Using Persistence on live usb key

[dmx]

Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Created a live usb drive of latest MX-Linux (23.4)
Boots ok and I can use the live system, but cannot activate persistence.
When booting, I choose any persistence option, then I continue the booting process and get the message: cannot find a device called MX-Persistent, or something close. The boot process sees my flash disk and lists it, but does not let me select it.
Can the extra space on the USB drive be used for persistence, or does it have to be on the hard disk? If so, should I prepare a partition the the hard disk called MX-Persistent before booting? Or simply a directory?

I tried to create a partition on the live usb key with that label, but it seems I cannot create another partition en the 50G free space.
Cannot find a clue in the manual on how to go about. I suppose this does not normally happen.
I've overwritten with dd the first few megs of the usb drive in case. Seems ok.
USB key is 2.0, not 3.
Tried to make a live usb from the app supplied in MX-Linux, but got 30% written after a couple of hours, so gave that up.

[dmx]

Ok. So I created a partition on the HDD and that worked. So I guess the live usb drive cannot be used for persistence. Right?
Would be nice, though, if I could do it...

[dolphin_oracle]

The usb must be writable.

[fehlix]

Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Created a live usb drive of latest MX-Linux (23.4)
Boots ok and I can use the live system, but cannot activate persistence.
When booting, I choose any persistence option, then I continue the booting process and get the message: cannot find a device called MX-Persistent, or something close. The boot process sees my flash disk and lists it, but does not let me select it.
Can the extra space on the USB drive be used for persistence, or does it have to be on the hard disk? If so, should I prepare a partition the the hard disk called MX-Persistent before booting? Or simply a directory?

I tried to create a partition on the live usb key with that label, but it seems I cannot create another partition en the 50G free space.
Cannot find a clue in the manual on how to go about. I suppose this does not normally happen.
I've overwritten with dd the first few megs of the usb drive in case. Seems ok.
USB key is 2.0, not 3.
Tried to make a live usb from the app supplied in MX-Linux, but got 30% written after a couple of hours, so gave that up.

I guess some more details would be good:

Created a live usb drive of latest MX-Linux (23.4)

How did you do that?

When booting, I choose any persistence option, then I continue the booting process and get the message: cannot find a device called MX-Persistent, or something close. The boot process sees

.. indicates the USB-key is readonly (ISO dump mode)
As already mentioned, easiest enable persistence with a writable USB-key.

Tried to make a live usb from the app supplied in MX-Linux, but got 30% written after a couple of hours, so gave that up.

There are a couple of tools on MX Linxu to create a LiveUSB, so again be specific and details what was done.
But anyway, with a slow USB2 and potentially a faulty USB-key, you would better consider to get a new one preferable USB-3.
Also note, we have the tool "QSI - Quick System Info" for a reason, when posted the generated QSI report,
it helps to gather information avoiding needless questions to ask.
Thanks

[MikeR]

I frequently build bootable usb keys using Ventoy,
(and have created a couple of scripts to automate the process.)

However if you are new to Ventoy, here are a couple of help pages:
1)How To Create Multiboot USB Drives With Ventoy In Linux
https://ostechnix.com/how-to-create-mul ... -in-linux/
and
2)Create Persistent Bootable USB Using Ventoy In Linux
https://ostechnix.com/create-persistent ... -in-linux/

N.B. Specifically for mxLinux when creating the persistence file, it requires a lable:

the above commands will create an image called "persistence.img" with label casper-rw. Different distributions use different Labels by default, for example Ubuntu use casper-rw and MX Linux use MX-Persist.

You can use -l flag to set the label:

$ sudo sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -l MX-Persist

or, in more detail e.g.:

sudo /Ventoy/CreatePersistentImg.sh -s $siz -l MX-Persist -o $nam.dat

where $siz and $nam are parameters of your choosing

HTH,
Mike

[dmx]

Thanks MikeR for the heads up on Ventoy. Did not know of that one. I used Etcher this time. So I gather that, yes, a partition should be able to be created on the same USD key for the persistence of MX-Linux. I was wondering if the ISO copied on the key was preventing, somehow, the use of the rest of the key. Never saw that before, but your never know was they come up with...

I tried creating the extra partition under Debian with no luck. Obscure error reported, not much info on what the problem would be. So I tried under Windows. The partition gets created, but it gives an error when trying to format it. It just says it doesn't find the device to partition.

I think the problem is with the USB key, simply. I should have come to this conclusion from the start, but when I'm trying something new, in this case MX Linux, I instinctively factor that as a factor.

Thank you for the replies. CU later...

[fehlix]

... I used Etcher this time. So I gather that, yes, a partition should be able to be created on the same USD key for the persistence of MX-Linux. I was wondering if the ISO copied on the key was preventing, somehow, the use of the rest of the key...

