slitaz weekly 64, installed to usb stick, persistence only for tux?

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slitaz weekly 64, installed to usb stick, persistence only for tux?

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Started 8 years ago by ohnonot
Latest reply from Ceel
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ohnonot

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Hello,
my goal is to have a distro-on-a-stick that boots on all sorts of hardware (laptops, mostly) to do some simple office stuff, simple media playback, email and web browsing, optionally ssh into my server.

i have booted the 64bits weekly (should i have used stable instead?) from cd and ran tazusb (graphical from the menu) to install it to a usb stick.
it worked, and afaiu that should automatically give me persistence?

but there's a few things that don't work:

- the bootloader first presents me with a language selection, but whatever i choose (even if i just press enter), i get a "boot error", after which i get the actual bootloader menu, and slitaz live boots normally.

- TazPkg pops up a notification that "no package list found". i recharge the list and get 2 more errors, iirc some database not found errors, but after that everything turns green and i can install software.
the software installs and uninstalls, but is not there anymore after a reboot! the menu, however has changed to reflect the changes.
so for example: i installed urxvt and uninstalled sakura, and i now use urxvt as a default browser, but after a reboot urxvt is gone and sakura is there again, i can start it from run dialog, yet the application menu shows urxvt and not sakura anymore.

- i changed both root and user password, but they revert again after a reboot.

this seems to indicate that changes on a user level (tux) are stored, but not changes on a system level.
the usb stick in question is formatted fat32, one big partition.
/home is on the usb stick (judging from the free space showing up in pcmanfm), it shows a boot and a tux folder.
inside the boot folder i can see 5 rootfs*gz files, the first is 46MB, the others around 10MB each.

what to do?

edit:
this wiki article: http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:persistence_splash
- is it still up-to-date? afaiu i'd have to change login method from slim to command line, if i want full persistence + fat32? how would one do that, if system changes are not stored???
there seems to be a lot of conflicting/outdated info floating around the docs...
also, some confusion between /boot/extlinux and /boot/syslinux.
i only have /boot/syslinux.

edit2:
reading the 2 forum threads linked at the bottom of that wiki article. looks good.
i guess the question is: do the solutions therein apply to my situation, i.e. slitaz weekly 64?

edit3:
wikipedia states "5.0 RC3 20 May 2015 Current stable version" - is that so?
which version should i choose? 4.0 really seems a bit outdated...

Posted 8 years ago #
Ceel

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Hi ohnonot,

What ISO did you use? The one dated 2016/09/04? And why the 64bit? This ISO is only interesting if you have more than 4GB RAM.

Anyway, you won't have any persistence with a FAT32 stick; use EXT2 or 3 or 4.
Persistence wil be only for /home; installed packages during a session are lost at power off because the rootfs is installed in RAM in Live mode.
You can save your changes writing a new rootfs with tazusb writefs <compression>; see file:///C:/Users/leclpid1/AppData/Local/Temp/tazusb.en.html for more information.

inside the boot folder i can see 5 rootfs*gz files

??? there is only 1 rootfs in the slitaz-rolling-core64.iso; only slitaz-rolling.iso has 4 rootfs.

/home is on the usb stick (judging from the free space showing up in pcmanfm)

No, in your case, because your stick is FAT formated, /home is in RAM.

Posted 8 years ago #
ohnonot

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>>> What ISO did you use? The one dated 2016/09/04?

i think i did it yesterday, so the one before that.

>>> And why the 64bit? This ISO is only interesting if you have more than 4GB RAM.

my reasoning is that i might well be using this on computers that have more than 4GB RAM, but if you think it's relevant, i guess i can use 32bit just as well.

>>> Anyway, you won't have any persistence with a FAT32 stick; use EXT2 or 3 or 4.
Persistence wil be only for /home; installed packages during a session are lost at power off because the rootfs is installed in RAM in Live mode.

do these 2 sentences belong together?
does that mean, if i install to ext2/3/4 i will automatically get full persistence?
the wiki article (doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:persistence_splash) seems to suggest that removing slim will give me full persistence even on fat32?

>>> You can save your changes writing a new rootfs with tazusb writefs <compression>; see file:///C:/Users/leclpid1/AppData/Local/Temp/tazusb.en.html for more information.

does this mean this is the way to get full persistence on a fat32 stick?

>>> ??? there is only 1 rootfs in the slitaz-rolling-core64.iso; only slitaz-rolling.iso has 4 rootfs.

as i said, i downloaded and installed what i get when i press "Slitaz weekly 64bit" on the homepage, which links to a file called "slitaz-rolling-core64.iso". there are definitely these 5 files. i did not install any other slitaz versions.

please also see my edits to post #1.
would i maybe be better off with 5.0 RC3?

Posted 8 years ago #
Ceel

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You did it yesterday, so it is the 2016/08/28. Still strange, only 1 rootfs in it (see the screenshot below); can you post a screenshot of the /boot directory of your stick?

i downloaded and installed what i get when i press "Slitaz weekly 64bit" on the homepage, which links to a file called "slitaz-rolling-core64.iso".

