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A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 9:52 am
by Jakob77
I would like to make a writable Live USB-disk from a snapshot .iso file.
"MX Live USB Maker" has this option:
"Full-featured mode - writable LiveUSB"
It is just not working the way I expect it to.
The created Live disk runs very well but after a reboot all the files I saved in the last session are gone.
Have I misunderstood something.?
MX Live USB Maker has a lot of options and maybe I need to change some more to make it work better.?
I normally make a separate data partition ext4 an save files there but it has it's limitations.
Do we perhaps have a code for making a Live USB writable after it has been made.?
I decided to use a bigger hammer and do a real install from a USB-Live to the USB-SSD-drive.
However when the install was almost done the installer broke (I have never seen that happen before) and wrote it could not update "initrfms" (only almost sure about the spelling). I wonder if that indicates a wrong way to install or maybe it is somehow a hardware matter.
Thank you in advance for any ideas about what to try next. :-)
I have made a fresh format of the 450 Gb USB SSD disk and created the QSI with it pluged in.
If needed I am open for suggestions about more commands to check if the USB drive and controller is healthy and up for the task.
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System:
Kernel: 6.1.0-34-amd64 [6.1.135-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-34-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.38 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.20.0 vt: 7
dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.6_x64 Libretto October 15 2023 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12
(bookworm)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E7240 v: 01 serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 060GR9 v: A00 serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell v: A08 date: 02/18/2014
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 25.2 Wh (54.8%) condition: 46.0/46.0 Wh (100.0%) volts: 7.4 min: 7.4
model: SMP DELL KWFFN33 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: not charging
CPU:
Info: model: Intel Core i5-4300U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell gen: core 4 level: v3
note: check built: 2013-15 process: Intel 22nm family: 6 model-id: 0x45 (69) stepping: 1
microcode: 0x26
Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB
desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1748 high: 2900 min/max: 800/2900 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq
governor: ondemand cores: 1: 2900 2: 800 3: 800 4: 2495 bogomips: 19954
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Vulnerabilities:
Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations
Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: retbleed status: Not affected
Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; IBPB: conditional; IBRS_FW; STIBP: conditional; RSB
filling; PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-7.5
process: Intel 22nm built: 2013 ports: active: DP-2 off: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-3, DP-4,
HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0a16 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Sunplus Innovation Laptop Integrated Webcam HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
bus-ID: 2-4:3 chip-ID: 1bcf:2985 class-ID: 0e02
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.20.0 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: crocus gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 509x286mm (20.04x11.26") s-diag: 584mm (22.99")
Monitor-1: DP-2 mapped: DP-1-1 pos: primary model: Dell U2713HM serial: <filter> built: 2013
res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 82 gamma: 1.2 size: 597x336mm (23.5x13.23") diag: 685mm (27")
ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 2560x1440 min: 720x400
Monitor-2: eDP-1 note: disabled model: BOE Display 0x05da built: 2013 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 125
gamma: 1.2 size: 277x156mm (10.91x6.14") diag: 318mm (12.5") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1366x768
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 4400 (HSW GT2)
direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0
chip-ID: 8086:0a0c class-ID: 0403
Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio vendor: Dell 8 driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:9c20 class-ID: 0403
API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-34-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
Device-1: Intel Ethernet I218-LM vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel port: f080 bus-ID: 00:19.0
chip-ID: 8086:155a class-ID: 0200
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:08b1 class-ID: 0280
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: wwan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-1.3:3
chip-ID: 8087:07dc class-ID: e001
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 5 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.0
sub-v: 500 hci-v: 4.0 rev: 500
Info: acl-mtu: 1021:5 sco-mtu: 96:5 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff
link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, audio, telephony
RAID:
Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 port: f060
bus-ID: 00:1f.2 chip-ID: 8086:282a rev: N/A class-ID: 0104
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 685.61 GiB used: 199.84 GiB (29.1%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD SM841 mSATA 256GB size: 238.47 GiB
block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 3D0Q
scheme: MBR
ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB model: USB3.0 high speed size: 447.13 GiB block-size:
physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: 2210 scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / raw-size: 238.47 GiB size: 233.67 GiB (97.99%) used: 199.84 GiB (85.5%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 55.0 C mobo: 43.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3983
Repos:
Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2227 libs: 1109 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
1: deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
Processes: 208 Uptime: 6h 31m wakeups: 8 Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 1.25 GiB (16.3%) Init: SysVinit
v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)
Re: A writable Live USB-disk [Solved]
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 10:14 am
by dolphin_oracle
on first boot, enable the persistence features in the live boot menus.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 11:05 am
by atomick
Would believe to consider as to "Not Writable" is of such Security Integrity of said Operating Systems Image Is exactly as the final release relates.
