How to keep Knoppix on DVD w/only persistent data on USB stick?

[superman]

@ PBear.SF

It seems that the feature of storing all the preferences in a plain folder has been stopped since KNOPPIX V6; venturing into minirt.gz may be the only way out.

A workaround (less ideal; requiring quite a bit of manual work) I can think of is to install KNOPPIX on the 2nd partition and the persistent partition on the 1st partition and to take advantage of knoppix-data.inf, so that KNOPPIX knows where the user's files are stored and Windows can also access those files.

An even less ideal workaround is to flip the Removable Media Bit (RMB) of the flash drive, so Windows will treat the flash drive as a hard drive and shows all the partitions in the Windows Explorer. Personally, flipping the RMB isn't my cup of tea as the RMB is embedded in the firmware of the controller and the firmware is often vendor-specific.

[PBear.SF]

Thanks for the info - and suggestions - superman.

It seems that the feature of storing all the preferences in a plain folder has been stopped since KNOPPIX V6; venturing into minirt.gz may be the only way out.

Yeah, I was kind of getting that impression. A plain folder is more convenient (and easier to snoop through for the just innately curious like myself) but I have no objection to letting Knoppix create and use a compressed image file -- if I can just figure out how to make Knoppix create and use a compressed image file on a USB flash drive (even if it needs to be in a separate, Linux file system partition) and read/write it from a live DVD.

Your pair of workarounds go beyond what I really need. It would have been preferable but I don't need to be able to access or view the Knoppix persistent store from within Windows, especially if it turns out that all of Knoppix' persistent data must be contained in a compressed image -- too much trouble to try to get inside and look around it, in that case, anyway. I appreciate the time you took to come up with those ideas, though.

I guess it boils down to (at this point) that I'm just looking for something along the lines of a cheat code to use when I start the Knoppix Live DVD to tell it to use a persistent image on a USB flash drive (the cheat code "home" seems to have been deprecated, from all I've read here, and no longer does anything) and what, if anything, I need to do to prepare the USB stick (does the area I use for the persistent store really need to be formatted ext3, not FAT16 or FAT32, and do I need to create some sort of folder and/or file on the removable drive in advance of starting the Live DVD or can Knoppix create the necessary folder/file combination on the fly)?

Best regards.

[superman]

@ PBear.SF

If I observe correctly, the newer and stock KNOPPIX, e.g. V7.4.2, won't automatically load the persistent overlay which is stored on a different physical device. It's a shame that the home cheatcode is obsolete...

ATB,

[fredvej]

@ PBear.SF

In http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/307...ooting-from-CD I suggested a change to the init script in the minirt, that could be used for this purpose. I think it was for Knoppix 7.2 , so the diff may not fit the init script in 7.4.2.

[PBear.SF]

@ fredvej

Your link is very interesting, thanks; I'll look into it.

How does one create the file on the external device? Knoppix won't create one on the fly, using your init, will it?

[fredvej]

How does one create the file on the external device? Knoppix won't create one on the fly, using your init, will it?

No. the init will not create the file.

To create a persistent image file, you must use the boot code that was introduced in Knoppix 7.4 , I think it's createimage , but I'm not sure. I don't use 7.4 because metacity has removed the keyboard shortcuts for switching between running programs. The image will be created in knoppix_dir (default KNOPPIX) , so you must boot with knoppix_dir on a writeable partition.