MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Tue Feb 13, 2024 11:10 am**

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.

Posted: **Tue Feb 13, 2024 12:00 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2024 11:10 amI 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).

trawglodyte wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2024 11:10 amBut, 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.

Posted: **Tue Feb 13, 2024 12:59 pm**

@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.

Posted: **Tue Feb 13, 2024 6:07 pm**

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.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:27 am**

Welcome!

trawglodyte wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2024 6:07 pm 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.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am**

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.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:13 am**

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am 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.

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am 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.

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am 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

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:19 pm**

fehlix wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:13 am
trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am 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.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:45 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:19 pm
fehlix wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:13 am
trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:37 am 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

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:52 pm**

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

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:09 pm**

Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:52 pm does it add an entry to UEFI?

I want to say the way I did it did not write anything to the EFI partition. But I'm not entirely sure because I don't remember if this "boot" folder was there before or not. (The MX folder is from a different, traditional filesystem install). I didn't even think about it because I found that menuentry and put it in my Debian grub. I can do another frugal install and find out if you want me to.

Screenshot from 2024-02-14 19-00-19.png

Screenshot from 2024-02-14 19-10-44.png

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:10 pm**

No worries... I was thinking maybe fehlix knew that offhand...

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:26 pm**

Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:52 pm Haven't tried frugal installation in a loooong time, does it add an entry to UEFI?

No. Frugal install just creates the /antiX-xxx directory
with content and generates /antiX-xyz*/grub.entry
It does not provide any further means to get it booted.

Available Boot options are:
* the grub.entry copied as custom.cfg to /boot/grub of an existing grub-install
or
* from LiveBoot ( with the same kernel and use the live-system to find and boot the Frugall install)
by using any frugal boot options
or
* from LiveSystem GRUB menu -> Boot Rescue -> search for "frugal installs", which search for the grub.entry files

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:43 pm**

Would it be nice/possible to provide a way to install a UEFI entry?

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:03 pm**

Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:52 pm Haven't tried frugal installation in a loooong time, does it add an entry to UEFI?

fehlix covered how a frugal install modifies the system, namely it adds a directory to an existing partition and copies files into it. That's it. No partitioning, no creating file systems, no modifications of any bootloaders. The philosophy behind this was to first do no harm. IOW, we try to play well with others and be a well behaved guest so we make it difficult for the user to use a frugal install to harm the current system or prevent it from booting.

Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:43 pm Would it be nice/possible to provide a way to install a UEFI entry?

IMO the frugal install process is not the best time to do this. The basic idea of the frugal install is to piggy-back on the existing system using an existing bootloader, either the live-usb bootloader that was used to do the install or an existing Grub bootloader already installed on the system.

For example, we provide the text of a Grub entry for booting directly into the frugal install but we rely on the user to manually add this entry to their grub.conf. This avoids us having to select/guess which grub.conf to modify and avoids us possibly screwing up the existing bootloader.

In the bad old days frugal installs would often bork existing systems and do other weird things. We tried to steer clear of this bad behaviour as much as possible.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:19 pm**

EDIT - I was way off about update-initramfs, it works fine on frugal install.

Maybe I should try it again. I thought what had happened was when I installed the nvidia driver, update-initramfs tried to find / on the partition (well, it's not there in a frugal install) so error. I tried tiny-initramfs and dracut. dracut did it's thing without error, but I'm not sure if it worked right. I wound up with a system that said it had the nvidia-driver installed but was giving me VGA display on one monitor with my other monitor dead....

Maybe I misunderstood the information I was getting from the terminal, or maybe I made some mistake. But I just concluded update-initramfs won't work on a frugal install. And, if that's the case, I am probably going to run into other problems with current debian packages not playing nice with a frugal install. I base this partly on recent experience with BookwormPup64, a frugal install Puppy Linux that has apt and uses debian bookworm repository. But it's issues go a little deeper because it's really more radically different from Debian than MX Linux, and frankly, not as well developed as MX Linux.

