Transfer persistence from live USB to HDD

[Slasx]

First off, kudos to the devs and admins for a fantastic distro. I love it when things just work without much tweaking.

For the past 10 days, I have been testing MX off a live USB w persistence. I encountered only one problem - my system would freeze every time I started a browser - any browser. It took me a day and some to resolve this. As time consuming, frustrating and annoying as it was, the problem was nothing compared to the last distro I used. Then, I had to deal with problems with wifi connectivity before install and had to live with problems like lack of brightness control (only possible via command line), inability to recover system after closing-opening laptop lid (never worked), recognizing USB devices......to name a few. Still, I stuck with it for five years. With MX I could easily do 10 or more.

My quick Q is this: I have many preferences saved on the live USB w persistence that I am currently using. When I install MX to the HDD, will these preferences be automatically installed there or will it be a fresh virgin install?

BTW, I plan to use the Automatic install option. Is there any reason why I should choose to do it this way instead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlKBIoHuHz0

BTW, BTW, "persistence" is an unfortunate choice word to describe what it is supposed to describe - especially for the cool folks (read computer illiterates; or informatically challenged (the PC option)). I spent a decade of my life writing unix scripts and I still find it perplexing. Admittedly, it does sound rather elegant, perhaps even imaginative; nevertheless, perplexing describes it best. For the cool guys and (speaking for myself) wanna be cool guys, clarity always takes precedence over vernacular artistic liscence. Save system+Personal prefs would be less perplexing than "persist all".

Irrespective, whether you devs and admins are cool, wanna be cool or geeks, judging by the quality and stability of MX, I say you rock!

[anticapitalista]

You can't fit "Save system+Personal prefs" into the F5 space on the live-media. That's why we have to be brief.

[fehlix]

... I still find it perplexing ...

Press F1 - cool

f1-help.png

persist.png

persist2.png

[skidoo]

My quick Q is this: I have many preferences saved on the live USB w persistence that I am currently using.
When I install MX to the HDD, will these preferences be automatically installed there or will it be a fresh virgin install?

Yes, if installation is performed during a persist-enabled session.
(During each liveboot, one can choose to activate persistence (or not) for the current session.)

The installer faithfully transfers all details of the currently running system at time of installation.
Even recent changes (e.g. last-minute tweaks and package upgrades during the current session) will carryover to the installed system.

One caveat (unsure whether this is mentioned in the documentation):
If you neglect to close/exit web browser prior to performing installation... during firstrun on the installed system, the web browser may discard the data (including recently-saved bookmarks) from the most recent prior session, grumbling about mismatched timestamps of its sessionstate files.

[Slasx]

Press F1 - cool

Press F1 where?? I booted from live USB after creating it. It immediately launched into the setup. The 4th or 5th option during this setup forces you to choose persistence. Nowhere during the setup does one see a message saying press F1 for help.

[Slasx]

Yes, if installation is performed during a persist-enabled session.

Cool, that will save me at least a couple of hours.

(During each liveboot, one can choose to activate persistence (or not) for the current session.)

Where do I do this? When I boot from the live USB, these are my options:

MX18.3 X64 (May 26, 2019)
MX18.3 X64 Customized
MX18.3 X64 Customize boot (text menus)
>>>Advanced Options for MX18.3 X64<<<
Memory Test

Options under >>>Advanced Options for MX18.3 X64<<<
MX18.3 X64 Failsafe
MX18.3 X64 (1024 x 768)
Power Off
Reboot

[BitJam]

Press F1 - cool

Press F1 where?? I booted from live USB after creating it. It immediately launched into the setup. The 4th or 5th option during this setup forces you to choose persistence. Nowhere during the setup does one see a message saying press F1 for help.

You must be booting UEFI. The function key menus are only in our live Legacy bootloader.

To disable persistence when you boot UEFI you should press the 'e' key ('e' for edit) when the entry you want to boot is highlighted. This will allow you to edit the boot parameters and remove the persist=xxx parameter. If you want to be asked on every boot then add the boot parameter "menus=p". This will give you the persistence menu but none of the other ones.

I'm sorry booting UEFI is such a pain. IMO it was a huge step down from our Legacy bootloader.

We added those text menus which add most of the same features as the function key menus but the text menus are not nearly as user friendly. The underlying BIOS calls that are needed for the function key menus were removed from UEFI. Porting that functionality over to UEFI would be a massive undertaking. Many people want it to happen but no one wants to do it. Including me.

[Slasx]

Thanks for all the feedback folks. Much appreciated.

One last Q. I created my live USB w persistence with MBR *instead of GPT) using Rufus (simply because MBR was the default). So, when I install MX to my HDD from this live USB, I presume it will use MBR on the HDD by default. Having read up on the difference between the two, I now understand that GPT is the future. However, keeping in mind that my laptop is an AMD A4 processor w 500 GB HDD, will GPT make any difference? I do have a 4 TB external HDD, however, MBR can handle that, right?

[fehlix]

So, when I install MX to my HDD from this live USB, I presume it will use MBR on the HDD by default.

Terminology: We can have drives with GPT partition table layout or DOS partition table layout.
We can boot within UEFI boot mode or with BIOS/legacy (aka CSM/legacy OP code) boot mode.
UEFI booting requires an ESP (EFI System Partition) , which holds the EFI-bootloader.
BIOS/legacy booting requires a MBR (which is the first 512bytes /1st sector of a drive) to hold the MBR-boot code.
You can boot in UEFI mode boot from a DOS-drive or from a GPT-drive.
You can boot in BIOS/legacy boot from a a DOS-drive or a GPT-drive.
(Note: MBR/BIOS-GRUB-loader on a GPT-disk requires - to be reliable - an additional bios-grub partition of size 1MB, marked as bios-grub, preferable at the beginning of the drive, to hold it's BIOS-GRUB-bootloader)
Modern UEFI systems prefer to boot from GPT-drives only.
In legacay/BIOS/CSM people often assume to be restricted to DOS-partition table drives.

The MX installer does have two parts:
1. install the system
2. install GRUB-bootloader
The 2nd step is optional during the install process, but requires somehow arrange the boot process.
When booted LiveUSB/DVD in UEFI-mode the auto-installer "assumes" installation of EFI-grubloader and prefers GPT-partition layout.
When booted LiveUSB/DVD in BIOS-mode the auto-installer "assumes" installation of MBR-grubloader and prefers DOS-partition layout.
HTH

[ Klare Sache und damit hopp!]

[Slasx]

When booted LiveUSB/DVD in UEFI-mode the auto-installer "assumes" installation of EFI-grubloader and prefers GPT-partition layout.

Seeing that my live USB w persistence starts up in UEFI-mode, is it safe to "assume" that if I simply let the MX Linux Installer "Auto Install Using Entire Disk" that it will automatically proceed to create the needed GPT-partition table on the HDD?

FYI, the HDD currently has Windows 8 on entire disk with ms-dos partition table (ntfs file system) and five partitions:

1. System Reserved - 31 MB
2. OS - 100 GB (C: drive)
3. Data - 170GB (D: drive)
4. Data - 197 GB (E: drive)
5. Unallocated 1MB

Or do I need to format the HDD first and manually create GPT partition tables?