Quote Originally Posted by Capricorny View Post
Think the only sensible way out of this is to create a derivative - to honor the Debian live convolution, I think it might be called Simplistix.
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I think 6 parameters should be used: Volume (e.g. /dev/sda1), directory (e.g. live) and name (e.g. filesystem.squashfs) for compressed image and persistent store. It's sensible that image and store are not by default lumped together as in Knoppix, but there is no good reason for forbidding it, like it is in Debian 7.6 live.
I think the concrete task will be, mainly, to do a rather complete rewrite of the init - but as this is probably deeply integrated with systemd, this time it may be harder than just adapting functionality fram Knoppix init. Turns out that the Simplistix name is already in use, as is Persistix and Simplistian, but Persistian does not seem to be in such use.

The main problem with the new Debian live seems to be that it is so clearly designed as a vehicle for testing and eventually installing ordinary Debian. But for someone with expert knowledge on init scripts, it shouldn't be a huge task to make a minimal set of fixes. And because som many of the standard commands are available, the potential for running into technical problems should be small. I have only experience from modifying Knoppix init, and that's so neatly organized, so that has in no way prepared me for the hurdles in the "real" world

I hvae put the upgrade to Debian 8 on hold, and done packages upgrades and e few remasterings of Debian 7.6 instead. So far, that works very well.