I'll do that, I'll try it again, try to make sure it's not some error on my part and find out for sure if update-initramfs can run on a frugal install or not.

p.s.- the "do no harm" policy worked out in reality. I put the frugal install on a partition with several other frugal installs. When I did it, I really didn't know if it would wipe the partition or not. I wanted to find out, so I tried it. It just made itself a folder and left everything else alone.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 6:20 pm**

Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:43 pm Would it be nice/possible to provide a way to install a UEFI entry?

Nice definetly. Possible, yes, we "only" need to generate a "frugal" grub.efi, in order to keep the frugal-dir concept and avoid any use of /boot/grub
to not conflict with any normal grub install, so we clearly separate frugal from normal grub-installs.

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:32 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:19 pm Maybe I should try it again. I thought what had happened was when I installed the nvidia driver ...

Nvidia diver installation on MX best to be performt with:

Code: Select all

sudo ddm-mx -i nvidia

or with the menu entry "Nvidia installer"
On Live-booted system like Frugal one would best doing a remaster in order to get the nvidia driver also into the squashfs linuxfs, otherwise you may get conflicts with drive state files saved across live-reboot.

Next is to adjust live boot parameter, by adding

Code: Select all

xorg=nvidia nouveau.modeset=0

b/c we have not injected the nvidia driver into the live-initrd
and we need to tell kms not to load nouveau driver either.
E.g add those boot parameter into the grub.entry (custom.cfg)

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:09 pm**

@fehlix You are the man!!
exactly what you said, I used MX nvidia-installer, did a remaster (I LOVE RemasterCC btw, it's so awesome on a frugal install that I can do that as well as the other options it gives me) , added xorg=nvidia nouveau.modeset=0 to menuentry.
Reboot and all is good again.
I was way off about update-initramfs, and I apologize for posting that here before doing more trial-and-error.

I don't know if it's worth mentioning all I did prior to these steps, because it probably was unnecessary. Installing nvidia drivers on freshly installed operating systems is something I consider myself pretty knowledgable about, but I was totally lost on this one. lol.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:33 am**

trawglodyte wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:19 pmBut I just concluded update-initramfs won't work on a frugal install. And, if that's the case, I am probably going to run into other problems with current debian packages not playing nice with a frugal install.

I do realise that you've solved that specific problem but I just want to my $0.02 re general compatibility (or lack thereof) of a frugal install. I started with a frugal MX17, but just for testing, more than six years ago. Then I created an MX18 frugal install maybe five or so years ago, updated that to a frugal MX19 and last year updated this to frugal MX23. (In other words, I am using MX since 2018 without it ever being "installed" in the traditional sense. Also, the same install -- literally the same five files (vmlinuz, initrd.gz, linuxfs, rootfs and homefs) -- is re-used in three PCs here and also boots into PCs of friends and relatives w/o problems.)

In all those years I haven't had a single problem which I could trace back to me using a frugal install. The one thing that very occasionally creates trouble is software that requires systemd (frugal apparently doesn't support booting into systemd... have never tried it). So far, I've always found workarounds and made it work anyway -- but that certainly could be a weak point.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:59 am**

thomasl wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:33 am (In other words, I am using MX since 2018 without it ever being "installed" in the traditional sense. Also, the same install -- literally the same five files (vmlinuz, initrd.gz, linuxfs, rootfs and homefs) -- is re-used in three PCs here and also boots into PCs of friends and relatives w/o problems.)

In all those years I haven't had a single problem which I could trace back to me using a frugal install. The one thing that very occasionally creates trouble is software that requires systemd (frugal apparently doesn't support booting into systemd... have never tried it).

