Experimental frugal install

[trawglodyte]

I'm going to attempt a frugal install based on info in this video --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKAWeX ... 3DPuh7m5R3 and this locked thread --> viewtopic.php?t=70627 while the author of that thread has a nice setup with /home in a different file, I think option3 dynamic rootfs only with dynamic persistence is for me. I am then going to disk manager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbBBKMa-QYc to mount ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Videos to another partition.

This may sound complicated, but I think (fingers crossed) is you wind up with an OS that loads the whole she-bang into RAM, but since those folders in the home directory are mount points they do read/write to disk as you go. It looks like I should be able to use mx-remastercc to write changes to disk whenever I choose. And also choose whether it writes changes to disk automatically on reboot/shutdown or not. (In my case I do not want it to write changes autmatically, only if I choose to do so)

This may be a minor quibble, but there are things in the home directory such as your firefox profile, and things like that I want to load into RAM. Also, keeping my files on a different partition gives me some inherent security and allows me to access them from any Linux distro I want to install. (They're already there, so if my install is successful, the folders in my home directory will instantly have everything in them that I currently have in those folders on every other Linux distro on my machine). Lastly, it reduces the size of rootfs leading to faster booting and saving, and I can save gobs and gobs of data in those folders without ever running out of RAM, only SSD space.

I'm really blown away that MX Linux has everything I need to do this IN the installation medium and a handy GUI. But, we'll see, it's very likely I'll find a way to screw it up and it may take several attempts to get it right as I learn and understand all the options better.

[thomasl]

I am then going to disk manager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbBBKMa-QYc to mount ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Videos to another partition.

This will work. My $HOME lives in a 512MB (yes, MB) homefs file with most directories pointing into other volumes (mostly VeraCrypt'ed ext4 partitions).

But, we'll see, it's very likely I'll find a way to screw it up and it may take several attempts to get it right as I learn and understand all the options better.

The persistence options have scope for screwing things up, BTDT But if you experiment, persevere (and do backups) you'll be amazed at the flexibility.

[trawglodyte]

@thomasl
Sometimes certain words are confusing to me, I don't know why. If I just think of persistence as being the same thing as save, will that be close enough? When people say persistence they mean writing to disk, is that right? So my first attempt failed, but I got to take a closer look at all the options, it seems like if I choose frugal_root or frugal_only it is looking for a partition or usb with antix-Frugal label. I gave it an ext4 partition with that label, but it's looking for files already on the partition.

So I think these options are not for install, but for people who want to boot from .iso and already have rootfs file or files saved somewhere. But if I boot the .iso without those options, the normal installer goes right to installing a file-system on a parition, so I need to find something else if I want to do a frugal install.

[trawglodyte]

I think the problem was I was booting the .iso from a grml-rescueboot folder in Debian. It booted fine and I could have done a regular file directory install, but the frugal installer didn't like whatever paramaters I was choosing and I tried a few different options. So I just made a usb installer with balena etcher and I got the frugal install made. We're rocking now! The Advanced Options I selected were

Persistence Options - frugal_root
Boot Options - checkfs toram from=usb hwclock=utc
Save Options - gfxsave

Then on reboot and getting the first rootfs
2 create custom
save - #2 semi-auto
8G filesize

notes - I'll get a conky going to monitor RAM use and try some things. Also there's a couple things like gfxsave I didn't know if I needed or wanted, I just picked it thinking it might give me more choices. And IDK about 8G filesize, I'll just have to try it and find out. Oh, and I'll have to find the utility and make sure I have the dynamic persistence and related settings correct, and check out the disk manager utility for fstab. But yah, I'm off to the races now, thanks for your help.

[BitJam]

Welcome!

I think the problem was I was booting the .iso from a grml-rescueboot folder in Debian. It booted fine and I could have done a regular file directory install, but the frugal installer didn't like whatever parameters I was choosing and I tried a few different options.

Yes, a frugal install won't work if you try to boot indirectly via an iso file. For us it is a small corner case that would add complexity and probably break other things. We still try to boot when called indirectly and provide options for doing that but for many of the special features a full featured live-usb is needed.

Also there's a couple things like gfxsave I didn't know if I needed or wanted, I just picked it thinking it might give me more choices.

The gfxsave feature will try to save your boot options in bootloader on the live-usb. Of courses, if your live-usb has a read-only file system then we can't save any changes to it. You can actually fix this by booting the read-only live-usb with the "toram" option and then run live-usb-maker. This will let you "clone" the live system you booted into back onto the boot usb but now it will be full featured on a read-write file system.

