.
A very attractive & responsive 'CD-size' LiveUSB using squashfs for the basic OS,
and overlayfs to implement persistence. Kernel is 3.16, so overlayfs is a kernel
module; overlayfs is built-into 3.18-and-later kernels. Takes about 51 seconds
to go from start to browser-on-line, where Knoppix 7.4.2 takes about 30 seconds;
Mint takes about 8 seconds to shut-down.
Although 2 Gb was used for my initial persistence; only 350 Mb was needed to
include my comfort programs and tweaks. My additions were ttf-mscorefonts,
geany, b43-fwcutter & installer plus Synaptic reload. Although Ubiqity was
'deleted', in principle, it's squashed representation is still present in my
original basic OS read-only squash file.
Since I store my isos on Win7, it's convenient to make my LiveUSBs there. On Win7,
I had better results using Universal USB installer, UUI, than Unetbootin in making
Mint LiveUSBs. For one thing, UUI preserved the Mint boot menu whereas Unetbootin
provided its own somewhat clumsy replacement boot menu. UUI preparation time
with 2 Gb persistence takes about 15 minutes; 1 Gb persistence would shorten
that time somewhat.
For all the attractiveness of the Cinnamon desktop, its OS main menu is slightly
inferior to the Whisker menu one finds with an XFCE desktop. Its main menu lacks
a 'favorites' category and I also found it to be much less easily re-configurable
than XFCE's.
The overlayfs/squashfs combination, in addition to implementing persistence,
lends itself to providing a very interesting capability to 'merge' initial basic
fixed OS squashfs with persistence data. 'Merging' squashed files is an interesting
alternative to conventional 'remastering'. See for example: http://davstott.me.uk/index.php/2013...stent-storage/
Mint 17.2 may be a very useful platform to examine implementations of different
adaptations of overlayfs capabilities to the Linux LiveUSB in anticipation of
overlayfs' inclusion in the linux kernel.
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