At one time everyone knew what a “live” system was - it was a system
that booted from floppy/CD and ran entirely in memory.
At some point with USBs, this meaning was lost: I find the current use
meaningless.
Installing Qubes on a USB stick just provides Qubes on a stick. It
boots as normal, writes back to the stick, etc. It’s just Qubes booting
off a USB, and so somewhat slower.
You don’t call an install to a SSD “live”, so why an install on to USB?
Qubes Live runs entirely in memory, so it leaves no fingerprint. It can
run from DVD or USB. It’s portable and amnesic, like TAILS.
There are some deviations from standard Qubes : Tor, but no Whonix - far
too much of a hog; no logging - what would be the point? ; some extra
drivers; Debian based - naturally; no sys-usb.
@qqqlive - I hadnt realised that the 4.0 version had been removed - this
is because I’m working on 4.0.4 and 4.1, and I guess the folk at 3isec
pulled it in anticipation. I’ll see if it can be restored.