Full live distribution ISO's can be prepared on a FAT32 stick and booted using Syslinux rather than the Isolinux bootloader used for the "DVD".
Or you can use GRUB for an EXTx type volume instead of FAT32.
Some of the major distributions are about 4GB now, and with most PC's having 4GB or more of memory, once booted the whole thing runs from memory, often with no default ability for further routine user reads or writes to the live stick once booted.
Alternatively the distribution of choice can be installed to a blank formatted stick instead of an internal drive. Instead of run live from the USB where there is no default persistence to any apps you may "install" while booted live.
It's not really that slow any more, the initial full write to the stick is usuallly the only frustrating time-consuming operation.
Booting to the stick is also slower than booting to an internal drive, often not by much though, and once booted there is so much that then runs from memory, there are not that many additional reads or writes to push through the USB bottleneck.
Get yourself a full-performance USB 3.x stick, something like Sandisk Extreme and a full size distribution will boot just as fast as something mini on a cheap USB3.0 stick:
These minis would boot reeally fast on a full-performance stick like that.
Window To Go also does quite well once booting it from the stick has taken place. The latest Windows 10 32-bit ISO when deployed in CompactOS mode only takes up less than 4GB and it boots just as fast from a stick as a full Linux of the same size. Compared to Linux there is some lag in some operations since Windows does a lot more reads & writes during operation than Linux usually needs. Unfortunately there's been no new W10 ISO in quite some time, so the first Windows Update makes it use more than two additional GB of storage. Still takes up only a little more than 1GB of RAM for W10x32 if you push in that direction, but 32-bit can only properly access somewhat less than 4GB of RAM no matter how much memory you have in excess of that. This may be enough free memory for many uses still these days though.
Even Windows 11 to Go without using compactOS, which uses about 20GB of drive storage to start with, runs just as good once booted. It just takes that much more time proportionately when booting to transfer more GB from the stick to the memory before you reach the deaktop.
Or you can use GRUB for an EXTx type volume instead of FAT32.
Some of the major distributions are about 4GB now, and with most PC's having 4GB or more of memory, once booted the whole thing runs from memory, often with no default ability for further routine user reads or writes to the live stick once booted.
Alternatively the distribution of choice can be installed to a blank formatted stick instead of an internal drive. Instead of run live from the USB where there is no default persistence to any apps you may "install" while booted live.
It's not really that slow any more, the initial full write to the stick is usuallly the only frustrating time-consuming operation.
Booting to the stick is also slower than booting to an internal drive, often not by much though, and once booted there is so much that then runs from memory, there are not that many additional reads or writes to push through the USB bottleneck.
Get yourself a full-performance USB 3.x stick, something like Sandisk Extreme and a full size distribution will boot just as fast as something mini on a cheap USB3.0 stick:
https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library...
These minis would boot reeally fast on a full-performance stick like that.
Window To Go also does quite well once booting it from the stick has taken place. The latest Windows 10 32-bit ISO when deployed in CompactOS mode only takes up less than 4GB and it boots just as fast from a stick as a full Linux of the same size. Compared to Linux there is some lag in some operations since Windows does a lot more reads & writes during operation than Linux usually needs. Unfortunately there's been no new W10 ISO in quite some time, so the first Windows Update makes it use more than two additional GB of storage. Still takes up only a little more than 1GB of RAM for W10x32 if you push in that direction, but 32-bit can only properly access somewhat less than 4GB of RAM no matter how much memory you have in excess of that. This may be enough free memory for many uses still these days though.
Even Windows 11 to Go without using compactOS, which uses about 20GB of drive storage to start with, runs just as good once booted. It just takes that much more time proportionately when booting to transfer more GB from the stick to the memory before you reach the deaktop.