I don't think I've ever heard a better endorsement of frugal installs.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 11:40 am**

thomasl wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:33 am literally the same five files (vmlinuz, initrd.gz, linuxfs, rootfs and homefs) -- is re-used in three PCs here and also boots into PCs of friends and relatives w/o problem

I appreciate you suggesting it to me, and sharing your guide about it. This is really fun for me and now I do think it's going to work out. I probably will do it over again at least once. Now that I have a better understanding of it, I think it would be nice to get every step right, get the packages from the deb.multimedia repository I like, install the nvidia, tweak the desktop, install the apps that I know I'll always want, and then make a remastered linuxfs, super-clean with everything just how I like it. That would be really nice to have, and could come in handy over and over, like you've said with yours it has.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 12:14 pm**

BitJam wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:03 pm
Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:52 pm Haven't tried frugal installation in a loooong time, does it add an entry to UEFI?
fehlix covered how a frugal install modifies the system, namely it adds a directory to an existing partition and copies files into it. That's it. No partitioning, no creating file systems, no modifications of any bootloaders. The philosophy behind this was to first do no harm. IOW, we try to play well with others and be a well behaved guest so we make it difficult for the user to use a frugal install to harm the current system or prevent it from booting.
Adrian wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 4:43 pm Would it be nice/possible to provide a way to install a UEFI entry?
IMO the frugal install process is not the best time to do this. The basic idea of the frugal install is to piggy-back on the existing system using an existing bootloader, either the live-usb bootloader that was used to do the install or an existing Grub bootloader already installed on the system.

For example, we provide the text of a Grub entry for booting directly into the frugal install but we rely on the user to manually add this entry to their grub.conf. This avoids us having to select/guess which grub.conf to modify and avoids us possibly screwing up the existing bootloader.

In the bad old days frugal installs would often bork existing systems and do other weird things. We tried to steer clear of this bad behaviour as much as possible.

I understand the philosophy, but adding a UEFI entry is not actually touching other OSes on the disk, it's just adding a new UEFI entry, it cannot even overwrite other entries (unless you already have one called "MX23-frugal", so no real danger there). The only "weird" thing that might happen is that the entry might become the default one at boot time, but I think we can guard against, and it's not the end of the world anyway. The only other problem I could think of is ESP running out of space, but we can also check for that.

Even as a fairly technical user, when I install an operating system I expect it to boot and I expect it to boot without the help of another OS or other geekery involved like having to boot live again and mount different partitions and copy files between partitions manually, getting messy editing GRUB menus and so on. Grub-recovery is a great idea, but still a bit too complicated and a step too far for many users. In my opinion one should be able to do a frugal installation on a empty drive that doesn't have any working OSes and still be able to boot without a live medium, also, what happens if one wipes or replaces the OS that boots the frugal OS? If you have an OS that depends to boot on another OS it will forever be the second citizen on the system, if we had a easy UEFI boot option for frugal install it would make it much more user-friendly, I still don't think grandma would go nuts doing frugal installs, many users won't bother with that, but it would open the gate for regular Linux users to do it if they are into "immutable" OSes for example, right now booting issue is a high enough barrier to stop people from even trying.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 12:22 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 11:40 amI probably will do it over again at least once. Now that I have a better understanding of it, I think it would be nice to get every step right, get the packages from the deb.multimedia repository I like, install the nvidia, tweak the desktop, install the apps that I know I'll always want, and then make a remastered linuxfs, super-clean with everything just how I like it.

One of the more interesting features of a frugal install is that it lends itself perfectly to experimentation. Backup your rootfs (and homefs if you use one), and install, remove, delete, add, change things to your heart's content. Once done, copy back the persistence file(s) and everything is your pristine original. I regularly use this to test-drive software (and later often install in my regular install).

Here's another thing worth knowing: if you've copied the rootfs file into RAM (what's called dynamic persistence), you can separately mount it, say in /mnt/rootfs and do controlled changes there. This works v well for small edits, say in /etc, copying a few files or similar stuff. Just reboot and you have it all there. No need to call persist-save or remaster.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:38 pm**

thomasl wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 12:22 pm if you've copied the rootfs file into RAM (what's called dynamic persistence), you can separately mount it, say in /mnt/rootfs and do controlled changes there.

