I have successfully installed MX-14 on my Dell 3000. Works great. Love it. What I used to do before installing MX-14 is this:

I would install a linux distro to my entire 250GB HD on my Dell. The fun part came when I would boot up from the Puppy Linux 5.2.8 CD and use a save file(s) I saved to my HD. On startup I was presented with a list of the save files I had on my HD and my external USB drives. Very flexible. Once booted, the computer was very fast because it used RAM (2GB on the Dell) instead of my HD. Working with applications like Audacity was fast. The limitation when it came to apps was one main reason why I tried looking for something similar but had access to eith debian or ubuntu repos.

Now that I discovered Antix, I want to do roughly the equivalent of what I did using Puppy. I am thinking of using Antix 13 for this.

I am booted into the Antix 13 Live CD and would like to create the equivalent of a save file in Puppy Linux. I would assume this is the Home persistence? I just need some step by step guidance when creating the home persistence file to make sure I am doing this properly. I will follow up with exactly what I have done so far.... More to come.

OK. So here I am booted from the Antix 13.2 Live CD with Set up live persistence selected from the Antix Control center.

After putting in the root password I see the antix create or resize persistence window. I click on OK.

I select /dev/sda1 ext4 as my option for my save file.

What do I select under action and where do I go from here. I tried setting up a rootfs and homefs before as you can see from the screenshot but I am not quite sure what to do next.

Please refer to a boot menu of antiX.
There is an item of Persistence there.

This refers:

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url was:"http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/antiX-13.1/FAQ/persistence.html"
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When I see the boot menu I click on Home persistence and then I am told that it cannot locate the homefs file. Is there something I am supposed to do? I see the homefs file in my /Antix folder so does this mean that I always have to type the path on startup somewhere in the boot menu? I'm not clear on this.

Can I rename my homefs file to something else and can I have multiple homefs files in my /Antix folder so that on reboot I can select the one I want to boot from?

Thanks!

similar to the link that balloon posted, this page provides additional, nitty-gritty, details regarding persistence:

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rmcellig, I read that you"run Audacity, Chromium, Filezilla and Asunder and that's about it"
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That scenario probably isn't best served by live + persistence, regardless which distro you use.

Rather than bloating savefile with mediafiles created by Asunder
(or consuming RAM until written to persistence file, in the context of live a"dynamic root persistence" antix session)
Asunder output should be saved to HDD (you'll probably tweak these in Audacity then delete the as-ripped"originals", eh)
-=-
Similarly, keeper mediafiles saved from Audacity should be saved to HDD

Specific to Audacity, the"solution" you seem to have been chasing... seems to me like"robbing Peter to pay Paul".
RAM is a limited resource. Audacity is necessarily a memory hog (hold that thought).
Regardless live session or not, during an extended Audacity usage run, youbetcha it'll spill over to using virtual memory.
(swap, residing on HDD, and yeah you'll notice your drive"churning")

In the course of handling a single audio file, suppose a _minimal_ Audacity workflow prior to re-saving of:
-- trim silence from end of track
-- trim silence from beginning of track
-- normalize to -3.2dB the entire track

Audacity, to support incremental undo, saves an interim copy of the file after every operation.
10Mb audiofile (compressed? 12Mb in RAM?) + 3 waypoint saves @12Mb each
Even the minimal processing described above will consume 50Mb~ per song processed.
AFAIK, the only way to free up the RAM consumed during an Audacity session is to periodically quit the app.
Every so often, immediately after saving to HDD the fruit of your processing, exit (save changes? What, again? No.) and restart.

So, running Audacity within a live (antiX dynamic root peristence) session to avoid"drive churning" is cool...
...but I expect you can accomplish same, without the startup RAM overhead of a live session,
by just installing to HDD and changing the Audacity prefs -- instructing it to use a tmpfs path as its working directory.

can I have multiple homefs files in my /Antix folder so that on reboot I can select the one I want to boot from?

IIRC the docs, you would need to juggle multiple antiX savefiles (savefile is a non-specific term) by pathing each to a different directory.
Each will bear the same filename (rootfs, or homefs) and you would call a given savefile into use during a given session by modding the boot line (typing into boot line to indicate path of desired savefile).
No"umpteen savefiles found. Choose which one to load" boot selection menu is provided.

Bear in mind, the _only_ persistence option which will be useful to you in avoiding Audacity"drive churning" is the (dynamic) RootPersistence boot option.

Hi Skidoo!

Excellent comments!! You are bang on regarding Audacity and my quest to find the"perfect" solution that will be fast and effective given the computer that I have to work with. I eventually came to the same conclusion regarding quitting Audacity after each recording session. All of the FLAC files I make from my LP's are saved to an external USB HD and then backed up to the cloud. After some thought, I think I will stay with my newly full install of Antix MX-14. It seems to be working fine. I just like to have options incase I run into problems and that is what I have found when using Puppy Linux from CD. If I am stuck I can quicly set up a cronjob that will record the shows I need. The beauty of Linux!! Love it! __{{emoticon}}__

(antiX 13.2)
When I see the boot menu I click on Home persistence and then I am told that it cannot locate the homefs file.
Is there something I am supposed to do?