it is possible something could be altered "Hacked" why allow such on a polished months hard work setting a New OS For that 100 Percent perfect .iso downloadable to repeat installation perfection.
Even of your own OS Start to the Now I need to use this wicked Cool Snapshot Program tool and create my own copy backup of my OS so that It can save me. Or allow me to Deploy my own Customized Image
to another System / Laptop / Virtual Box like environment and play with other things without tampering with my base OS.
I use VBox for such and test compiling things or writing code to memory resource than smacking the nvme ssd write quota. Sure technology is always advancing yet I managed over years to nuke 2 SSDs by beating keys all day. So
a feature MX-Linux has over all others "Snapshot and USB-Maker" tools are perfectly set in the correct positions for its feature rich offerings.
Hope that may satisfy such quest. So here's now something I have shared in past but here consider this. If you wish to add or provide your own - Tools / Scripts / Apts if small enough to your .iso build
create a directory ,
copy all your select scripts and small software tools to this directory
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now Zip or 7zip, then copy this zip/7z over to /var/cache
now Write your snapshot and flash it to your stick..
when you run the Install and its complete does not matter online offline your special tools are right there in /var/cache
copy to ~/Downloads unzip and customize away. Its certainly a Beautiful thing.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 1:33 pm
by Jakob77
dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed May 14, 2025 10:14 am
on first boot, enable the persistence features in the live boot menus.
Thank you very much. That made a big difference.
I chose "Persist_all" during the first boot-up and there was some questions where I chose default answers and 1Gb swap.
It looks like I have to select "Persist_all" every time I boot up to keep it writable, and if I forget it will zap back to the original state from when the USB Live was made.
Does that sound right.?
Where do I find "persist-config".?
I guess I need it if I for instance want to change the size of the swap-file.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 2:22 pm
by dolphin_oracle
there is a save boot code as well that will save boot options.
you can run pesist-config from a terminal, or from the MX RemasterCC application.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 6:27 pm
by Jakob77
dolphin_oracle
Thank you very much again.
It is more different than I thought.
It is not so boot fast anymore because it copy 3 Gb to Ram
And it looks like the main disk is only 8 Gb
It is mostly for testing and games so I will just see how it goes.
I am sure the video below can't be something I need.
Maintenance for MX Live USB Systems
https://youtu.be/vLcuYiz91lg?feature=shared
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 6:39 pm
by dolphin_oracle
if you use the "static" options, it will not load the persistence file into ram.
**edit*** that video can't hurt!
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 8:44 pm
by Jakob77
That also works.
There is nothing wrong with the video but to begin with I may better go back and ask myself why my intuition failed and I understood so little of this:
antiX/MX 21 series - Live boot menu overview
https://youtu.be/2BKAWeXZ4uU?feature=shared&t=76
Maybe it is just me or maybe it could be an idea to consider a tool-tip about it in the MX Live USB Maker.
When the mouse goes to "Full-featured mode - writable LiveUSB"
Then a short tool-tip of some kind: "Persistence settings in boot-menu can determine important details"
Just an idea. :-)
Edit** This one is a lot better (and prettier):
MX Linux 17: Make a live-USB with Persistence.
https://youtu.be/2vF_dw6Kpo8?si=xIvg6BWpKiW0l1V_&t=457
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 10:41 pm
by DukeComposed
Jakob77 wrote: Wed May 14, 2025 8:44 pm
There is nothing wrong with the video but to begin with I may better go back and ask myself why my intuition failed and I understood so little of this
You probably misunderstood it because persistent storage on a USB is a complicated thing to build and configure. MX Linux is distributed as ISO files, and ISO files are an inherently static file format: they aren't
meant to be edited. Getting around that is a hard problem to solve.
