• chepdamona@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Adding on to other suggestions, if you’re not aware of Ventoy it’s a very handy tool. Using it you can have a USB drive with several live images on it which you can choose at boot time. Great for quick testing, just drop an ISO in a folder!

  • bamboo@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve gotten good mileage out of just an Ubuntu live image. If the network is working you can install packages via apt like normal, but they include a lot of the basics already.

  • c0mpost@lemmy.eco.br
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m not sure I know what you mean by diagnosing, but it’s usually a good idea to use the same distro you’re having trouble with.

    • kylian0087@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well arch is one psrticulair i would not keep on a USB. The issue comes when you need to use it after some months. And it is then very outdated

  • aion@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    depends on what you are looking for. grml and kali are linux distros that focus on diagnosing.

    • Case@unilem.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Kali was built out as a penetration testing distro, though it does contain some diagnostic tools.

      Not a bad place to start if you’re used to Debian, but it is a rolling release so it may break unexpectedly, or have new bugs introduced with each update.

      A persistent USB with just Debian could have all the same tools installed but have a longer support scope on releases so you don’t have to update daily (bleeding edge) which is nice to reduce read/writes to the flash drive it’s on.

      That being said, I keep a Kali live image (persistent) but thats becauae its home - my first introduction to Linux was 5 minutes with Red Hat, but aside from a brief intro in highschool, I really started with Linux in Backtrack, offensive security’s predecessor to Kali.

      Yes, I have to learn things the hard way lol.

  • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Console ArchLinux every time. Create a USB instance and then load up what you need.

    You don’t need a GUI.

    • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      You don’t need a GUI.

      Thanks for your opinion, but you don’t get to decide what I need. I wanted a simple distro that I was familiar with, so that I could teach it to someone with basic computer knowledge. Teaching how to use a terminal was outside the scope.