MX Linux Forum

When I was working my 8 year semi-retirement big box job as a tech I would always have a MX boot USB on me for two purposes:

1) To see instantly if an intake PC with a no boot complaint was indeed bootable. MX even flagged the odd boot controller failure!

2) like all retailers it was a revolving door of students, many in CS degree tracks at Princeton or Rutgers. Most were amazed of MX in ability and speed. I also ran it on the demo table on new models showing which ones supported Linux well.

I took advantage of the captive audience as closers all had to wait for the cash office closeout before we could leave.

Adrian wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 10:42 pm
No worries, it's not scientific research :) I was just curious how people are using it.

oh goodo :)

I was worried I had contaminated the results

I've been using MX as my main distro since version 16 and have created and used dozens of bootable Live USBs with it. I always boot and use it 'Live' and in that time have only installed it on one machine, for a friend. I modified GRUB to offer two Live boot modes: Full Persistence (persist_all) and Zero Persistence, a true kiosk mode where I can even remove the bootable flash drive if wanted.

I use this Zero-persist mode to test out new packages or updates or for the times I let the young grandkids or anyone else use the laptop and don't want to worry about the condition they leave it in, because NOTHING is saved to the flashdrive. And, because everything is copied to and run from RAM in this mode, it is fast, fast, fast.

In the Full-persist mode, any changes to home are saved in real time and, when shutting down, the choice is given to save or not save any root changes that might have taken place. Even this mode is plenty fast because whatever is run is cached along the way.

I like being able to keep the two (one for Data) micro USBs (Lexar S47) in a pill holder on my keychain when I leave the house without the laptop, given the ability to plug it in and run on almost any other computer.

Backing up, cloning or creating a system snapshot is quick and easy. By simply copying over the ~2GB linuxfs, 1GB rootfs and 1GB homefs files to another bootable drive, a second drive is all ready to go. And Snapshots can make a quick (<2min.) ISO backup as well.

I frankly haven't seen any reason to NOT continue using the Live mode due to the flexibility and performance it provides.

I use Live MX Linux whenever I need to manage disks and partitions.

richb wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2023 8:29 pm Once per month I make a snapshot of my installed system. Then make a live USB from the resulting iSO to keep a backup of my installed system.

+1
Also: How do I reply to the poll?

Looks like it was closed to further votes.

I'm a little late to this thread, but the ONLY way I use MX21 is as a live USB with persistence. Once loaded up it is as fast as an SSD in real world use.

I keep a half dozen usb sticks with MX21 installed on each one. Each burned at a different point in time, so I always have backups in case anything goes wrong, which it doesn't.

Great when at home. Perfect for travel because I can carry an entire customized operating system on a USB stick in my money belt. And if every single thing was stolen from where I am staying, I can buy a new laptop and be up and running just like before in about 60-seconds. Everything is on the USB stick, and encrypted.

So, please do NOT drop support for the MX most excellent live USB with persistence.

I agree with CharlesV about the type of selections.
I checked the radio button for half the time and while not strictly accurate, its the closest I could find.

My Daily driver is a full install and I keep two 128GB USB-SATA drives as a Live USB with persistence on hand for tasks that may otherwise require software changes to my machine. Each USB SATA flash drive is for different purposes, one for customer machines, the other for personal.

On my personal one, when I want to test something for usability or run a program I do not wish to keep on my daily driver, I use the Live-USB with persistence, but instead of logging into persistence, I do not choose it at bootup it and use it as a standard Live-USB. Running as a regular Live-USB without the persistence files in operation, I install, test, use as required, then dump the changes by shutting down, sometimes, I might keep something I was working on while running live so I use the accompanying Live-usb-storage folder to retain my work.

When I need to have my "toolkit" available, I choose the option to use persistence and I have all I need at my disposal, including a different desktop layout so there's no mistaking where I am. Amongst other things, I copied my .mozilla folder from my daily driver into the persistence demo account and all the logins I want saved are in there along with my encrypted password vault for anything else I need.

About once a month, I boot without persistence, install the updates and remaster the Live-USB. This keeps both environments up to date, whether I'm running with, or without persistence.

I know others that use Persistence will say there is an easier way, but I do it this way to ensure I don't have a brain fart and hit save root persistence when I do not want to.

Well I guess I'm too late for the poll, but i use Live as much as possible. I create my own custom ISO image using the Snapshot program and then just boot from that. I love the security and stability it gives me! I do also boot into Fedora or Windows for most video editing work but otherwise I love MX. Been using it since it was MEPIS....

Sorry, I set up a time limit for this poll. Thanks for your input fellow MEPIS-er

I think I will make soon anther poll persistence options...