calamares.

Now I am back to square one.

[mehran]

I just wanted to share my experience.

First of all, I could not make VirtualBox to see USB devices. No matter how much I tried, it refused to show them. And believe me when I say I tried. I did all the suggestions out there. Including installing the extension pack and adding a filter with my device IDs. But it just did nothing.

So I turned to VMWare as an alternative. This time, at least I could see my USB device on the guest machine. But now I could not list the USB device as a installation destination. The installation dialog only shows virtual drive defined by VMWare and that’s it. I tried deleting USB’s partitions and even creating new ones but the USB was never an installation destination. I also tried adding this line to the .vmx file of the VMWare virtual machine:

firmware="efi"

[SOLUTION]

I’ve found what was wrong in my case. I needed to change the partitioning of my USB before it was accepted as the installation destination. I used KDE’s partition manager and I created a new partition table of type MSDOS. Then I created a new partition of FAT32 format. Then everything worked just fine.