Saving changes in bootable USB with persistence [Solved]

[meet]

How you would do this depends on whether your computer uses UEFI or has a legacy BIOS system as the boot screen varies slightly between the two. If booting with UEFI the default selection of the live USB boot menu will be something like "MX Customize Boot" which will take you through several submenus where you will select your keyboard, locale, time zone, and persistence settings. If booting with legacy BIOS there will be, at the bottom of the boot menu screen, a row listing several function keys that will allow you to set the same settings (F5 being the one for persistence.)

Hey. Thanks. The instructions are good to point me in the right direction. Now I've created a persistence storage.

Hi meet!
From your questions it seems like you are just starting out with MX and need some guidance at the basic level. To make sure we know where you stand ...

1. You seem to have said that you already made a live USB with MX 19.1 on it and that it is capable of persistence. Correct? By the way, what is the size of your USB. Since you want to continue to use the USB for an extended duration it is a good idea to have a stick large enough to do the remaster procedure and to save some data. A 32 or 64GB stick would be nice although you can get by with a 16.

2. If you have made your live USB w/ persistence, then as JayM says watch this runwiththedolphin video "antix mx 19 live usb configuration". It talks about making selections for persistence and covers Legacy boot and UEFI boot. After making your selections make sure you choose to SAVE those settings. To keep things simple I suggest you use persist_static as the method of saving changes to your system automatically and in real time (that is, not when you shut down).

3. You can change the user name and password from demo to whatever you like with the MX User Manager found in the applications Menu. You can also add other user accounts and change the root password.

Hello

My USB size is 4GB. And no, I had only created a bootable USB. Now with the instructions by JayM, I could boot into persistence mode with Root persistence of 500 mb and home persistence of 500 mb.

I've changed the root password and created a new user. But I'm yet to test if it works.

Sorry I don't have any other USB of higher size.
I'm using this as a portable OS to work over cloud only. I don't need to store anything in my USB other than what is required for that particular session.

I hope this will work for my purpose. Pls suggest your views.

Thanks for all the help guys.

[JayM]

The only thing I would suggest is that if you let MX install any updates or upgrades, or if you install any additional applications, you immediately run MX Tools --> MX RemasterCC afterward. This will write everything that's in your root persistence file into the squash file system then prompt you to create a new root persistence file. If you don't do this your small 500MB persistence files can become filled up, leaving no more room for persistence to work. Even so, a 4GB USB drive is really too small but I suppose you have to make do with what you have, right? Must needs.

[meet]

The only thing I would suggest is that if you let MX install any updates or upgrades, or if you install any additional applications, you immediately run MX Tools --> MX RemasterCC afterward. This will write everything that's in your root persistence file into the squash file system then prompt you to create a new root persistence file. If you don't do this your small 500MB persistence files can become filled up, leaving no more room for persistence to work. Even so, a 4GB USB drive is really too small but I suppose you have to make do with what you have, right? Must needs.

Yeah. For the time being, I'll have to make it work with 4GB. Bt thanks for that suggestion of remaster. I'll check it out.

Hey can you tell me what's the difference between root and home persistence?

[JayM]

Root persistence is where newly-installed apps and updates to existing apps go. Home persistence is where saved data and per-user changes to apps' configurations go, and also such things as MX configuration changes (wallpapers, themes,the panel and so on.)

[dolphin_oracle]

With that small a usb I would go with root persistence only.

[anticapitalista]

With that small a usb I would go with root persistence only.

Also forget about remastering, you won't have enough space.

[m_frank]

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You can get USB sticks pretty economical these days.

I just took a look on Amazon, searching for:

Code: Select all

usb 3 stick 16gb

and the first item was:

Code: Select all

32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive  == $7.99 (reg $9.99)

It looks like one I've got (I also have a 64GB version) and they work fine.

[penguin]

With that small a usb I would go with root persistence only.

Also forget about remastering, you won't have enough space.

Sorry to reply in this post @anticapitalista.
Today I spend a lot of time to find a linux distro that one can use as backuper of anoher linux.
Saying simple. One has installed linux, but he needs to have backup of it, in case something going wrong. The best, uncomplicated way that I judge is: Boot machine from a live linux distro (lets consider it - antix live usb) and make a backup of installed linux distro on his machine (can be anyone) on a separate partition of machine. One expert user can complete it using dd command in terminal, or rsync. If something has gone wrong, he can boot from live linux usb and by dd or rsync can restore back the damaged system. Personally I have resolved this problem times ago. I have 2 or 3 linux in my machine so I can backup and restore my linux systems from others. I use qt4-fsarchiver because, I have found it very simple gui. Times ago I have installed my MX Linux installed qt4-fsarchiver and snapshoted my MX Linux to a bootable USB. So, as I said, I have tried some live distros today, including Antix Linux . Since some time I did not experimented with MX Linux live. As I know MX Linux includes Lucky Backup in its Live Usb. Times ago I recommended author of Sparky Linux to include qt4-fsarchiver in Sparky live (remember that Sparky had included time ago , but I don't know status of this package in actual Sparky Live). I discovered that Antix Linux includes Partimage also Rsync, but i think that are not so easy for a novice user. The best way will be to include a simple gui interface of dd (like dd utility), qt4-fstarchiver, or maybe a self made of simple gui (maybe in yad or zenity) of fsarchiver or gnome-disk. I tried to install by my self gnome-disk in Antix Live with persistence activated from boot but I did not arrived to save it in Antix Live Usb, maybe because created live usb by Mint Usb instead of MX Linux Usb Creator, that has a function of Full Featured Mode.
The only live distro that I found easy usable was Ubuntu Mate that has gnome-disk utility included and someone can image partitions easily (easy gui).

Why a prefer qt4-fsarchiver ? Because I can restore a backup in a partition that has a size different with original one, also fsarchiver produce a zipped image . dd command or gnome-disk cause troubles when the the size of the restored partition is different from original . But for restore and backup of/to original partitions the dd and gnome-disk goes fine.

Sorry that I used this thread for my request or my objections. Will be worthy to have a simple gui for Antix or MX Linux Live USB that backup and restore partitions .

[anticapitalista]

@penguin - qt4-fsarchiver is not in Debian repos and the sourceforge site says it is no longer supported (but this is off-topic, make a separate thread if you want to continue the discussion)

[Caesar2]

User meet isn't the only one having this exact same issue. I hope the answers provided work for me too. The vagueness of the issue has caused a lot of stress and wasted time and resources. Maybe now resolution is possible. Thanks.