• Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Topic: easy persistence on 8GB?

hey hey,
i read many threads here about linux on usb with persistence and it seems there are at least 3 different ways to achieve this:

1. install to usb from live-CD http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … ce-solved/
2. live-USB with persinstance-partition http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … e-usb-key/
3. installation via lili (linuxliveusb on windoze) http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

ok, ok.
i fuzzled around with all 3 methods and broke one usb-drive. in the end i only managed version 3 (lili) to work, but:
it only takes 4GB for system+persistence which is a bit, hmmm, small as i wanted to update the system and the drive was full then...

however, here's the plan:
i'd like to make a "computer, internet & all the other stuff"-workshop for 6th-8th-graders on my kids school.
they have a very nice computer room with 16 machines running windoze xp (1,6GHz - 1GB ram).
so i'd like to create 16 usb-sticks with linux mint lxde (tweaked a bit, with LibreOffice & stuff) as edubuntu, sugar & quimo won't suite here.
i'll have to add a language (german) and would like the usb-drives to be capable of updates.
that's why i'd like to use at least 8GB-sticks.
and it shall be an installation on usb, not a live-system (pupils shall not be able to install this anywhere accidentially)

so, here's the questions:
which method would you suggest?
would this one work: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/113601/#p113601 ?
anything i should beware of?
what about grub & stuff like this?

is it possible to just copy the content of one working usb-stick to 15 others (given they're all partitioned the same way)? or would i have to do this 16 times?

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • From: Venezuela
  • Registered: 2011-07-17
  • Posts: 23

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

> would this one work: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/113601/#p113601 ?

Yes.

I installed CrunchBang on a 16 GiB Sandisk just for more data space and smaller physical size. Had it running on an 8 GiB stick before with no problems, except the 8 gig stick was physically too wide for easy use. I have done it with 4 GiB sticks which also worked fine.

Install to the USB stick as if it were a hard disk. It will behave as a normal installation. Persistence is a given. You could mount a local hard disk for additional storage or access with a bit more configuring.

I'd use fsarchiver to put the original setup on all the other sticks.

1. Set up one stick with everything needed or desired.
. . I used 300 Gib swap, and all the rest / with ext4.
. . If you feel flash drive life is a problem use ext2.
2. Create an fsarchiver image.
. . Run fsarchiver with no parameters and it will list some usage tips.
3. Restore the image onto the other sticks, one by one.
. . you'll probably need to reboot each one and run "# update-grub"
. . to get it to boot correctly.
4. And of course you need to change the bios in each computer
. . if you want it to boot preferentially from the USB stick.

regards.

PS: Some interesting info here: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/121718/#p121718

Last edited by Richard (2011-08-24 13:41:43)

Core 2 Duo : #!-Statler,  SalineOS
AcerAspire1: #!-Statler,  WinXP
ThinkCentre: SalineOS, Peppermint
Pre-school computers: 3-P4, 2-P3 w/ DoudouLinux
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

thanks, richard for the advise!

wooohooo - i didn't expect it to be so easy, but it was!
the mint (lxde) installer worked like a charm and i was able to install everything i wanted to the 8 GB drive, all updates done, full persistence and still 4 GB free for personal data... yeah!

next thing is to try the fsarchiver-thing.
let's see how things turn out...

btw. i'm still curious how this installation will work on a 1 GB Ram machine, but... never say never!

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • From: Venezuela
  • Registered: 2011-07-17
  • Posts: 23

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

> btw. i'm still curious how this installation will work on a 1 GB Ram machine, but... never say never!

It works fine on my AcerAspire1 w/ 1GB RAM, running #!-Statler w/Xfce from USB pendrive.
Still, I try to not keep idle apps open. smile

Last edited by Richard (2011-08-25 20:46:56)

Core 2 Duo : #!-Statler,  SalineOS
AcerAspire1: #!-Statler,  WinXP
ThinkCentre: SalineOS, Peppermint
Pre-school computers: 3-P4, 2-P3 w/ DoudouLinux
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

that sounds promising!
will test this soon...

thank you very much, Richard!


EDIT: it felt a bit queasy to start my working machine (#!) from a usb-drive running mint-lxde installing it to another usb-drive - but these installers nowadays are really nice to human beings...

Last edited by beadmaze (2011-08-25 11:24:51)

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

i wondered if it is possible to create a seperate FAT-partition on such an usb-drive, too - just to be able to also use it as a normal thumbdrive on, let's say windoze-computers...
as there's more than 3GiB free space it should be possible, but: would that work?
would it still boot?
i fear to break this beautiful little piece of digital art in which i had put very much time to configure (linux mint is still very strange to get used to...), so what would you suggest?

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

one more question:  i just recently re-installed statler with cryptsetup like it's shown here: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … partition/
would it be possible to apply this here?

