Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

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dolphin_oracle
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Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#1 Post by dolphin_oracle »

MX Linux 17: Make a live-USB with Persistence.

with special guest Mrs. Oracle! :happy:
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

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richb
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#2 Post by richb »

Very good. I particularly liked the questions Mrs. Oracle asked as a non-Linux user. It helped make the video more illuminating for novice users. Give her my thanks.
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asqwerth
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#3 Post by asqwerth »

That was a fun video!
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Gaer Boy
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#4 Post by Gaer Boy »

That's a great video - the double-act makes it. It really shows the value of having a questioner who doesn't know the system but knows the right questions to ask.

More, please.

Phil

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aderyntân
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#5 Post by aderyntân »

Hello,

I'm new to both Linux & Live-USB-OS. And have encountered a problem in setting up a functional stick.

I used Rufus to create a bootable USB stick (Pink16GB).
From a live-session, I then used 'Live-USB Maker' to create a further MX17 Live-USB installation (Blue16GB).

I then rebooted to MX, choosing only 'persistence_static' [rootfs=5GB ; homefs=remainingGB] & 'password'.

(each time during start-up the stick/s weren't automatically recognised by My win10-PC, but via selecting from 'ESC' startup menu)

Other than boot device recognition, I believe all went well with the 2 sessions

I updated when asked via the onscreen notification (which took 40mins+).
Anyway, after a 2 hour session using mainly the web browser & playing with the panel and desktop look, including unsuccessfully adding photo files to the system backgrounds folder, I 'shutdown'.
After waiting momentarily I turned the PC back on, again using 'ESC' to initiate MX.
This time it returned various errors as the scripts progressed, eventually finishing on the CLI, at some point i think i noticed a line saying 'device full'.
The machine was turned off, USB removed and normal service restored.

Have i made a mistake in setting the homefs to large ?

Do i need to re-make with Live-USB Maker ?

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dolphin_oracle
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#6 Post by dolphin_oracle »

I'm going to guess that you ran out of room during the update.

When persistense files are used, a copy is made of whatever file changed from the original systen linuxfs file to the rootFS file. Meaning if a lot changes, you can fill a persistence file pretty quick during a major update.

It's either that for some some reason your home folder is full, which would prevent certain apps from starting, including the desktop.


***I just reread your post, and I see you used Rufus. What file system is the stick formated? A new stick would default to "fat32" which can't support files larger than 4gb.
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
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FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

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aderyntân
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#7 Post by aderyntân »

Ok, persistense files can cause stress :) understood, thanks for explanation.

Nothing was created or added to the home folders, unless homefs is used by the system for anything else ?

Rufus was used to create the initial USB-stick, i believe it was formatted as FAT32, but it booted into a live session ok (persistence wouldn't enable, but i had asked for 5GB-root+6GB-home files). From there i started 'Live-USB Maker', using it to author the second USB stick, with the January update snapshot 'MX-17_January_x64.iso'.

Is it worth re-authoring Blue-stick with 32 bit version. I could then do the initial start-up (inc updates) on a 2007 laptop running LinuxLite3.6, utilising persistence frugal_all.
Shouldn't that reduce any potential sizing problems with rootfs and conflict problems with My win10PC ?

Also is Live-USB Maker available to run on other Distros, namely LinuxLite ?
If so i could author blue-USB via the laptop.

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dolphin_oracle
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#8 Post by dolphin_oracle »

I would remake the blue stick, but use a much larger root persistence file. You don't really need a huge home folder, mostly because we also have a "Live-USB Storage" link in the home folder that will access the remainder of the usb stick's storage. So if you have any larger files, like movies or photos, stash them there, and leave the actual home persistence file for settings and documents, which tend to be small.

On my live sticks I usually go with a min. 6gb rootfs file, and whatever the system offers as default for the home folder.

even then after major updates, you will want to do a "remaster" which will take the root persistence files and consolidate it into a new default filesystem. This is great when installing apps as well, as you can roll everything up together, and get new root persistence files afterwards. This video may be of interest to you: https://youtu.be/LpI_a4xPKdM I'm on antiX in this video, but the process is the same (exactly the same tools are used). You do need to leave some space on the usb stick for the remaster, which the default persistence setup settings try to take into account.

Pro-tip: when you clone a remastered live-USB, you get anything that has been consolidated by the remaster as well. This is great for making additional usb sticks, or backup sticks, or whatever, with any apps you might want. I keep one with all my video stuff setup up and ready to go. Makes a reinstall about a 15 minute affair, with no additional apps to install afterwards. :happy:

frugal has the same persistence files as the liveUSB. Its just on the harddrive. While you are getting your feet wet, I would run just on the usb.
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

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aderyntân
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Re: Video: MX Linux 17 - Make a live-USB with persistence

#9 Post by aderyntân »

Was expecting wet feet, but thought it'd be moore a coracle with shells by the C + a bit of
:surfing: :island:

Instead it's been môr an endless torrent of a script, wrecked on a bitly︴bash-crash.
Have re-authored the USB twice due to failures, along with altering a few bios settings and twice installing MX on one laptop, again due to failures.
Blue has now been up & running for 10 hours or so, & seems more stable with 'toram'.

I've had a quick look at the 'remaster' link (thanks), but I'm wondering, would taking a snapshot be less resource intensive on an Athlon 7750 with 4G-ddr2 ?
The system is sporadically 'freezing' at cpu-100%, I'm hoping to get a back-up, to 'preserve' the progress so far.
MX-Snapshot is returning
'-Used space on /(root): 4.3G
-Used space on /home: 323M
-Free space on /home, where snapshot folder is placed: 1.4G

The free space should be sufficient to hold the compressed data from / and /home'

I'm unsure of what the 'safest' route is from here.

Is it MX RemasterCC, MX Snapshot or Live-usb Maker (using clone sys).
Or would I be better off, shutting down and cloning it onto Pink using a proprietary tool such as clonezilla etc ?

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