Does HD Installation have Persistent Store Like Live USB ?

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04-28-2011, 09:55 AM
Forester

Does HD Installation have Persistent Store Like Live USB ?

Hello,

I know the Knoppix 6 you can't have persistent store with the LiveCD but with Knoppix 5 you could.

I know that with the LiveUSB you can have persistent store but I don't know about the HD installation.

I kind of assumed no, what's the point but, for me, persistent store is the reason for using Knoppix, so I've never tried a HD installation. I see a fair number of posts on the forums that seem to suggest the answer is yes. It certainly would make a difference to some of the answers.

If the answer is yes, but you don't actually create a persistent store does that mean that all changes are lost at the end of the session as with the LiveCD ?
04-28-2011, 05:25 PM
ICPUG

By HD installation I assume you mean a Poor Man's Install. That is, copy the knoppix files from the CD to HD and boot to them.

A peristent store is not necessary and does not make sense for the full HD installation.

Yes, you can have a persistent store with an HD Poor Man's Install.

If you do NOT make a peristent store and run a Poor Man's Install you will lose any changed settings on reboot. I haven't checked if you lose on logoff.

The key issue is the lack of the home= boot code in Knoppix 6. This allowed you to put the persistent store on a different device to that where the Knoppix files are stored. This is obviously necessary when running from a CD.

So long as you can have your persistent store on the same device as the Knoppix files it is possible to have one.

One reason for a Poor Man's Install on an HD is to make it quicker to run Knoppix. Constantly accessing the CD is a pain on old machines without enough memory to make Knoppix memory resident. It is also a bit tricky to play music or video CD/DVD if you have a Knoppix disk stuck in the drive.
04-28-2011, 06:03 PM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

If the answer is yes, but you don't actually create a persistent store does that mean that all changes are lost at the end of the session as with the LiveCD ?

Yes - if you want that capability, it has to be set up to do it. I use Knoppix 6 from a hard drive, very similar to a "poor man's install", though it's actually done with the "flash install" routine. Since I created an encrypted persistent store, I am prompted for the password on boot, and if I don't supply it, I get a "vanilla" Knoppix system without any downloaded programs or recent system state information. That way, I can check my recollection of what things are like for newbs, e.g. where to find things I have eliminated or moved, etc.

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:
04-28-2011, 06:10 PM
utu

@ Krishna

Please tell us about your hard drive format, partitioning and/or sharing.
Do you use a multi-boot arrangement?
04-28-2011, 06:39 PM
Forester

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. Hmm ...

When I said HD installation I meant the HD installation that folks mean when they post a question and tell us they have a HD installation in the hope that that means something. Now it seems that may be every HD installation is different.

I guess the one I meant was the one you get when you boot the CD with the LXDE desktop, go to the main menu, select preferences and then KNOPPIX HD install. I did not realise folks might mean something else these days.

When I answer a question on the forum, I know what happens with the LiveCD and LiveUSB but I really have no idea how it goes with the HD installation. Somewhere I read a HD drive installation was effectively Debian in disguise so I guessed there was no persistent store and no UNIONFS. I guess I guessed wrong.
04-28-2011, 07:37 PM
Werner P. Schulz

Quote:

..but I really have no idea how it goes with the HD installation.

... the HD-installation will be done by '/usr/sbin/0wn' and '/usr/share/0wn/0wn-installing' => function copy_to_disk().

The installation is a copy (rsync) of decompressed KNOPPIX to a HD, partioned with ReiserFS and a separate swap partiton. Have a look to my screenshots: Terminal1 and Terminal2

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
Own Rescue-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix V6.4.4 remaster)
05-04-2011, 05:41 AM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

Originally Posted by utu

@ Krishna

Please tell us about your hard drive format, partitioning and/or sharing.
Do you use a multi-boot arrangement?

Re: multi-boot: Not really - I mean, it could be, but I never bothered to create a Windows install that was good. This drive has some data preserved on it, rescued from bad systems' drives, against a highly unlikely need to resurrect them. I keep putting off the task of rationalizing it - probably because I take an inordinate amount of pride in keeping stuff functioning long after it's gone past the point of reasonable return on investment.

As far as the format (partitioning) goes, here's a breakdown:

Code:

/dev/sda1 FAT32 6GB /dev/sda3 Extended 190GB /dev/sda5 ext2 177GB /dev/sda7 linux-swap 2GB /dev/sda6 FAT32 11GB /dev/sda4 NTFS 37GB

As you might guess, the piece-meal approach I used (over time) is responsible for the screwy numbering on the partitions. Partition 1 was created last, in order to have a free space to use for the flash-install routine (it's not the first entry in the partition table, but that's okay.) There's a 2GB knoppix-data.aes (copied from another system where I was using a similar setup previously) along with the immutable 4GB Knoppix 6.2.0 files.

Hope that makes sense!