I can set a boot paramater "persist=static" for static persistence, should I put "persist=dynamic" instead? Or where do I choose? The information I was reading about static vs dynamic explained it a little differently. I'm pretty sure I'm already loading it into RAM. IDK, I may just make a note and come back to this later. For some reason the word "persistence" just bugs me too. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just because the English definition of that word is about a person who doesn't give up easily. I get how that is sort of what people are talking about, but wouldn't "write to disk" just be a lot more accurate way to say the same thing? Who cares I guess, it's persistence now, and that's the term people use. They should add an entry to the dictionary.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:58 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:38 pm
thomasl wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 12:22 pm if you've copied the rootfs file into RAM (what's called dynamic persistence), you can separately mount it, say in /mnt/rootfs and do controlled changes there.
I can set a boot paramater "persist=static" for static persistence, should I put "persist=dynamic" instead? Or where do I choose? The information I was reading about static vs dynamic explained it a little differently. I'm pretty sure I'm already loading it into RAM. IDK, I may just make a note and come back to this later. For some reason the word "persistence" just bugs me too. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just because the English definition of that word is about a person who doesn't give up easily. I get how that is sort of what people are talking about, but wouldn't "write to disk" just be a lot more accurate way to say the same thing? Who cares I guess, it's persistence now, and that's the term people use. They should add an entry to the dictionary.

These are the boot parameter available within the Live-GRUB menu to select from:

Code: Select all

These persist-options do store /home within a antiX/rootfs persistence file,
together with all other changes with "/"-top root-folder

persist_root    Save root and home in RAM then saved at shutdown
p_static_root   Save root and home on disk together

and these ones do store /home into a separate antiX/homefs file:

persist_all     Save root in RAM, save home on disk (save root at shutdown)
persist_static  Save root and home on disk with home separate on disk
persist_home    Only home persistence

The frugal boot options allow in addtion to enable persistence 
to create and searching for "Frugal" installation:
frugal_persist  Frugal with root in RAM and home on disk
frugal_root     Frugal with root and home in RAM then saved at shutdown
frugal_static   Frugal with root on disk and home separate on disk
f_static_root   Frugal with root and home on disk together
frugal_home     Frugal with only home persistence
frugal_only     Only Frugal, no persistence

You can switch persistence with every boot.

Posted: **Thu Feb 15, 2024 3:44 pm**

https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki ... Parameters

Might be useful

Posted: **Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pm**

I feel obligated to put something here about a couple things I ran into. I wish I could pinpoint these things better and hand the devs the solution. But often I'm not even sure if it's a bug or user error on my part.

1. When I do the frugal install I wind up as user "demo", and I probably should have just left that alone. But I tried using MX User Manager to Rename User Account, and it didn't go well. I eventually got it sorted, my user is mxl now, but I'd be happy to do another install and try it again, perhaps give better info on what exactly happened if someone thinks this is important.

2. It seems that when I use the startup and shutdown screens for loading and saving rootfs (I'm doing semi-automatic mode) everything is fine, but when I try to use RemasterCC to Save root persistence things go wrong. Like next time I boot it can't load rootfs. I also once attempted to add a homefs, and I don't think that got loaded next time I reboot. Again, no problem for me, I really only need the remastered linuxfs and a rootfs and the option to save or not when I reboot or shutdown. Right now what I think is that the scripts that create rootfs on startup, and give me save options on shutdown/reboot somehow do not cooperate with RemasterCC>Optional operations>Save root persistence, and maybe not with RemasterCC>Basic operations>Persistence, but I could be way off on that. To put a different way, I think when I make a rootfs with RemasterCC it doesn't load when I reboot, and I have to create a new one with the startup script, losing any changes I saved. If it would be helpful I can clone my frugal install and test further.

3. Despite choosing frugal_root on install, the boot paramater created was persist_root. Which (I think) is doing what I want it to do, and when I tried changing it to frugal_root I think maybe it didn't do what I wanted. So, anyway, leaving it persist_root is cool with me. Just wanted to document that here.