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • From: Dusk Till Dawn
  • Registered: 2009-07-02
  • Posts: 4,431

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

beadmaze,
to answer the original question:
there are two ways (of persitent USB install) I know of which will work. One is indeed the creation of a casper-rw (and dd the iso there) and a fat32 partition (smaller than 4GB, if I remember right) on the USB stick - I have used this method for a Knoppix install once, and of course for aptosid (http://manual.aptosid.com/en/hd-install-opts-en.htm -> persist)
The other one is the new LiLi USB Installer, as you posted.
The only limitation for persistent installs (I know of) is that dist-upgrades will not work - or yes, they will work, but all the things which have to do with kernel upgrades, or initramfs will cause problems. I had to make dirty manipulations on some post-install files, which is obviously not recommended smile
About cryptsetup - no idea, sorry smile

Nothing right in the left brain. Nothing left in the right brain.
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

machinebacon,
yes i fuzzled around with these methods but found out that it's the easiest way to install directly onto the usb-stick like it's "explained" here: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/113601/#p113601 smile
there's no problem with fat32 or updates - everything works like it should.
i'm wondering if it is possible to add a fat32-partition to such an installation (on usb-stick).
and i think i'll just try to set it up with cryptsetup, once i'm going to re-do it...

another thought that flashed through my noobie-brain was: would it be possible to install to a DVD-RW?
let's say i'll take an 8 GB DVD-RW (if such a thing is available at all) and install on it.
will it be usable?
will it be slow as hell due to read/write-speed?

p.s. off off topic: machinebacon, is there any way to buy you a beer?

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • Awebb
  • #! Die-hard
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-07-23
  • Posts: 2,473

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

You can't (AFAIK) write to a DVD-RW session unless the device is unmounted. You'd need to unload the system to write back your data.

If you need a versatile mobile OS, I suggest you do one of the following:

- Install crunchbang normally on a USB stick, complete with grub. Use UUID's in your /etc/fstab (board search for UUID should give you clues).
- Have a look at Tiny Core, it's made with such a flexibility in mind and uses a very versatile way of dealing with software, as you install software by mounting a small image file per application. Your data folders are handled like this as well, you can decide on every boot, whether you want "your" system or a fresh one.

Really, the classic persistant live linux is hackish, eats space everytime you update and it reduces the available life cycles of your USB stick drastically.

Things that should not point at the USB stick:
- /tmp
- Most stuff in /var

I'm so meta, even this acronym
  • From: Dusk Till Dawn
  • Registered: 2009-07-02
  • Posts: 4,431

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

beadmaze wrote:

i'm wondering if it is possible to add a fat32-partition to such an installation (on usb-stick).

p.s. off off topic: machinebacon, is there any way to buy you a beer?

@create fat32: i would simply try it with gparted.
@beer: thanks, how comes? big_smile As I have given up alcohol, you could donate the value @corenominal smile

Nothing right in the left brain. Nothing left in the right brain.
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

Awebb, thanks a lot for clarifying that DVD-RW won't work - that'll save me a DVD and a mental confusion.

also thanks for pointing me in the direction of UUID's - will look into that...

tiny core is really strange [haven't noticed this before - whew!], but won't work within a workshop for 7th+8th graders and me not knowing how things work...

the other thing is life cycles.
Awebb, could you explain what "drastically" means in terms of numbers?
i mean: how long will such a persistant usb-installation live?
the estimated usage for those is not exceeding 2 hours a day for at least a year with all dist-upgrades [distro will be mint 12 rc] - will that work or will they die after 2 weeks?
any forecasts?
somewhere i read that dying flash-memories are still readable but just not writeable - does that matter here?

Richard has already posted this one http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … ate-drive/ which also inlcudes something with UUIDs.
a question that came up while reading:
- do i need to create a swap partition at all when i'm going to install on a usb-drive?


machinebacon!
i'll try gparted as soon as i decided to re-create the original.
haven't yet tried fsarchiver so there are many questions [such as this cryptsetup] that just wait for trial & error...

@beer it was kind of a snap afflatus to buy you a beer while reading the help-thread, can't really explain... now i have to do it, whether you quit alcohol or not: there are great non-alcoholic beers, not to forget malzbier
will PM you about this

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • Awebb
  • #! Die-hard
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-07-23
  • Posts: 2,473

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

@flash lifespan: I have no numbers on the flash issue. It really depends on the particular stick you buy.
@choice of mechanism: If you intent to dist-upgrade the sticks, stay away from caspar-rw and alikes, you'll run out of space after a week.
@swap: Just ignore swap. You don't really NEED a swap partition. Make sure the machines come with enough RAM.
@7/8 graders: I used to be a teacher for a while. I wouldn't even let my 7th graders near anything that runs on electricity, so I know what you mean.
@beer: He didn't stop drinking, he moved to China. Since a normal human being can't keep up with their drinking habits, skipping the wet throat part is the only way to avoid poverty, especially in business.

I'm so meta, even this acronym
  • From: Dusk Till Dawn
  • Registered: 2009-07-02
  • Posts: 4,431

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

@beer: the stuff here barely qualifies as demineralized water - I'd kill for my daily dose of Karamalz, though big_smile
@swap: agree, you don't need a swap on USB
@dist-upgrade: I wouldn't guarantee the installation remains useable after dist-upgrades, so better wait until Lisa comes out (the RC needs an upgrade of ~70 MB, and it will be more, as they have to iron out the inconsistencies with MATE) - or use some Puppy.

