Multiple OS portability

[SiegeTheDay]

I have been working on a 'single USB toolkit' for a bit now. The goal has changed a bit and now I think it is workable to have a bootable live OS, Linux apps, windows apps, and an encrypted container for data, without needing to install anything on the machine to be worked on.

So far, I have been using a truecrypt container, and have had success on either side (Windows or Linux) but not at the same time. This whole project started with just wanting to have a multi-OS encrypted volume for a personal USB, again, without installing anything on the target machine. Truecrypt has a portable mode for Windows which works fine. The Linux version also working fine on a USB device. The trick comes when you want both. XP doesn't like any Linux formats, and Linux can't execute from a FAT (using VFAT32 LBA) volume, because FAT doesn't support marking the file as executable, unless you edit your default in /etc/fstab, or mount the filesystem manually, which I *think* would be a problem if I don't have root on an unknown system.

So, that brings me to my current direction: multiple partitions on the USB drive. A VFAT32 LBA partition first, so Windows is happy recognizing and loading portable applications, an EXT3 partition for portable Linux apps, then another VFAT32 LBA partition where the whole volume is encrypted, getting around the 4GB FAT file limit problem for the container.

This should work in theory, I am in the process of trying it. Once successful, I would like to also add the ability to run a Linux live from the USB device as well, which I am not positive how to deal right now, that would get back into the EXT vs FAT on first partition problem.

This toolbox will be primarily for work, where I do have root and enterprise admins on all machines, but I don't want to assume that I have it if a machine is not acting normally, or if I need to assist someone outside my area.


My question here is: has anyone done this before, or have any input? Google, duckduckgo, Bing searching hasn't brought back much. I just don't want to reinvent the wheel if there is a known method but I just failed at search terms and couldn't find.

1 Live linux if possible
2 linux 'portable apps' (execute from USB)
3 Windows 'portable apps'
4 encrypted container or volume, greater than 4GB if possible

 

[levk]

Fresh kernels support NTFS - why bother with FAT.

If I was doing this I'd install Linux on entire USB drive on an encrypted LVM partition and then use VirtualBox for XP. Mount shared folders in VirtualBox for shared storage.

Do you actually get XP to play nice plugging it into some other computer entirely? This part has been hit or miss. It'll continue to get more difficult too since Microsoft no longer supports it you'll have to continually get new drivers for everything you ever plug the drive into. Or you could sidestep the problem entirely with virtualization.