Problem with home=option since 3.8

[tbobz]

I have an encrypted persistent home on an external usb harddrive. The home= option works perfectly with it in every version up to and including 3.7. Subsequent versions ignore the cheat code, launching me into a 'virgin' ramdisk. I can then sudo mount -t ext2 -o etc. and access the drive, but I sure would like to be able to do what I have done for several years now, which is type home=/dev/sda1 and after a bit type in my password and be in my persistent home as user Knoppix. I tried /dev/uba1in those versions when the drive was designated as such (I notice that in 4.0.2 we are back to sda1) but to no avail. I would really like some help with this. Just knowing it was no longer possible would be better than this uncertainty. Thanks for any help you care to give.
Yours-Tbobz

[rwcitek]

Just knowing it was no longer possible would be better than this uncertainty.

It is no longer possible ... sort of. What's happened is that with 3.8 the persistent home directory feature had become the persistent Knoppix disk image (PDI) which uses unionfs and encompasses more that just the home folder. That's the reason for the name change and why older versions no longer "work."

The solution is to create a PDI (you can include encryption, but it's a royal pain), mount your old home folder someplace else (e.g. /tmp) and then copy the files from /tmp/knoppix (for example) into /home/knoppix.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org

[tbobz]

Thank you so much for this explanation. If I could impose upon you just a bit more I have a couple of follow up questions.1)If I were to transfer my files from my persistent home to a newly created PDI could I (and if so, how) on subsequent boots mount the PDI in a manner similar to the manner in which I mount my current persistent home ie. what is the PDI cheat code? 2) What is the 'royal pain' about encrypting the PDI?
Again, thank you for clarifying this issue for me. I guess I need to more closely read changelogs.
Yours-Tbobz

[Pacala]

Just knowing it was no longer possible would be better than this uncertainty.

It is no longer possible ... sort of. What's happened is that with 3.8 the persistent home directory feature had become the persistent Knoppix disk image (PDI) which uses unionfs and encompasses more that just the home folder. That's the reason for the name change and why older versions no longer "work."

The solution is to create a PDI (you can include encryption, but it's a royal pain), mount your old home folder someplace else (e.g. /tmp) and then copy the files from /tmp/knoppix (for example) into /home/knoppix.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org

I have a similar problem. I have a USB hard drive on which I used to store my home directory with Knoppix 3.3. With 3.3 you can either mount a partition directly as a home directory, or have an image file of the directory. At boot time I would type in "home=/dev/sda1".

With Knoppix 4.0.2 I am no longer able to do this. I have tried creating a "knoppix.img" file and typing
home=scan
home=/dev/sda1
home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img
home=/mnt/sda1
home=/mnt/sda1/knoppix.img
but none of them work. What am I doing wrong? How can I trouble-shoot?

Regards,
Paul

[UnderScore]

I have a similar problem. I have a USB hard drive on which I used to store my home directory with Knoppix 3.3. With 3.3 you can either mount a partition directly as a home directory, or have an image file of the directory. At boot time I would type in "home=/dev/sda1".

With Knoppix 4.0.2 I am no longer able to do this. I have tried creating a "knoppix.img" file and typing
home=scan
home=/dev/sda1
home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img
home=/mnt/sda1
home=/mnt/sda1/knoppix.img
but none of them work. What am I doing wrong? How can I trouble-shoot?

Taken from post http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=82161#82161

3. tried to mount my Lexar usb drive where I keep my install goodies. Wouldn't mount .... DMESG showed SDA1 now called UBA1..... why ???

This is due to a linux kernel change. The very brain of the OS, the Linux kernel version 2.6.x, the internal architechture has changed and this has resulted in USB devices mapped to /dev/uba. Yes this is frustrating but going forward, this may be a permanent change. It is more logical to have USB devices at a /dev/uba1 as opposed to /dev/sda1 because /dev/sd? was created years ago for SCSI devices.

This change occured in the time between Knoppix 3.7 & 3.8.x and the change is in Knoppix 3.8.x & up.
Try using home=/dev/uba1

I hope this helps.
James