I do have a conky showing RAM % and am pretty sure it's all in RAM how I wanted it to be. I've added some things like a few browsers, kdenlive, krita, obs-studio, and audacity. I don't know yet if it would be a good idea to do complex audio/video with many clips in the editor on a frugal install fully loaded into RAM, but I think for the type of basic stuff I do it will be fine, and would even be fine if I had 16G RAM instead of 32G. But I'll have to keep playing with it.

I don't think I've mentioned it in this thread, but trying to run a VM or several VM's may not be wise in a frugal install fully loaded into RAM. I have all that shutoff in BIOS, so I won't be testing it unless someone really wants to know. I just always multi-boot, don't know anything about VM, but would like to learn and try it eventually. For my interests, having OS's running on their own, not on top of another OS seemed important to me. But, like I said, I'm just ignorant about VM's so I really don't know.

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2024 7:46 am**

trawglodyte wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pmI don't think I've mentioned it in this thread, but trying to run a VM or several VM's may not be wise in a frugal install fully loaded into RAM.

On my main machine the frugal MX23 install runs in RAM (meaning linuxfs and rootfs are loaded into RAM; homefs is always mounted). I also have two VMs (VirtualBox), one for 32-bit Windows 7 (which is in use almost every day) and a second one for 64-bit Windows 10 (used once per month or so for just one app which requires Windows 10

). Both VMs run flawlessly and even can run in parallel though I very rarely do that. (One thing that always amazes friends and relatives is when I take out my fast 64GB USB stick with my complete frugal install on it, boot MX on their PCs and start the Windows 7 VM... it's running from USB so it's a bit of a

but hey, it works!)

trawglodyte wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pmI just always multi-boot, don't know anything about VM, but would like to learn and try it eventually. For my interests, having OS's running on their own, not on top of another OS seemed important to me. But, like I said, I'm just ignorant about VM's so I really don't know.

I started looking seriously into Linux as a production OS when it became clear that Windows 10 was a no-go and Windows 7 was nearing its end of life. Back then, one of the main reasons why I looked into MX17 and stayed with MX18 was the frugal install option: it allowed me to dual-boot into a fully-fledged Linux system w/o having to change anything on the existing HDD: no added partitions, no resizing, just copy a few files into the main NTFS partition, install a new boot-loader and be happy. For a while I used this dual-boot setup to great effect but it became clear that this wasn't a long-term solution. OTOH I had (still have) a handful applications that require Windows. So I looked into wine and VirtualBox VMs. From a purely technical perspective wine is an amazing achievement but I've never found it reliable and stable enough for my purposes. So I bit the bullet and transferred my Windows 7 install lock stock and barrel into a VM, removed the dual-boot stuff and never looked back.

Once you're happy with your frugal setup perhaps a VM could be the next mountain to climb

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2024 8:37 am**

@thomasl lol, this is just turning into the thread where I don't know what I'm talking about over and over. haha, that's okay, that means I'm learning things. One that is surprising to me is the biggest RAM hog so far seems to be loading an audio track or two into Audacity. I wouldn't have thought that, I would have guessed videos in kdenlive, but no.

Anyway, I've got this frugal tweaked how I like it and I also have a regular install with file directory on / and /home partitions. So, I guess I'll set that up with the same apps and everything and make some side-by-side comparisons. Some things, like launching Krita are noticably faster for sure. But I don't know if you just pay back the seconds here and there when you make the save. I know one thing, I can duplicate the entire frugal folder is a few seconds. I'll have to look at backup tools in normal install, but that would be tough to match. tar.gz'ing it takes longer.

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2024 8:13 pm**

trawglodyte wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pm 1. When I do the frugal install I wind up as user "demo", and I probably should have just left that alone. But I tried using MX User Manager to Rename User Account, and it didn't go well. I eventually got it sorted, my user is mxl now, but I'd be happy to do another install and try it again, perhaps give better info on what exactly happened if someone thinks this is important.

