Live USB niggles

[sunrat]

These are more minor than the bugs in the other threads so I'm starting a new one.

- Every time I install MX I get defaulted to repo of mx.debian.nz and it just doesn't work. I'm in Melbourne AU so change to the Melbourne repo and it's nice and fast.
- In MX Tweak, when clicking on the Panel button at bottom the Panel window always opens behind the MX Tweak window. The other 2 buttons next to it get focus for their windows correctly.
- Live USB always automatically logs in to demo user even after customising is done and new password is set. I would have thought a password should be requested to log in after it's been customised.

Maybe the first 2 also affect HD installation but I'm not going to reinstall that right now.

[tascoast]

- Live USB always automatically logs in to demo user even after customising is done and new password is set. I would have thought a password should be requested to log in after it's been customised.

This assumes you have either booted the live session to F5 all persist (or similar) and created root/home file systems
or
set up persistence while running live, doing the above with the GUI tools
then restarted with F5 etc into a persistence mode, at which point new password prompts will be presented prior to the desktop environment loading. It sounds like you are missing a step somewhere?

[sunrat]

The USB stick is booted with UEFI, no F5 but instead a "Customise" menu on first boot and subsequent boots default to the custom setup. From what I recall of dolphinoracle's video, F5 is only when booting MBR. Passwords for root and demo were set during the customise stage. No login prompt, it boots straight to desktop.

[BitJam]

- Live USB always automatically logs in to demo user even after customising is done and new password is set. I would have thought a password should be requested to log in after it's been customised.

I'm sorry you were surprised. Auto-login into X is the default on the live system. The password change was primarily to defend against automated network attacks since physically possession of the live-usb is game-over unless you're using encryption. You are free to configure the DM so it requires a password it that is what you want.

I believe that changing the auto-login behavior the "first" time persistence is enabled would be awkward, confusing, and surprising for most people. Disabling it on every persistent boot would be ridiculous. OTOH, the rationale for using well-known usernames and passwords on the live system was based on it being run from read-only optical media. IMO using well-known usernames and passwords on any system with network access is a mistake.

As you probably know, there is often a trade-off between convenience and security. We felt that forcing a password change while not changing auto-login to X was a reasonable compromise. It fits well with typical live-usb usage. OTOH, it might be nice to have a simple live boot option to decrease the convenience and increase the security.

[sunrat]

Thanks Bitjam, understood. I figured if anyone gets hold of your live USB they have access to whatever data is on it without a login password. Same as when we have passcode/biometric on our phones.
If it's easy to implement it may be a good option to add in the Customise menu. Personally I'm totally new to this live persistent usb biz so not likely to have more than pics of my kitty stored on it.

@tascoast I still don't understand what you mean. What is this step I may have missed?

[BitJam]

If it's easy to implement it may be a good option to add in the Customise menu.

I think it would be awkward (as I tried to imply) although there are easy ways provided to customize the DM after you boot. OTOH, I could see it as a small part in a much larger effort to make the live-system much more secure. For now, I recommend using an encrypted live usb with a strong passphrase and strong passwords if you want to protect your LOLCats. I'd like to beef up the protection by also encrypting the live boot partition but first we need to catch up on bugs. For now, if you have an encrypted live-usb that you lose possession of, it may no longer be safe to boot if the initrd.gz or kernel have been tampered with. I'd like to provide an easy way to check this by plugging the live-usb into a host system without booting it.

[anticapitalista]

I figured if anyone gets hold of your live USB they have access to whatever data is on it without a login password. ...

You do know that you can use an encrypted live usb, right?

[sunrat]

I figured if anyone gets hold of your live USB they have access to whatever data is on it without a login password. ...

You do know that you can use an encrypted live usb, right?

Yes. I guess that's a better option if I ever want portable MX with anything more private than kitty photos. More secure than a password login on unencrypted session.

Any thoughts on the other 2 points I mentioned in the first post?

[BitJam]

The other two problems are not live-usb specific (or are not under the purview of the live-usb team) so you are basically hiding them here where the people who can help you with them are probably not carefully looking. I realize it's more convenient for you to lump unrelated problems together in one post but this often results in some of the problems being missed by the people who can help you. Nonspecific subject lines are unhelpful to everyone else. For example if you marked this "solved" no one would know from the subject line what was solved.

- Every time I install MX I get defaulted to repo of mx.debian.nz and it just doesn't work. I'm in Melbourne AU so change to the Melbourne repo and it's nice and fast.

I've suggested we either fix that server or remove it from the list. Again. This has been an ongoing problem for years. Ever since it came on line. I could say this in a more inflammatory way but I don't think it would help anything. This was one of our earlier international servers so when it first came on line, its ups and downs affected many more people.

I was also going to suggest you use the "norepo=nz" cheat which would cause us to give you the closest repo that was not nz but the software that handles this was accidentally missing from the MX-19 iso files. So then I gave up. I asked about the missing software and again suggested we fix or drop the nz mirror.

- In MX Tweak, when clicking on the Panel button at bottom the Panel window always opens behind the MX Tweak window. The other 2 buttons next to it get focus for their windows correctly.

This is not my area of expertise. Even if it is only occurs on the live system, it might reach the people who can help you by posting about it in a new thread with a more specific title.

[sunrat]

Thanks Bitjam. I realise the NZ repo issue has been discussed before and I will start a new thread on the Tweak one.

I only brought them up under live-usb because I made a crapload of live-usb sticks this week as it's the first time I've tried it out and had those issues each time. Only done one HD install in the last year.
I did tear my hair out a little on encountering the persistence bug thinking I had done something wrong. Glad that's sorted now.