My persistent home isn't persisting

[eco2geek]

Nope, And ver. 05-17 didn't help either.

H'mm. Dunno why it's not working, and I don't have the scripting abilities of SunnyB. But you can do weird things like this:

(persistent home is on the root of hdb2, an ext3 partition, and named "knoppix.img;" saved configs are on hda5)

boot: knoppix26 myconf=/dev/hda5 2

... Knoppix starts up into text mode ...

root@tty1[root]#cd /home
root@tty1[home]#rm -rf knoppix
root@tty1[home]#mkdir knoppix
root@tty1[home]#mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/hdb2 /mnt/hdb2
root@tty1[home]#mount -o loop,rw /mnt/hdb2/knoppix.img /home/knoppix
root@tty1[home]#passwd knoppix
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

... unless you've already set one ...

root@tty1[home]#login knoppix
Password:

... Debian startup messages appear ...

knoppix@tty1[knoppix]$startx

That puts you in KDE with /mnt/hdb2/knoppix.img mounted as your home dir. One would imagine you could choose amongst several persistent home dirs this way.

[SunnyB]

Changing the knoppix.sh is not so difficult.
You can accomplish a lot regarding where everything is placed before boot.
This is my knoppix.sh with a few changes:

#!/bin/sh
[ "`id -u`" = "0" ] || { echo "You need root privileges to modify the system!" >&2 ; exit 1; }
[ -d "$1" ] && CONFIGS="$1/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/cdrom/KNOPPIX/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/mnt/floppy/configs.tbz"
if [ -f "$CONFIGS" ]; then
echo "Extracting config archive $CONFIGS..."
tar -jpPtf "$CONFIGS" | while read i; do rm -f "$i"; done # this is where the configs are put in the /home/knoppix dir

.jpPxf "$CONFIGS" ; chown -R sunnyb.sunnyb /home/sunnyb # I added this to copy everything to my /home dir and make it mine.
fi

chown -R sunnyb.sunnyb /home/knoppix # this makes /home/knoppix mine.

cp -R -p /home/knoppix/.local/share /home/sunnyb/.local/ ; chown -R sunnyb.sunnyb /home/sunnyb # this I needed to make Open Office 1.1.2 work.

cp -R -p /home/knoppix/.kde/share/applnk/Office /home/sunnyb/.kde/share/applnk/ ; chown -R sunnyb.sunnyb /home/sunnyb # this I also needed to make Open Office 1.1.2 work.

killall pump 2>/dev/null && sleep 2 && killall -9 pump 2>/dev/null && sleep 2
echo "Starting daemons..."
for i in ifupdown networking cupsys; do [ -x /etc/init.d/$i ] && /etc/init.d/$i start; done

lisa # this is the most simple method to start the lisa daemon at boot.


This is working right now and everything is OK. I just tried the "nowheelmouse" option and boot and the 5 to 10 second delay in the mouse functions seem to be gone now.

The extra line spaces are for clarity. If you should use these just be careful to make hard returns at the end of each line and save the file as a "UNIX / AMIGA" type.

[bfree]

I set up /hdb5/ as the location for my persistent home, and I'm saving my configuration there also. I even used Klik to download firefox to that locaton. Before shutting down, I saved configuration there. On reboot, used "knoppix26 myconfig=scan home=scan", but my home files were gone, including firebird and all traces of Klik.

Just to be clear, if you use mkpersistenthome it does not copy your current home in the newly created persistent home. Before you use the newly created persistent home you must reboot with the home=scan (or home=/dev/hdb5). Until you reboot your home dir is still the ramdisk, post reboot you can go and use klik etc and expect your changes to stay.

Someone else mentioned problems with haveing conf and home on the same partition, this is not a problem if you are using loopback files on the partitions, but if you are using the entire partition I'm not sure what will happen and perhaps that could lead to problems.

[j.drake]

Before you use the newly created persistent home you must reboot with the home=scan (or home=/dev/hdb5).

OK, maybe that explains it. I created it, then downloaded, then rebooted with flags, expecting the stuff to be there. If I'm understanding correctly, I need to create, then reboot with flags, then save to home directory (/knoppix/home/, not /mnt/hdb5/). I'll try that. Thanks.

JD

[j.drake]

Nope, still doesn't work.

[SunnyB]

j.drake, please post the entire sequence of things you do in order to saveconfig and mkpersistenthome. Then post the boot commands that you are using, ie:

j.drake 2 lang=us myconfig=/mnt/hda5 home=/mnt/hda5

Il try to help you get this going.

[j.drake]

WOW! That's really generous of you! Thank you so much for all the time you and the others are spending to help me on this.

OK, starting clean with a simple knoppix26 at boot this time, I opened this up with Konqueror, and will type as I do each step.

Now, I'm doing Penguin icon -> Configure -> Create a persistent KNOPPIX home directory -> Yes ->/dev/hdb5/ -> OK -> Yes -> Yes -> No -> OK (IOW, I told it that I wanted it on /hdb5/, but no encryption).

Now, I'm doing Penguin icon -> Configure -> Save KNOPPIX Configuration -> (check all boxes) OK -> /mnt/sda1/ (just in case eco2geek's theory is correct, I'll save to USB thumbdrive) -> OK -> OK

Now, I'm going to submit this post, exit Konqueror, K -> Logout -> Restart

Back in a mo'

JD

[j.drake]

OK back again, after knoppix26 home=scan myconfig=scan

The saved config obviously worked, as evidenced by the text on boot, as well as the fact that it picked up my resizing of the toolbar. I'm in Konqueror typing this.

I opened a new tab in Konqueror, loaded the forum, and found the instructions for klik. Followed the link, ran the command, OK, Yes, (clicked the Firefox hyperlink) Follow, Yes, Yes, Yes

Firefox loaded.

Closed the excess Konqueror tabs and windows, closed Firefox -> Yes

Clicked the home icon on the toolbar and verified that the Firefox empty box icon is there. Also verified that K -> Applications (installed by klik) -> Firefox exists and works.

Closed Firefox. Will submit this post, exit logoff and restart as before.

Back in a mo'

JD

[j.drake]

It's me again. This time, knoppix26 home=scan myconfig=scan

Here via Konqueror again. Checking out Firefox. K -> (There's no application folder here!! And, obviously, no Firefox link within)

Checking the home icon. (nothing but desktop & tmp folders at /home/knoppix/)

So far, no good

Finally, no signs of Firefox in /mnt/hdb5/

By my reckoning, that means it don't flippin' work

At least the configuration is staying put.

JD

[eco2geek]

Some questions for you:

- What if, instead of using "scan," you explicitly specify to Knoppix where your config & home are? e.g.

knoppix26 myconf=/dev/sda1 home=/dev/hdb5

(or whatever your thumb drive is -- sda1? -- I don't got one yet )

- Do you have more than one hard disk partition with a "knoppix.img" file at the root of it? I think you said you did, and if that's the case, it may not be loading the one you want with the "scan" cheatcode.

- When Knoppix boots, do you see a message where it tells you it's loading your persistent home, and which partition it's loading it from, before X starts? (You should.)

- If you mount "knoppix.img" on hdb5 as a loopback device, does the FireFox directory show up?