Installing software on external storage

[hisholyhighness]

Hello All!

I have attached a 16GB USB stick as external storage for a website I want to host from my Pi.
I have install the Flask web framework onto it too. I can imagine installing more Python
libraries in the future.

Considering the limited storage space on the Pi, is there a way to specify
a default 'installation' directory on the USB stick or any external storage so as not to clog up the Pi

Ideally I want to do a

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install something

or a

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pip install something

and for any library or dependency to automatically be installed on the default folder I specify on the USB
stick.

Please advise

[DougieLawson]

It doesn't work like that.

Software you install is variously stored in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin /usr/local/bin or /usr/local/sbin. Libraries you install are stored in /lib /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib.

To move stuff to a USB stick you'd need to move a whole filesystem. That could be / (root) /usr /lib /bin or /usr/local. Doing that for the root filesystem is well documented.

[cpc464]

Also there should be plenty of space on the SD card for installing stuff. If you are running out, perhaps consider getting a bigger card, expanding your installation to fill the current card if that has not already been done, or moving application data onto alternative storage.

For example if you had a pi camera taking pictures and putting them in /var/www or whatever, change it to put them on a usb stick instead.

[FTrevorGowen]

Whilst @DougieLawson is correct w.r.t. software locations for "packaged" software installed via apt-get, pip etc. it's not necessarily the case for software built (re-compiled) from source. Where makefiles are in use, such may allow the install destination directory to be somewhere else than the "standard place". Whether one should do so is another matter.

Also there should be plenty of space on the SD card for installing stuff. If you are running out, perhaps consider getting a bigger card, expanding your installation to fill the current card if that has not already been done, or moving application data onto alternative storage.
For example if you had a pi camera taking pictures and putting them in /var/www or whatever, change it to put them on a usb stick instead.

+1 especially for using the USB stick for data storage - this is more or less what I do with my original, B1, Pi on which I run a wiki, based on a USB stick, to generate and export the "Raspberry Pi parts" of my webpages.
Trev.

[hisholyhighness]

Thanks, understand the situation and limitations clearly now