Many years ago I decided to carry around a portable Linux install on a USB drive. This meant installing Linux onto the USB: one USB with the ISO, inserted into a laptop and booted from same said USB, and then a second USB inserted and used as the target drive for the installer.
In short, I installed Linux Mint 16 or so to /dev/sdc and not /dev/sda.
I thought I was being clever, but performance was atrocious and the utility of a persistent Linux install on a keychain didn't solve as many problems as I'd hoped it would. Patching was a chore and I'm sure it wore out the USB device faster than the manufacturer would have recommended.
Nowadays we have Ventoy, which can support a persistent partition, and antiX/MX persistence options to obviate a lot of the issues that used to exist, but that doesn't make the core problem any simpler. It just means there are better tools for managing the physical constraints of running an operating system from a peripheral.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 11:40 pm
by figueroa
Why is it so hard to find full and concise details about live-usb persistence without watching many videos? The videos are great, by the way. Most users new to the MX-Live-USB system would greatly benefit from a few not-so-easy to find or obvious antiX web resources as follow (and there are surely others):
https://antixlinux.com/the-most-extensi ... he-planet/
https://robin-antix.codeberg.page/antiX ... tence.html
ADDED: This last one keeps moving around most every time a new antiX version is released. It would surely be helpful for these to have a permanent home on-line.
If you have others, add links as replies.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 12:41 am
by MikeR
Personal favourite, with lots of documentation:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
EDITed to add:
The advantage in using Ventoy is that persistence is simpler - There is one persistence option, with an all-or nothing configuration
(you choose the size of the persistence space, and there is a recommended lable
MX-Persist)
The MX USB creator offers wider granularity of persistence choice, which requires knowing more about what you are doing,
and the possibility of updating (remastering) the file system in-place.
HTH
Mike
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 1:37 am
by FullScale4Me
Well done on his personal choices. Mention of save for the win ;-)
https://blog.ctms.me/posts/2025-01-28-p ... -mx-linux/
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 7:36 am
by dolphin_oracle
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/boot-parameters/
its older, but mostly valid. but doesn't always match what the menu items say. the underlying boot parameters are correct. The wiki entry if worth updating to include the latest menu items. will add that to list.
when booting with legacy bios boot, there is also an F1 help function. I'm not sure that's possible on the UEFI boots that are more common these days, but the UEFI menus have short explanations of each parameter now.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 8:32 am
by Jakob77
Thank you very much for all contributions. :-)
I don't see so many comments about a tool-tip for the MX Live USB Maker -> "Full-featured mode - writable LiveUSB"
Maybe I need to try to wake up @asqwerth to find someone who might have a strong nose for an interesting opinion about that. :-)
And maybe a tool-tip is not the right place to start.
I know that if you do a deep study of the manual you will eventually be a lot smarter than I was when I ran into the unexpected missing functionality.
I am not sure I would have been able to find a useful searchword for it. So maybe there is also room for some improvement in the manual (6.6.4).
However I did read the
help file in the MX Live USB Maker, and maybe that is the most value for money place to ad some more info..?
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file:///usr/share/doc/mx-live-usb-maker/mx-live-usb-maker.html
Full-featured mode is available for users of antiX/MX family systems, including snapshots. This mode enables all the live system features, including persistence and other features requiring writable media to function (save options, etc).
Can we do that a little better.?
We can discuss small or big changes.
Or perhaps just a link to this subject can be the cheapest way to provide a big bunch of extra help.
And perhaps a link to the manual (6.6.4)
Can we do that.. ad links there without too many bad implications.?
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 8:38 am
by dolphin_oracle
the text if correct as-is as far as the function of the live-usb-maker utility. what additional information do you want to be accessible? an explanation of how to use the live system doesn't really fit the help file, but I don't have a problem with providing a link to another document. Even the manual area mentioned doesn't really say much.
So I guess I'm asking, what information do you think would be useful?
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 10:11 am
by Jakob77
There is not much help in the boot menu and MX Live USB Maker is likely the last place you have been before you stand there (all alone in the dark lol).