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:

p.s. I mount and use the NTFS partition sda4 for storage when I really need it, but the system load created by using NTFS makes it last choice when downloading. The second FAT32 partition on sda6 is much better, though that format limits max. file size. While I don't like the NTFS performance, I never lose data because of writing to it.
05-04-2011, 02:37 PM
utu

@Krishna

Thanks for the run-down on your setup. I am interested
in comparing the efficacy of the poor-man's-boot-the-iso-on-an-HDD
approach and the LiveUSB approach.

I guess it comes down to the transfer rates of each.
Didn't someone make that comparison sometime in the recent past?

In my three pc set-ups, each have both Windows and Linux OS's.
I strictly observe not writing across partitions from one fully
functional OS to another if the filesystems are different.
The hazard of needing to re-install an OS is what I hope to avoid,
not 'data loss', per se.

I favor my Win7 pc which, thanks to the OEM, allows me to select what
to boot-from among the choices of HDD, CD/DVD or USB media, each choice
being allowed to define its own boot process. I've never found a
friendlier 'multi-booting' scheme than this.
05-05-2011, 01:06 AM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

Originally Posted by utu

@Krishna

Thanks for the run-down on your setup. I am interested
in comparing the efficacy of the poor-man's-boot-the-iso-on-an-HDD
approach and the LiveUSB approach.

You're welcome!

Quote:

I guess it comes down to the transfer rates of each.
Didn't someone make that comparison sometime in the recent past?

I must have missed it. But it makes perfect sense - HD wins, hands down, especially if you have a swap partition. Although, USB3 could be pretty quick in operation, too. Does anyone on the list have any experience with that?

Quote:

In my three pc set-ups, each have both Windows and Linux OS's.
I strictly observe not writing across partitions from one fully
functional OS to another if the filesystems are different.

I favor having a data-only partition for e.g. movies, something nice and easy for both Linux and Winders. NTFS isn't suitable yet, because of the processor load, but FAT32 is working nicely. I hear that Windows access to ext2, at least, is available. Since it's data ONLY, you shouldn't have to ever reinstall for that reason.

Quote:

The hazard of needing to re-install an OS is what I hope to avoid,
not 'data loss', per se.

I favor my Win7 pc which, thanks to the OEM, allows me to select what
to boot-from among the choices of HDD, CD/DVD or USB media, each choice
being allowed to define its own boot process. I've never found a
friendlier 'multi-booting' scheme than this.

Who is that masked OEM?

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:
05-05-2011, 03:42 AM
utu

@Krishna

The 'masked OEM' is Dell. I have an Inspiron 1545, dual Pentium cpus,
4Gb ram. I could never buy the parts as cheaply as Dell, so I stopped
making my own pcs. Only down-side is an internal wifi not well
supported by most distros except Knoppix.

Gparted says I have three partitions on the Win7 computer:
....40 Mb fat16 DellUtility
....15 Gb ntfs Recovery (for Win7 OS images)
...283 Gb ntfs OS (Win7 that is)

I'm in Harry's camp on writing across OS's. Conservative, that is.
I wouldn't know what to do with a broken Windows set-up other than to
re-install. Hours in a dull process. At least with Linux you can do
a lot of tinkering before giving up. And with, current day Knoppix even
a complete re-install is a much simpler, less time-consuming process
than a Windows install.

BTW, Isn't there a file ownership/mode problem going from Linux
to fat then back to Linux? Doesn't this get lost somewhere?

I have a 350 Gb external USB drive, currently 100% ntfs, that I'm thinking
of partioning to include some fat32 and ext capabilities. However, I'd
be surprised if a poor-man's install will beat my LiveUSB start-up time
by any significant amount. I can get on-line with Knoppix from start of
boot now in 56 seconds. Win7, using the internal hdd takes 60 seconds.
05-13-2011, 02:12 AM
Capricorny

Quote:

Originally Posted by utu

@Krishna
BTW, Isn't there a file ownership/mode problem going from Linux
to fat then back to Linux? Doesn't this get lost somewhere?

I have a 350 Gb external USB drive, currently 100% ntfs, that I'm thinking
of partioning to include some fat32 and ext capabilities. However, I'd
be surprised if a poor-man's install will beat my LiveUSB start-up time
by any significant amount. I can get on-line with Knoppix from start of
boot now in 56 seconds. Win7, using the internal hdd takes 60 seconds.

Many file attributes sure get stripped in FAT, that is one of the reasons for setting up loop devices. I have had 3 with Knoppix 6.2.1, the ordinary persistent store plus two more, 4GB each. The underlying file can reside on any supported fs. (Including, it seems, NTFS). The main reason I have for creating Unix fs partitions wherever I can, is not speed, but practicality. But if you run Knoppix from a Unix partition on an external USB HD, I think you might also notice some speed improvements over USB sticks whenever writing is involved. And the 4GB limit on persistent store seems to be solely dictated byt FAT32. I I'm using 8 and 16 GB now as alternatives, 8GB seems to be a good balance.