The Raspberry Pi family typically boots from an SD card plugged to the system. To avoid SD card lifetime issues, these systems can run from an connected USB resp. USB disk stick or – on some Pi derivatives – from an onboard eMMC flash memory.
Lifetime issues may occur from the fact that the number of write cycles to SD cards are much lower than to USB sticks/disks or eMMC. Additionally, systems often boot quicker from USB resp. eMMC compared to a plugged SD card.
Photos of SBCs with different block devices attached
At best, you can start with the USB device resp. a removable eMMC card) by flashing DietPi directly to this.
In case of an already running system, there may be the need of moving this running system to a different location: This blog describes how to move your system to a USB stick/disk or to the onboard eMMC.
DietPi is a lightweight Debian based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems, with the option to install desktop environments, too. It ships as minimal image but allows to install complete and ready-to-use software stacks with a set of console based shell dialogs and scripts.
The project released the new version DietPi v8.1 on February 5th, 2022.
The highlights of this version are:
A new image for Hardkernel's Odroid N2(+) SBC has been generated, which is now based on the mainline kernel Linux 5.10, built by Armbian, updated to next LTS 5.15 soon.
A new image generation method, powered by debootstrap and own U-Boot configurations, allows for cleaner and more consistent U-Boot based SBC images in the future.
The DietPi drive manager and backup tools received enhanced dialogs and process indications.
The DietPi software installation tool got some general enhancements regarding cgroups for container platforms like Docker, K3s and the upcoming MicroK8s, as well as IPv6 and nf_tables support for iptables, used by VPN servers, WiFi and Tor hotspot implementations.
At best, you can start with the USB device resp. a removable eMMC card) by flashing DietPi directly to this. In case of an already running system, there may be the need of moving this running system to a different location: This blog describes how to move your system to a USB stick/disk or to the onboard eMMC.