You would need to create a writeable MX Live USB-stick. Etcher dd-dump's the ISO onto the stick, which would not create a partition table needed for adding another partition.
But you can boot from the Live-ISO/USB-stick and plugin another stick in order to write current running LiveSystem onto the other stick
with help MX Live USB Maker, and keep default selection "full feature" mode. The newly created USB-key will be writable, and allows selecting persistence boot option.

[dmx]

Ok, Fehlix, so dd'ing the ISO on the stick DOES stop me from using the "unused" portion. I understand that it does not creating a partition table. I did not know this was possible. In which case the persistence partition cannot be on the same usb stick as the live system that is booted.
Thank you for this information.
I guess one thing that could be done, in some future time, is to build the iso with this extra space partitioned, as an option if the user has the space. I seem to remember some live distros which did offer this. Maybe Ubuntu, or some other I tried a long time ago.
Thank you again.

I am running Debian 12 as my main system, with Antix on old machines. But one of them could take MX, as it is a 64 bit machine, and I finally installed it there. On my debian PC I've made space on the SDD for persistence when I boot MX from a USB stick. I'm very happy and familiar with Debian so I will not disturb this PC for the time being, although I am much impressed with what I've seen of MX.

[fehlix]

Ok, Fehlix, so dd'ing the ISO on the stick DOES stop me from using the "unused" portion. I understand that it does not creating a partition table. I did not know this was possible. In which case the persistence partition cannot be on the same usb stick as the live system that is booted.
Thank you for this information.
I guess one thing that could be done, in some future time, is to build the iso with this extra space partitioned, as an option if the user has the space. I seem to remember some live distros which did offer this. Maybe Ubuntu, or some other I tried a long time ago.
Thank you again.

You can't write onto an dd-dumped ISO-USB-stick. Some user have done something similar with "ISO" installation, by writing the ISO file onto a first partition of an prepared drive, but further actions would be needed to make this drive bootable.
So not really clear to my why you don't just create a writable LiveUSB

I am running Debian 12 as my main system, with Antix on old machines. But one of them could take MX, as it is a 64 bit machine, and I finally installed it there. On my debian PC I've made space on the SDD for persistence when I boot MX from a USB stick. I'm very happy and familiar with Debian so I will not disturb this PC for the time being, although I am much impressed with what I've seen of MX.

Not sure why so complicated, the MX/antiX livesystem does offer to do a "frugal" install (automatically during liveboot), which mainly is about writing the "antiX" subdirectory onto a partition of your choice. The Live-frugal installation creates a file grub.entry, which is mainly a grub-menu entry to be added, into a new/or existing /boot/grub/custom.cfg of an existing GRUB installation.
You can now add any persistence boot parameter to this entry, to have your persistence on the drive, when booting the frugal installation. So to say, frugal is like LiveUSB boot without LiveUSB.

[m_pav]

To get the full features of our Live USB is only possible when you use MX Live USB Maker and to create a fully featured Live USB. You can boot from it and remake it from itself, but with Ventoy, there are a few extra hoops you'll have to jump through first and it still falls very short of the lofty heights our Fully Featured Live USB provides.

If you have another USB drive you can use, this will be easier because you can skip a whole section, but the method below concerns converting a Ventoy USB into a Fully Featured MX Linux Live USB, and it requires a machine with more than 4GB RAM.

If you have 8GB RAM you can remake the Ventoy USB into a full featured Live USB by booting into the Ventoy system, select the MX LInux ISO to boot from, then use the appropriate GRUB menus to select the run from RAM option. Booting like this will copy the 2.2GB compressed system to your RAM and run it from there, so you don't want to be shutting off your computer till you're finished.

While running from RAM, you can access the Ventoy drive and copy the MX ISO from the drive to the demo users homedir or to the Desktop if you wish. Make sure the checksums match before you carry on. When the copy is complete, you'll be using roughly 4.5-4.8 GB RAM because both the antiX Live cfs and the demo users homedir with a copy of the ISO exists in ram space. Running a free command will show you how much exactly.

You may need to umount the Ventoy USB without ejecting the drive first so it remains available to the system. Now fire up MX Live USB Maker, select the ISO you copied earlier, select the USB drive currently formatted as Ventoy as the target and run the app through to completion, ensuring you are using the options to make a Fully Featured Live USB. At this juncture, you can if you wish use the advanced options to use only a percentage of the drive, leaving the remainder free to format as you wish. I suggest no less the 32GB for the Live System to ensure plenty of room for persistence and remastering.

Having done this, you will have made for yourself the single most powerful Live Linux USB on the planet and you can reboot from it and achieve what you want without having to jump through hoops again like you will have to do if you use the lesser Ventoy option.

Our Fully featured Live USB is very robust when its written to a quality high speed USB. Using cheap and nasty USB POST (Plain Old Storage Transfer) drives can result in errors and very lengthy write processes, I highly recommend using at the least drives that have UHS (Ultra High Speed) or UAS (USB Attached SCSI features, with each in succession being significantly faster and more reliable than the former, with USB-SSD types being unbeatable while only costing a little bit more.