On 05/14/2016 08:31 PM, ToddAndMargo wrote:
On 05/12/2016 10:59 AM, Ron Leach wrote:
On 12/05/2016 17:36, ToddAndMargo wrote:
You can get more space if you use the command line to create the stick. But you still have a 4 GB persistence limit, but you can get a larger home directory.
Would you say that again, Todd? Are you saying that the live spin, if placed on a USB stick, provides a home directory that persists between use on different machines? And that the persistence is achieved by writing the home directory back onto the stick?
Do any changes outside home also persist? Such as in /etc, or even additional useful dnf installs?
Would you like my notes on such?
Does the list permit attachments? I'd be interested in having a look at them. I like the xfce desktop on Fedora for doing quick checks on machines.
regards, Ron
Hi Ron, There are three things I had to wrap my head around with livecd-iso-to-disk:
you must the the EXACT version of Fedora that livecd-iso-to-disk was written for.
you must use the same version of Fedora that the LIVE iso is spun for.
so you have to cut Fedora-Live-Xfce-x86_64-23-10.iso on Fedora 23.
and don't ask me why. The answer I got back was that the uses files from the system it is running and they have to match. The author has told me several time not to use his script on Scientific Linux, but on the exact version of Fedora only.
persistence means "use and lose". You can install programs to the point were the tiny persistence storage fills up, then it is gone. If you erase something from it, you still never get that space back. So you can NEVER reuse the space.
Persistance is covered by the "--overlay-size-mb" flag. And regardless of what anyone says, the maximum size is 4095. This has to do with presistence using some kind of virtual machine based on a vfat partition.
Ah! We also have a "home" directory and that acts like a normal hard drive. You can add and delete. The home directory is covered by the "--home-size-mb" flag. And you can have any size that fits on your stick. Start with a huge size and it will wag the finger at you, letting you know the maximum size.
The following cut on a Kingston DTR3.0G2 16 GB mounted on /dev/sdc. Change to the appropriate dev and make sure you don't wipe something else out by accident with "dd":
Erase the flash drive (or it will reuse the partition structure) # dd bs=4096 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
Cut the live stick # livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr --delete-home --home-size-mb 8829 --overlay-size-mb 4095 --unencrypted-home Fedora-Live-Xfce-x86_64-23-10.iso /dev/sdc
Hope that helps, -T
Also .... I love those live iso's to install Linux on a computer. They are very well done for that purpose.
But sometimes, I need my cool tools, so I make my own direct install flash drive, which I call my "dead stick". It have all the things I love to test networks, clear Windows passwords, test printers, etc.. I also configure it as two ext4 partitions that I can read and write to directly as a flash drive. (Live USB you can't do that.)
So, I carry both my live stick and my dead stick with me to customer sites.
Two things to ponder on a direct flash drive:
1) you run into trouble if the customer's computer has two hard drives installed, such as a backup drive. I have had to go into grub.conf and create a second line for HD1. And, that second line does not update with a kernel update. (But I never really need to ever update the kernel, just what programs I need.)
2) customer computers can really, really mess up a direct install flash drive. Make a "dd" of the whole drive and you can restore your flash drive back to the way it was when you "dd'ed" it.
-T