The choice was "Full-featured mode - writable LiveUSB"
But what you get on boot up defaults is just an ordinary unwritable Live config.
It can fool a fool to believe that MX Live USB Maker must be broken. I know that because that was where I looked and looked for help. lol
I can think of a lot but In order to disturb as little as possible with the strongest possible effect I guess the best I can suggest is a link under the relevant text in this file:
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file:///usr/share/doc/mx-live-usb-maker/mx-live-usb-maker.html
Perhaps like this:
Full-featured mode is available for users of antiX/MX family systems, including snapshots. This mode enables all the live system features, including persistence and other features requiring writable media to function (save options, etc).
Forum help example for boot menu, writability, persisence etc.:
viewtopic.php?p=819268#p819268
***Edit:
Or if we want to put a file more into it a link can be a key to a fine compromise between the short precise help MX is known for, and the more messy stuff that it takes longer to read but still might be useful.
It could perhaps go like this:
Full-featured mode is available for users of antiX/MX family systems, including snapshots. This mode enables all the live system features, including persistence and other features requiring writable media to function (save options, etc).
Link to more possible help:
Code: Select all
file:///usr/share/doc/mx-live-usb-maker/mx-live-usb-maker-more.html
And then in "mx-live-usb-maker-more.html" we don't have to be so critical. You can almost use it as a casual draft. More user contributions and links can just be added, and more users will therefore be interested in the help system, and more users will automatically be helped. Is the philosophy... :-)
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 12:21 pm
by MXRobo
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 2:42 pm
by Jakob77
I tried to install a list of programs with MXPI but I was told there was not enough disk-space.
So I guess it could be an idea to change the disk size from 8 to 12 Gb, and maybe I also want to change the swap file.
I just don't know how to be prompted about it again without making a new install to create a new first boot. So maybe I will do that. lol
If I turn persistence off and save I guess it will fall back to the state of the original install and all I added afterwards will likely be lost.
The Terminal command "persist-config" doesn't show me a an obvious way.
And beside it has started to hang when I shut down or reboot the disk runs all too good to be destroyed.
Hmm.. I could also choose just to install a smaller amount of programs at a time and see how it goes from there. ;-)
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 10:25 pm
by figueroa
@MXRobo Those first three links (download.tuxfamily.org) are no longer good.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 12:30 am
by MXRobo
@figueroa I was in a bit of a rush when I posted, but yes I noticed it too, but I thought that it was just the particular VPN instance that I was using at the time that was causing the problem - I'll remove them.
Again, some of the other links are very old.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 1:04 am
by FullScale4Me
archive.org has a little box at the top - Wayback Machine. Great for reviving dead URLS.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 2:19 am
by m_pav
Let's not forget that little "Live-usb-storage folder that appears in the demo account homedir when running Live from a fully featured Live USB. This feature is not available when running the likes of Ventoy, Rufus or other USB image writing tool that leaves the image in r/o mode, with the exception of Ventoys own Persistence, however, Ventoys persistence is only capable of a smattering of what ours can provide.
I use the Live-usb-storage folder to save any files I created or obtained whilst in the live session. Thereafter, they will always be available for subsequent live runs, and, on any Debian type system the saved content can be accessed by simply plugging the drive in, mounting and opening the store location using a regular file manager, with the proviso they have UID=1000.
Using a USB Flash based drive which is designed specifically for Store and Transfer operations, I find the live session with persistence is sorely limited unless one uses a verified high speed device where the storage media is capable of high read/write speeds, and these are far surpassed when USB-SSD media is used. I find we are lacking content that depicts the importance of using fast media when running live, vs the low grade junk drives which can give a weak portrayal of our Live system.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 2:19 am
by MXRobo
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 2:43 am
by FullScale4Me
Age is a relative thing in Linux, nothing like the 'norms' in Windows.
There are a few networking testing apps in Debian Linux core that are 'feature complete' and judged bug-free, and were last revised over 10 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if a quick search turns up some older ones.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 2:55 am
by FullScale4Me
Thank you, MXRobo, for bringing that back. Whoever created those spent a *lot* of time, especially those tables on the first link (1). I hope the next MX Wiki revision can repurpose some/all of it.