And IDK about 8G filesize, I'll just have to try it and find out. Oh, and I'll have to find the utility and make sure I have the dynamic persistence and related settings correct, and check out the disk manager utility for fstab. But yah, I'm off to the races now, thanks for your help.

I'm glad you got it to work! Most people use static persistence now. Dynamic was useful/needed for old slow usb-2 and usb-1 systems. You can choose between static persistence, dynamic persistence, and no persistence on every live boot so it should be easy to play around and find out what suits you best.

[trawglodyte]

The main thing is I want everything loaded into RAM except my files, and the disk manager utility is totally badass for creating the fstab that lets me read/write files on other partitions. I can confirm that. However, you can't have grub2 easily with a frugal install, and initramfs doesn't like it either. While I'm sure there are workarounds and so forth, I just want to try the persist options without the frugal install now.

I will say also, that I like to be able to go into the file file system and make changes from a different OS or live boot. Well, with a traditional file directory install this is easy to do. The flip-side of that is that if it's easy for me to do it, then it's easy for anyone to do it, and that shows you the inherent security of a frugal install. It's also guite easy to use multiple rootfs files, copy them, store them and so forth which in a very simple, albeit manual way accomplishes the same thing as multiple user accounts, backup/restore, and so forth.

So, yah, there's just some really cool stuff about a frugal install, and I might come back to it. But I want to try "normal" install and see if I can get that to load entirely into RAM and only write changes to disk when I want it to now. Maybe I'm giving up on the frugal install too easily, but I just think if there's several things you have to change to get it working, doesn't have grub in the way people are used to, and something as integral as initramfs doesn't like it. Then it's not going to be a practical option for many people.

# One last thing. While some of this tech is old and was abandoned as things changed, I think what is fairly new is RAM large enough to load an entire OS being affordable and common. I also want to put here that it was only a couple years ago I could put an OS on an HDD @150mb/s, or a 2.5"SSD @550mb/s. If a person booted one one day, and another the next, I don't know if they'd percieve a difference. Really, unless you are reading/writing something like 10G at once it is probably not something most people would "notice". But apps launching quicker, certain things being a bit snappier, and so on I believe is percieved on some subconscious level and people will just enjoy their OS more whether they can tell you exactly why that is or not. So now I have gen3 nvme drives which are 3,000mb/s and that's amazingly fantastic and I love it, but if I can put it in DDR4 2666 RAM which is approximately 21,000mb/s of course I want to do that.

[fehlix]

The main thing is I want everything loaded into RAM except my files,

that's perfectly doable. e.g with toram and persist_root and all data files on separate partitions.

and the disk manager utility is totally badass for creating the fstab that lets me read/write files on other partitions. I can confirm that.

Maybe give more details, why you think diskmanager is not working. As at least for me it works.
Maybe you want to choose another base-dir like /mnt instead of /media/...
b/c /media may be cleared after live-reboot.

However, you can't have grub2 easily with a frugal install, and initramfs doesn't like it either.

Frugal install places a grub.entry file under /antiX.../grub.entry,
which is a good starting point for an existing grub loader to be used,
e.g. when copied (or appended) to /boot/grub/custom.cfg

[trawglodyte]

and the disk manager utility is totally badass for creating the fstab that lets me read/write files on other partitions. I can confirm that.

Maybe give more details, why you think diskmanager is not working. As at least for me it works.

By "badass" I mean great. disk manager works exceptionally well. As far as grub, yes, getting the menu entry in the proper place of an existing grub will boot it fine. And the one it generates automatically was easy to find and worked perfectly without any changes, just copy/paste.

[fehlix]

and the disk manager utility is totally badass for creating the fstab that lets me read/write files on other partitions. I can confirm that.

Maybe give more details, why you think diskmanager is not working. As at least for me it works.

By "badass" I mean great. disk manager works exceptionally well. As far as grub, yes, getting the menu entry in the proper place of an existing grub will boot it fine. And the one it generates automatically was easy to find and worked perfectly without any changes, just copy/paste.

Ahh ok, thanks.
Anyway check the fstab, in case disk-manger has chosen the "old" style
/dev/sxyz device name entry
instead of
UUID=xxxx
Better replace with UUID=xxx, b/c the kernel might re-numerate the devices differently next boot, e.g when USB-sticks have been added or removed.
You get the UUID e.g. with

Code: Select all

lsblk -f

[Adrian]

Haven't tried frugal installation in a loooong time, does it add an entry to UEFI?