Portable Qemu Persistent Ubuntu tutorial

The main advantage to using Qemu hardware emulation as opposed to a native USB boot is that it allows you to plug your USB stick or portable hard drive into any available PC and run a complete operating system without restarting. The additional advantage of using Ubuntu's persistent feature is that you can save your personal settings, files and changes back to the stick. Qemu and persistent Ubuntu 6.10 make for a nice and simple combination. In the following tutorial we explain how to make it all work together.

Using this tutorial, Ubuntu can be run from within Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP or Vista without ever rebooting. It runs from it's own directory either on a portable device or directly from an internal hard drive if you so choose.

This tutorial explains How To Run Ubuntu 7.10 from a portable USB device or from a folder within Windows. As noted before, the advantage to using Qemu hardware emulation as opposed to a native USB boot is that you can to plug your USB stick or portable hard drive into any available Windows PC and run a completely separate Linux operating system without rebooting the Windows Host PC. In addition, by utilizing the casper persistent feature, you can save your personal settings and changes back to the img located in the installation directory and then restore those saved settings on each boot.

Using this tutorial, Ubuntu 7.10 can be run from within Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP or Vista without rebooting. Ubuntu 7.10 runs from it's own directory either on a portable USB device or directly from a folder on your Windows computer.

This is a great way to learn Linux without actually creating a partition and installing. There are quite a few Linux instructors who actually teach Linux to their students via this approach because it does not require local installation.

Qemu Portable Ubuntu 7.10 essentials:

• Portable device with 1GB+ free space (2+GB recommended)
• A Windows Host computer (Vista or XP)
  
• Ubuntu 7.10 ISO
• QPU710.exe

Portable Ubuntu 7.10 creation process:

1. Download and launch QPU710.exe, a QPU710 folder is created
2. Download the Ubuntu 7.10.iso and move it to the QPU710 folder
3. Click the QPU710.bat file to start Ubuntu
4. At the boot menu, press F6 to enter a custom boot option. Type persistent at the end of the boot string:
5. Ubuntu 7.10 should continue to boot… and save most of your settings as you work. To restore these saved settings on the next boot, simply press F6 and add persistent again.

Qemu commands:

Click within the Qemu Window to use the Ubuntu desktop

Press Ctrl+Alt to switch to and from the Host desktop

Press Ctrl+Alt+F to toggle full screen on or off

Press Ctrl+Alt+2 to switch to the Qemu Monitor (and type help for command list)

Press Ctrl+Alt+1 to switch from Qemu Monitor back to Linux

WARNING: When shutting down the Ubuntu 7.10 environment, at the prompt to remove the disk, simply press enter and wait until the progress bar has finished. It is then safe to press Ctrl+Alt and close the Window. "If you don't wait, you may corrupt your persistent image".