I never use this way (go directly to http://mirror1.slitaz.org/iso/rolling/ and choose my ISOs). I checked; the link is good, I really don't understand...

You can have persistence in SliTaz only with EXT formated media and only /home will be save, there is no full persistence; to save other modifications you must re-write the rootfs.
With FAT stick, you'll never have persistence even if you use the slitaz home=sdx# or slitaz home=UUID or slitaz home=usb options at boot. The media MUST be EXT formated.

the wiki article (doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:persistence_splash) seems to suggest that removing slim will give me full persistence even on fat32?

I can read this but for me, it's wrong; noway to have persistence with a FAT media.

>>> You can save your changes writing a new rootfs with tazusb writefs <compression>; see file:///C:/Users/leclpid1/AppData/Local/Temp/tazusb.en.html for more information.

does this mean this is the way to get full persistence on a fat32 stick?
1. Sorry for the wrong link; I doubt you can connect to my computer ;-) Use http://hg.slitaz.org/tazusb/raw-file/tip/doc/tazusb.en.html
2. No. If the stick is FAT, tazusb create a new rootfs file you'll have to copy yourself in /boot of the stick; tazusb won't do it because it cannot guess where it has to do it.
  If your stick is EXT, tazusb
  a) will rename the existing rootfs
  b) copy the new rootfs at the good place
would i maybe be better off with 5.0 RC3?

No. RC3 is already more 1 year old; Rolling is much better.

please also see my edits to post #1
- edit1
  You have a /boot/syslinux because the stick is FAT32; tazusb installed syslinux. With EXT sticks, tazusb installs extlinux -> /boot/extlinux
- edit2
  You can see the 2 topics refer to a extlinux.conf configuration file so extlinux is installed and of course... the media is EXT formated.
- edit3
  RC3 (Release Candidate 3) is not a stable version (see notes at the bottom of this page http://mirror1.slitaz.org/iso/5.0/); the last stable version is 4.0. I agree, a bit outdated but not really a problem with old computer.
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Posted 8 years ago #

ohnonot

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can you post a screenshot of the /boot directory of your stick?

ok, here's a listing of the stick's root, then the boot folder, and then the CD i used to create the bootable usb:

/run/media/ohnonot/slitaz $ ll
total 32K
drwxr-xr-x  3 ohnonot users 8.0K Sep  4 10:29 boot/
drwxr-xr-x 27 ohnonot users 8.0K Sep  4 15:58 tux/
-rw-r--r--  1 ohnonot users   51 Sep  4 15:58 .pxovd.155
-rw-r--r--  1 ohnonot users   22 Sep  4 15:58 .pxovn.155
/run/media/ohnonot/slitaz $ cd boot
/run/media/ohnonot/slitaz/boot $ ll
total 84M
drwxr-xr-x 2 ohnonot users 8.0K Sep  3 23:05 syslinux/
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  744 Sep  4 10:29 .config
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users   17 Sep  4 10:29 .pxovl..config
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 2.4M Sep  3 22:02 bzImage
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 3.1M Sep  3 23:04 bzImage64
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 306K Sep  3 23:05 ipxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  44K Sep  3 23:05 memtest
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  46M Sep  3 23:05 rootfs.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  13M Sep  3 22:02 rootfs1.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 6.2M Sep  3 22:02 rootfs2.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 8.1M Sep  3 22:02 rootfs3.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 4.9M Sep  3 22:02 rootfs4.gz
/run/media/ohnonot/slitaz/boot $ 

======== and now the original CD =======

/run/media/ohnonot/SliTaz core64/boot $ ll
total 53M
drwxr-xr-x 2 ohnonot users 2.0K Aug 28 04:32 isolinux/
-rw-r--r-- 2 ohnonot users 3.1M Aug 21 15:23 bzImage64
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users 306K Jul 17 10:20 ipxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  44K Aug 27 13:16 memtest
-rw-r--r-- 1 ohnonot users  46M Aug 28 04:40 rootfs.gz
-rw-r--r-- 2 ohnonot users 3.1M Aug 21 15:23 vmlinuz-3.2.71-slitaz64

thanks for taking an interest.
with all this new information & clarification, i think i will continue experimenting on 2 usb installations - the other with the newest release. will post more.

Posted 8 years ago #

Ceel

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Administrator

Original LiveCD is OK.

In the LiveUSB there are
- 2 kernels: bzImage (32bits) and bzImage64
- and 2 system : rootfs1-to-4 (that is the rootfs of a 4in1 ISO) and rootfs (probably 64bit).
It seems 2 systems are installed. I can't say wich one boot, you have to open the /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg if you want to know (or uname -a in a terminal will tell you what kernel is in use).
The best thing to do: format your stick again; if you use FAT, don't ask for a fast formating.
But remember, no persistence with FAT...

I can see also .pxovd.155 an .pxovn.155 files in the root of the stick. Did you play with a preinit ISO?

Posted 8 years ago #

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slitaz weekly 64, installed to usb stick, persistence only for tux?

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