Yes, please give more details, so it is reproducible, b/c "... and it didn't go well" doesn't tell much

trawglodyte wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pm 2. It seems that when I use the startup and shutdown screens for loading and saving rootfs (I'm doing semi-automatic mode) everything is fine, but when I try to use RemasterCC to Save root persistence things go wrong.

The tool is using this command:

Code: Select all

pkexec persist-save

you can also try the cli interface

Code: Select all

sudo persist-save --cli

maybe try this and report any finding.

trawglodyte wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:09 pm 3. Despite choosing frugal_root on install, the boot paramater created was persist_root. Which (I think) is doing what I want it to do, and when I tried changing it to frugal_root I think maybe it didn't do what I wanted. So, anyway, leaving it persist_root is cool with me. Just wanted to document that here.

Yes, any "frugal" options given would trigger a frugal detection live-process.
The boot parameter frugal_root is a shortcut for "frugal persist_root"
The frugal process would try first to find an available frugal-install and boot into,
and if not found offers to create / make a frugal install.
The generated grub.entry is meant to boot into the existing frugal install.
When using frugal_root instead of "persist_root" the frugal detection
would start to search for an existing frugal install,
by using the default frugal partition label flab="antiX-Frugal"
and the default frugal boot-dir fdir="/antiX-$(uname -r)"
So yes, you can trigger another frugal installation when attempting to boot into an existing
frugal installation.

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2024 10:21 pm**

fehlix wrote: Sat Feb 17, 2024 8:13 pm Yes, please give more details, so it is reproducible, b/c "... and it didn't go well" doesn't tell much

RE: trying to change username from demo on frugal install - short version
as demo - menu>MX tools>User Manager>Rename User Account - demo to mxl, Apply gives the following error.
"failed to rename the user. Please make sure that the user is not logged in, you might need to restart."

but as root - menu>MX tools>User Manager gives the following error.
"You seem to be logged in as root, please logout and log in as normal user to use this program"

And here is the long version, from the beginning with every step.

Code: Select all

boot MX-23.2_x64.iso on USB by Balena Etcher
Advanced Options
    Persistence Options - frugal_root
    Boot Options - checkfs toram fdev=ask hwclock=utc

select the partition (ext4) to add frugal folder
create rootfs - 1 default 8G
create live-usb swap file? n
set password root
set password demo
save-mode - 2 semi-auto

(enter graphical)
    sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
    sudo apt purge mdadm cryptsetup (errors, decide I just don't need)
    sudo apt purge linux-image-6.1.0-18-amd64 (current issue with NVIDIA, 6.1.0-17-amd64 is fine for me)
    sudo rm -R /lib/modules/6.1.0-18-amd64 (rmdir failed in automated)
    sudo reboot
        Save? y
        Begin? y

Boot into Debian (currently the grub I use)
    terminal in frugal partion
    tar -czvf frugal1.tar.gz antiX-Frugal-6.1.0-17-amd64
    copy/paste text from grub.entry to /boot/grub/custom.cfg (as is for now, no edits)

reboot to "MX 23.2 (Libretto) Frugal Install"

menu>MX tools>User Manager
    Rename User Account> demo to mxl
    "failed to rename the user. Please make sure that the user is not logged in, you might need to restart."

reboot
    Save? y
    Begin? y

(try Rename User Account as demo, same thing)
Options>change auto login>Require password to login

reboot
    Save? y
    Begin? y

login as root
    menu>MX tools>User Manager
    "You seem to be logged in as root, please log out and log in as a normal user to use this program"

reboot
    Save? n

Posted: **Sun May 12, 2024 6:41 pm**

I made a couple videos showing what I wound up with for a frugal install, including backing up and remastering. If anyone is interested.

part 1 - https://odysee.com/@trawg:3/2405121647:e
part 2 - https://odysee.com/@trawg:3/2405121700:0

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