Yes... and, admittedly, due to the choices/flexibility available it's a confusing can-of-worms.
The"current" docs are dated (antiX 13.1) and are weak on"howto".
FWIW, the workflow for setting up persistence in the forthcoming antiX 13.5 is much clearer.

From your screencap, I can't tell whether you elected dynamic or static root persistence.
all the"does not exist" lines == no problem (normal, expected at this juncture)

homefs: 1024Mb
AFAIK using homefs (per screencap, is present and will be used) will undermine your intent to avoid Audacity drive churning.

I'd suggest a redo, from scratch, rather than deleting/recreating/resizing existing persistence files (plus manual edit of persist-save.conf in order to set persistence"mode"?)

-- fresh install, choose the default/first antiX 13.2 boot menu line
-- from desktop environment, visit the ControlCentre app (per your screencap) to SETUP persistence
-- create 1Gb rootfs (or whatever size, can resize it later if needed)
-- logout/reboot

-- At antiX 13.2 boot menu, highlight/select the menu entry labeled"Root Persistence"

During this first persistence session, the init will load the rootfs and console will prompt you to set user password and root password.
Also, upon start of the desktop environment during this"first run", you'll be prompted to select a persistence"mode". (Here, I suggest choosing"semi-automatic")

All set.
At shutdown, and each subsequent shutdown during a live (boot menu == RootPersistence) session...
...you'll be asked whether you wish to retain (persist) changes made during the session.

Having elected"semi-automatic" mode, you're also free to exec"persist-save" on-demand, mid-session
(handy to create a safety waypoint prior to installing a new app or whatever)

In the absence of a separate homefs, dynamic root peristence embraces ALL rootfs changes ( including ~home ).
To avoid unnecessarily bloating your persistence file (aka savefile, named rootfs) save your Audacity files to a mounted HDD partition, eh.

After some thought, I think I will stay with my newly full install of Antix MX-14. It seems to be working fine.

Ah, I typed this before noticing your latest post.
Yes, that's probably a best"solution".
On the side, if you're interested in playing with liveUSB + multiple pupsave files + debian repos, check out the DebianDog puppy variant.

Thanks again for your valuable comments and thanks for pointing me to Debiandog. I'll check it out.

I will also try out what you suggested regarding rootfs and setting that up.

By the way, I just installed MX-14 PAE on my stationary laptop replacing my other distro. Love it! Everything I need to setup like FSTAB, Samba and soon rsync, worked great. I also like the default color scheme that comes with MX-14.

Any idea when Antix 13.5 will be available?

rmcellig wrote:
Any idea when Antix 13.5 will be available?

Never since it got renamed to antiX-14R.
antiX-14R will be ready some time after September.

There have been several requests for puppy style save-files in antiX. I think I could do it easily enough but it would conflict with root persistence a little because you could not combine the same root persistence file with different save files. They are actually very much like the 3-tiered approach I talked about a while back but since you have multiple middle tiers (the save files) you would need multiple rootfs files, one to match each save file.

I honestly think this would do more harm than good because the user would have to remember which save branch they are on. I know several people have been asking for them but I don't really see the need. This does not mean there is no need, just that I am blind to it at present and maybe need to be enlightened.

One benefit, compared to root persistence is they can be mounted read-only so things saved in a save file don't take up RAM on the next boot. It is an intermediate step between a full remaster and root persistence. We could do this with the rootfs file right now by keeping it mounted and changing the aufs mount command. The major benefit I see to save files is that making them is quicker than doing a live remaster. OTOH, root persistence is even faster. I think a combination of root persistence plus live remaster does much of what puppy save files do. The only thing I see that is missing is the choice at boot time. I just don't see that the choice buys you anything if you instead keep putting everything into the the same linuxfs file when you do a remaster. That way you don't have to decide at boot-time what you want to use.

If you get rid of the choice so there is just one save file that accumulates the changes then this reduces to the 3-tiered approach I discussed a couple of years ago. At that time I was told the benefit was too small and the complication too great for it to be of much interest.

I'm not saying I think puppy save files are worthless. I think it is a valid approach. We took a different approach which seems to work well too. I'm not yet convinced that adding a save file feature would be a net benefit. It makes things more complicated for the user but does not give them anything they can't get now with root persistence and live remaster. If I were to go in this direction, it would be with a single save file to implement a 3 tiered system so whenever you reboot with root persistence (or perhaps only after a threshold of RAM usage is crossed) your RAM usage gets reset because everything gets squeezed into the single save file. You would get the RAM savings of a live remaster without all the CPU work. If I wanted to get more complicated I would go with"snapshots" instead of branches so you could easily go back in time. I see no benefit to branching the file system. It is almost always better to have everything in one large file system. The only thing it costs you is disk space and the save-files use just as much, if not a little more (or a lot more if there is redundancy).