[tlug] Fishing for USB linux suggestions

[Raedwolf Sumner <rarooam@example.com>]

I would like to have Xfce Linux Mint 20 on a USB thumb drive. Not just a live linux, but an OS that I can update and use on any computer. To do so, I have repeatedly tried to format a 64 Gb thumb drive (tried 3 different USBs, actually) in two partitions so that I can have a live OS that I can update. So far, I've tried several times (on each USB) with GParted as well as with KDE partitionmanager. I can format the drives as ext 4 with a single partition. What I cannot do is shrink the partition and create a second partition. Every attempt ends in a failure message. Is the problem the USB disk size? The only other sizes I have on hand are a couple really limited (2 Gb) drives that are too small, and a couple of 128 Gb drives that I already have data on and don't want to format. Is there a program that will handle all this automatically?