1) One of my first major forays into HTML tables involved tiny tables inside also tiny tables all within a bigger table. I did this to preserve vertical alignment in each cell as well as giving line wrapping boundaries tighter than what CSS 2.0 could at the time (late 1998'ish). Different screen sizes and the horrid implementations of CSS 2.0 in the web browsers popular at the time made it necessary. I wouldn't think of doing it like that now...
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 3:37 am
by operadude
m_pav wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 2:19 am
Let's not forget that little "Live-usb-storage folder that appears in the demo account homedir when running Live from a fully featured Live USB. This feature is not available when running the likes of Ventoy, Rufus or other USB image writing tool that leaves the image in r/o mode, with the exception of Ventoys own Persistence, however, Ventoys persistence is only capable of a smattering of what ours can provide.
I use the Live-usb-storage folder to save any files I created or obtained whilst in the live session. Thereafter, they will always be available for subsequent live runs, and, on any Debian type system the saved content can be accessed by simply plugging the drive in, mounting and opening the store location using a regular file manager, with the proviso they have UID=1000.
Using a USB Flash based drive which is designed specifically for Store and Transfer operations, I find the live session with persistence is sorely limited unless one uses a verified high speed device where the storage media is capable of high read/write speeds, and these are far surpassed when USB-SSD media is used. I find we are lacking content that depicts the importance of using fast media when running live, vs the low grade junk drives which can give a weak portrayal of our Live system.
Thanks for this reminder, m_pav
I spent a whole day updating, re-configuring, luckybackup-ing, snapshot-ing, re-luckybackup-ing, LUM-ing ("full featured", with encryption), initializing (password) and testing the LUMs...for my 4 MX distros (Fluxbox, KDE, Minimal, & Xfce). I seriously didn't think it would take a whole day, but then again, when I say "luckybackup-ing" (before AND after snapshots), that's across 5 separate (portable) hard drives, and a 6th "drive", the "Cloud" (Dropbox).
So, yeah, sometimes I don't want to go through the whole "persist" route when on my LU (Live USB), but might need or want to add something small, like a small .png or .txt file.
I'll keep an eye-out for that "Live USB" folder in the LU home dir
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 7:09 am
by Jakob77
Many thanks for more contributions. :-)
It looks like there are still some important basic stuff in this I haven't understood well enough.
Thunar fooled me because it showed 8Gb available space in my home folder.
That made med believe that the Live persistence_static system constantly did a copy to another place on the disk.
However, also in Thunar, if the mouse cursor is parked on "File-system" in the side panel then the tool-tip shows 8Gb and the disk is full.
So now I have to find a more reliable theory based on hopefully (not very likely) more qualified guessing. ;-)
Here I go (learning by doing) so everybody with documentation gets their chance to disagree:
The disk size we choose (8Gb is default) at the first boot-up is all the space we get to work with (expand) internal in persistence mode.
That my disk is 450 Gb won't help much except perhaps if I maintain something that I am likely not much for.
Therefore I think it can often make good sense to install as much as possible already before the snapshot is made so it is already inside the .iso file to be used for the install.
And if the USB disk is big enough why not choose 20 Gb (all we can) for persistence.
m_pav wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 2:19 am
Let's not forget that little "Live-usb-storage folder that appears in the demo account homedir when running Live from a fully featured Live USB. This feature is not available when running the likes of Ventoy, Rufus or other USB image writing tool that leaves the image in r/o mode, with the exception of Ventoys own Persistence, however, Ventoys persistence is only capable of a smattering of what ours can provide.
I use the Live-usb-storage folder to save any files I created or obtained whilst in the live session. Thereafter, they will always be available for subsequent live runs, and, on any Debian type system the saved content can be accessed by simply plugging the drive in, mounting and opening the store location using a regular file manager, with the proviso they have UID=1000.
Using a USB Flash based drive which is designed specifically for Store and Transfer operations, I find the live session with persistence is sorely limited unless one uses a verified high speed device where the storage media is capable of high read/write speeds, and these are far surpassed when USB-SSD media is used. I find we are lacking content that depicts the importance of using fast media when running live, vs the low grade junk drives which can give a weak portrayal of our Live system.
Than you very much for that reminder.
I have not tested if there is a limit to the capacity but it can sometimes be very useful instead of a data partition.
