a new & improved, self-contained Knoppix personal backup

[utu]

If you boot Knoppix with cheatcode "noimage" you can only see persistent memory in the (compressed) file '/mnt-system/KNOPPIX/knoppix-data.img'. If you boot without this cheatcode you can also see the persistent memory in the (decompressed) directory '/KNOPPIX-DATA/'.

I would not have expected this to be the case.

I would expect the cheatcode noimage to suppress the un-compressed .img file which has both the errors and the new program material in it, leaving you with just the initially installed compressed KNOPPIX file.

The .img file is not compressed. That would take up too much time on shut-down, for one thing.
I can see that the cheatcode noimage may indeed serve a useful purpose, but I'd not describe it the way you have.
And, if the .img is ok, I don't want to change it.