.
Using MX-14.4 as a LiveUSB on 16 Gb Cruzer USB 3.0 Ultra Fit on
a Dell 1545 Inspiron Win7 computer with 2 cpus & 4 Gb ram.
MX-14's most remarkable feature in my estimation is its built-in
persistence and remastering capability; however it has many other
fine features. See http://www.mepiscommunity.org/features for a
description of all the new features in MX-14.4.
The specific MX-14.4 version I chose has a 32-bit i686 linux 3.14
pae mode kernel. My MX-14.4 set-up has 845 M squashfs compacted linuxfs,
75 M of ext4 rootfs and 48 M of ext4 homefs. This represents a full
rolling release update of all Debian, Xfce, LibreOffice, Iceweasel,
etc elements plus my own tweaks and comfort programs.
It boots to wifi online in 30 sec; shuts-down in only 6 sec.
I needed three work-arounds to enable my MX-14.4 to perform as I like.
Two are hold-overs from 14.3, which were discussed at length previously
on the MX forum. All are minor and inconsequential, once discovered and
adjusted-for.
One previously reported flaw, possibly unique to LiveUSB application
is an initial absence of a directory /var/tmp. Its absence makes the
apt-upgrade process break down due to an 'initramfs update' difficulty.
As in 14.3 an adequate work-around is to add /var/tmp via /etc/rc.local.
A second previously reported flaw, not of consequence to most MX users
apparently, is a missing helper program to display the actual choices
of a remastering exploration menu. As with 14.3, one helper that works
is rox-filer, easily added via Synaptic.
The third flaw is, for me anyway, unique to 14.4. This is an impediment
to the legacy boot process, that makes finding persistence files fail.
The work-around here is to add the cheat-code 'load=all'. I do this
once and add a 'custom boot' option to the usual boot menu choices.
It may be noted that I had no problem at all with booting a Win8 machine
with the new uefi boot option.
My thanks to BitJam and Anti' (principals in the MX world and active
on antiX & MX fora) for suggesting the work-arounds.
ATTO R608 8-Port 6Gb/s SAS RAID Controller
$33.99
Dell UCSA-901 0101A6100-000-G SAS PCI-E Raid Controller Card
$37.50
LSI 9305-16i SATA SAS 12Gbs RAID Controller PCIe 3.0 x8 IT-Mode 4* 8643 SATA
$229.99
Dell PowerEdge R730 12Gb/s SAS Mini Mono RAID Controller 2GB Cache 07H4CN 7H4CN
$49.99
Inspur LSI 9300-8i Raid Card 12Gbps HBA HDD Controller High Profile IT MODE
$15.98
LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i 12Gb PCIe 8-Port SAS/SATA RAID 1Gb w/BBU/CacheVault/License
$39.95
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller HBA330 12Gbs PCIe 3.0 SAS SATA J7TNV Low Profile
$29.00
ORICO Multi Bay RAID Hard Drive Enclosure USB 3.0/ Type-C For 2.5/3.5'' HDD SSDs
$87.99
4 Bay RAID External Hard Drive Enclosure for 2.5/3.5" SATA HDD/SSD
$79.99
G TECHNOLOGY G RAID 0G04228 2-Bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID Array W/Power Supply
$99.99