I did a shallow test to see what happened when I turned off persistence. I was right it zapped back to the original state before I did any updating.
In that test I also put some files in the Live-usb-storage folder.
And
when I turned persistence_static on again the updated configuration also came back again. It was not lost.
I did not get prompted again about disk and swap as I hoped for but the files in Live-usb-storage folder were also available with persistence_static on.
****EDIT
In order to restart the prompt for making more disk-space in persistence mode and avoid destroying the configuration I could not help myself and decided to use a test computer and do a full install from my USB disk with persistence to that.
It felt a bit crazy but it worked, and then I could install the rest of the games on the test computer and make a new snapshot of the computer and give the .iso file to MX Live USB Maker that created a new Live install on the USB-disk. Did that make you feel a bit dizzy too.? lol
Afterwards I booted up a couple of times Live with persistence off, and all looked good on the new install.
Then I rebooted and turned "persistence_all" on and booted further up for the menu prompting, and this time I did NOT just go with the defaults.! ;-)
I chose 3Gb swap
And I chose 150 Gb for my home folder.
And to my surprise I could choose not only 20 Gb but a lot more for the root. I chose 40 Gb.!
That also works, so if nothing else it seems that can be one way to handle it.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 10:28 pm
by m_pav
When running a Live USB created with MX-LUM without persistence, the remaining Live-storage volume displayed in Thunar or Dolphin will be representative of your machines RAM, not the storage media. If you watch the available space in your FileManager when running the updates check, or when installing some packages you will see the value decrease as the filespace stored in RAM consumes more system memory.
Here's another way (by example) you can use modify the Live USB if persistence scares you (not that it should)
On a machine with 8GB RAM, I booted a fully featured Live USB that I made 2 months earlier and a Debian Point release came out, so I wanted to update the Live USB to integrate the incrememtal changes. While running live, I added a few of the utilitarian techie type apps I like to use on my TechBench and added a conky I liked into /etc/skel/.conky, then set it as default. When I had finished all I wanted to do, I used MX Remaster to simply remaster the Live USB, which works its magic to produce a new /antix/linuxfs file (on the live USB) which is switched in at the next boot.
During the process of performing the upgrade and additional packages install, Thunar showed the available space drop down to 300MB remaining out of 8GB installed which concerned me at first, but the software work was done and after cleaning out the apt package lists and the apt cache, I was back at 5.9GB used, or 2.1GB available RAM. I went a little further and removed all language packs for everything but English, and used Bleachbit to remove all the additional locale entries and my available space grew by another 200MB, so all in all, I had 2.3GB of RAM left to play with.
I thought the remaster operation would fail for lack of RAM, but it did not and I ended up with a 2.7GB linuxfs vs the 2.1GB I started with. On the next boot, I ran Live Kernel Updater and switched out the older kernel for the newer one, rebooted and it was running the new kernel. I ended up installing this onto one of my machines and before I ran the installer, I removed the old kernel with MX Cleanup and the fresh install was crisp and clean, running my favourite conky on startup.
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2025 9:15 pm
by dolphin_oracle
work in progress, combining the antiX FAQ and some general discussion focusing on the live boot menus, persistence, remaster, and kernel updater.
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/help-antix-live-usb-system/
Re: A writable Live USB-disk
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2025 4:53 pm
by Jakob77
Great.
A wonderful lot of advanced AntiX menus to test and explain. :-)
In the boot menu I guess it has to be all pure text, and it can be a challenge if there is not room for much text file in that sequence.
And there is no internet..
About the USB-Maker and MX help for the default full feature settings I think m_pav did right reminding about:
There is with that at least a simple full feature storage by default.
It can at first seem poor if you expect persist but it does actually open a door to a lot more.
I have for instance redirected script functionality to include ~/Live-usb-storage/bin
That makes it very easy for me to test, edit and save scripts Live, and also change a Live start up configuration script if I want to.
I guess that is all I need for a while but it can start some thoughts about "~/Live-usb-storage" as a kind of new "home", and how much more there can be redirected in a smooth kind of copy-way as a primitive alternative to the more advanced "F5 persist".
m_pav
It must have been a good looking Conky. :-)