Nothing right in the left brain. Nothing left in the right brain.
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

i can now testify that mint 12rc needs at least 1 GB Ram to be installed [as it fatally failed to install on my old 756MB Ram testing machine].
trial & error, next round.
now the plan is to install it to usb drive (8GB) and goes on with pulling out 2 of the 3 GB from my working machine to see how it looks like.
the other option is LMDE, then.

thanks so far Awebb & Machinebacon!
@flash lifespan: i'll watch out for sticks with good read/write-speed and will "poweruse" my prototype in the next weeks to see if it breaks somehow...
@disk upgrades / choice of mechanism: i can recommend installing any distro directly onto an usb stick - it's pretty easy and does dist-upgrades without any hassle [with 8 GB it's important to clean apt, but there's bleachbit which does this very well]
@swap: ok, swap is going to be swapped for user-space smile
@create fat32: it simply just works to do this with gparted - great!
@/tmp & most stuff in /var pointing somewhere else: any hints where to point those? [if this has to do with UUIDs i will find that out or ask elsewhere :]
@7/8graders: i think i'll do a polll here what #!ers think is the most important thing "normal 7/8graders" should learn about computing in general - as everybody i asked yet tells me something different...
@beer: it seems it's too difficult / impossible to send beer to china [if not importing hectolitres], so it's about to find other ways to get some excellent malzbier into machinebacon's hand/stomach...

Last edited by beadmaze (2011-11-22 21:26:58)

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

there's another thing that i'm not sure how to solve:

ok, i'm installing mint debian onto an 16GB usb thumbdrive (sandisk).
fine (updates & everything work fine).

how do i prevent the pupils to wipe off their parents HDD?
they should be able to boot on every device they want to: at grandmas computer and at their friends laptop, in school and at their parents PC.
is there any way to disable automount for HDDs, or better to totally hide internal HDDs?
they should be able to automount other USB-devices (e.g. external HDDs or other USB thumbdrives), but not the internal one...
maybe i'd have to create another account for auto-login.
but they should still be able to install software & stuff.
everything except internal HDDs on different devices.

hu?

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • From: A kingdom in transition
  • Registered: 2011-06-24
  • Posts: 2,137

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

I am on #! November 2011 and this is the content of file /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->

<!-- 
  Some examples how to use hal fdi files for system preferences 
  You can either uncomment the examples here or put them in a seperate .fdi
  file.
-->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<!-- 
  The following shows how to hint gnome-volume-manager and other programs 
  that honor the storage.automount_enabled_hint to not mount non-removable
  media.
-->
<!--
  <device>
    <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
      <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
        <merge key="storage.automount_enabled_hint" type="bool">false</merge>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>
-->
</deviceinfo>

Seems to me that uncommenting this section will provide exactly what you want.
I have not tried this myself, but I would be interested to know if it works.

hth

If you poke the bear it is going to come after you.
  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

xaos52!
well, wow - this looks really interesting, indeed!
this file does exist in mint debian too, the only thing is: i'm not sure how to "uncomment" it?!
usually uncommenting for me means to delete "#" from the initial position of a line.
but there's no # in this file.

what i tried was to edit it like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->

<!-- 
  Some examples how to use hal fdi files for system preferences 
  You can either uncomment the examples here or put them in a seperate .fdi
  file.
-->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<!-- 
  The following shows how to hint gnome-volume-manager and other programs 
  that honor the storage.automount_enabled_hint to not mount non-removable
  media.
-->

  <device>
    <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
      <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
        <merge key="storage.automount_enabled_hint" type="bool">false</merge>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>

</deviceinfo>

but that didn't work.

sorry for being a bit noobie here, but: how can one uncomment this?

thanks in advance!
and thanks a lot xaos for pointing me to this file!
[i'm confident i wouldn't have the chance to find it myself]

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar
  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2010-07-02
  • Posts: 1,272

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

The file you are looking at is an XML file. XML comments start with 

<!--

and end with 

-->

you will have to delete both the start and end tags to "uncomment" something properly. If you don't get it, there's an example here.

  • Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 284

Re: easy persistence on 8GB?

thanks a lot mynis01!

unforunately it doesn't work.
as you can see in my post below i already tried it, somehow...

i tried to set up a new user profile with some restrictive rights but that didn't work either.
i think i'm gonna ask in the mint forums for advise [haven't asked anything there befere, yet] as they should know how things work.

however, i'm not trying this on my #!-machine as it will cause me more trouble, i think.

#noobs

Last edited by beadmaze (2012-01-30 22:44:44)

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of  milk, 3 tbs water, 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 apple, few grains of salt
Preheat your pan or griddle to about medium heat. Slowly combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, work in sliced apple. Each pancake should take about a minute or so on each side. Serve with plum jam, maple syrup, or powdered sugar