Looks like the best bet is just to install to the drive and use a backup program to sync files changed on the system or on the live USB used in other machines when travelling

I now have antix running on my main laptop, finally.

I have rearranged my drive structure to make space on the SSD for a copy of the full 16gb USB flashdrive that I have my tweaked live version on. I am hoping to be able to run it from the SSD normally, then when I travel, or want to create backups, just copy my current persistence files to the USB flashdrive to bring it up to date.

I found that if I install to the hard drive I no longer have the persistence options.

If it can't be done I guess I could install to SSD and then copy things to the flashdrive manually, but it would get messier than just having 2 persistence files to copy

Any thoughts?

Rsync the contents of the usb to the partition, install grub on the ssd and configure it with a /boot dir in the partition to load the antiX and initrd files from the antix dir in the files copied from the usb on the partition.

you could use the"frugal" options to install to the hard drive partition. the persistence files for frugal and liveUSB are the same, I believe.

if you use one of the frugal boot options, the system will offer to install to a partition you choose. You will then need to modify your existing grub to boot the frugal install.

Thanks for the replies. I neglected to think that this would be tricky in advance...

When I tried the rsync way, it did work in terms of coming up and such, but not as a live system, probably due to grub-update generating a normal boot? I don't know how to code the grub2 boot by hand to get it to come up in"live persistence" mode as an option. It also was failed to login as demo, and I could only login as root. Reseting the password didn't help.

When I tried the frugal route, again it came up ok, but it came up as a stock antix system mostly. some of my games were on the menu, but all my settings, background, and conky and personal menu are gone.

I am thinking of just running from USB, but its sort of sad to have that SSD go to waste.

thriftee wrote:Thanks for the replies. I neglected to think that this would be tricky in advance...

When I tried the rsync way, it did work in terms of coming up and such, but not as a live system, probably due to grub-update generating a normal boot? I don't know how to code the grub2 boot by hand to get it to come up in"live persistence" mode as an option. It also was failed to login as demo, and I could only login as root. Reseting the password didn't help.

When I tried the frugal route, again it came up ok, but it came up as a stock antix system mostly. some of my games were on the menu, but all my settings, background, and conky and personal menu are gone.

I am thinking of just running from USB, but its sort of sad to have that SSD go to waste.

did you copy your rootfs and homefs persistence files to the frugal install. that might not be automatic, I'm not sure. However, copying the files over from our usb to the frugal install *should* work.

thriftee wrote: messier than just having 2 persistence files to copy

Any thoughts?

You didn't mention how often you expect to"pack-n-go", so I can't guess how much mess (fuss) would be tolerable.
If not often, the existing antiX tools (isosnapshot, live-usb-maker) take only a few minutes to run, but they necessarily avoid (exclude) hardware specific drivers / config files.

Would you really want to repeatedly port the entire O/S?
You can setup a job in ukopp, or luckybackup, or rsync to handle backup/restore of changed files in select paths
(still, a successful result requires careful creation of"exclusion" rules/patterns)


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$ man rsync

dolphin_oracle wrote:did you copy your rootfs and homefs persistence files to the frugal install. that might not be automatic, I'm not sure. However, copying the files over from our usb to the frugal install *should* work.

Yes, I did the frugal-persist install to a freshly formatted ext4 partition, and then after that didn't automatically carry over the rootfs and homefs, I tried it over again and copied the files in manually. But no, it didn't work, as I hit a bad error trying to boot due the UUID of whatever it was trying to work with not being there. I got a error: no such partition. entering rescue mode...

I couldn't fix it because I don't know where to look to change it and don't know what to change it to.

If I had to guess, I'd say that something in the rootfs is pointing to a UUID that isn't there

I will get a copy of the grub configuration if you like a bit later... if you have looked at the usb installer you should be able to find it as well. There should be a section that has an echo / redirect that writes the grub configuration file. The biggest item IIRC is to make sure that the configuration has the persistent options on the kernel line. It might require uuid stuff but I do not recall doing this in the past (other than directing it to the correct partition out of many installs)

skidoo wrote:

thriftee wrote: messier than just having 2 persistence files to copy

Any thoughts?

You didn't mention how often you expect to"pack-n-go", so I can't guess how much mess (fuss) would be tolerable.
If not often, the existing antiX tools (isosnapshot, live-usb-maker) take only a few minutes to run, but they necessarily avoid (exclude) hardware specific drivers / config files.

Would you really want to repeatedly port the entire O/S?
You can setup a job in ukopp, or luckybackup, or rsync to handle backup/restore of changed files in select paths
(still, a successful result requires careful creation of"exclusion" rules/patterns)


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file://usr/share/doc/luckybackup/manual/index.html

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$ man rsync

Skidoo,

This is my main personal laptop. I also have a twin of it in case it ever has trouble. Its from 2006 but its 17" and pretty fast and has 3gb of memory. I use it every day. Usually with SlakoPup I just push the power button and suspend it when not in use, same as my work laptop which is double the memory and speed. I don't take the flashdrive with me everyday, but a few times a month when I need to go anywhere, I have to pack up both computers to travel, be it for a day or a week, because I must take my work laptop, and am not supposed to and don't want my personal things onto it. I can't just take my own laptop because they won't allow it to access the system there. So that means if I'm only going to take one, it needs to be the work one. That's why I wanted to be able to boot the flashdrive OS on any of the 3 machines. When travelling I generally don't need to change programs or install new ones, as my primary use for my personal machine then is just to access documents, email or web, or play mind numbing games or music.

I had thought I'd be able to copy the USB to the SSD hard drive and just run it live from there, and refresh the homefs and rootfs on the flashdrive if I needed to travel.

I would say any way that I could run the same OS and programs with access to fresh copies of the documents and such and be able to set it up for travel in 10 min or so would be reasonable.

So, You are suggesting to install on the main machine to the SSD hard drive, then run isosnapshot to create an fresh iso, and then use live-usb-maker to make a live USB of it? Then sync my data files... Ok, I'll give that a try.

With SlakoPup, initially I made quite a few changes, but after a month or so it was stable and in the 2 or 3 years I've been running it, I've probably only added or changed programs a half dozen times. I'd expect the timeline to be similar with antiX, and I see this as probably the last major change, and I am almost to where SlackoPup is completely replaced, and only needs to be on the drive just in case. Thanks again for everyones time and ideas.

Dave wrote:I will get a copy of the grub configuration if you like a bit later... if you have looked at the usb installer you should be able to find it as well. There should be a section that has an echo / redirect that writes the grub configuration file. The biggest item IIRC is to make sure that the configuration has the persistent options on the kernel line. It might require uuid stuff but I do not recall doing this in the past (other than directing it to the correct partition out of many installs)

I did pretty well getting it loaded and running that way, never having tried that before. Anyway, thanks for the additional clues, I'll have a look. I have the weekend ahead of me, and its pretty quick each attempt because all the storage devices are very quick and its only 1 or 2 gb.

Dave, I looked at antix2usb.sh and its beyond my ability. I couldn't find where it creates grub.cfg or where it passes the options for the boot. I don't know linux bash scripting or python, I mostly just take snippets of things and tweak them to do things I need, but if I can't even find where its doing it after looking a couple times, its probably a bridge too far for me.

Thriftee, if you don't yet have the package"live-usb-maker" installed on your system, do install it and check it out. It's intended to replace antix2usb, works well (and fast!) and IMO is super easy to use.

So that means if I'm only going to take one, it needs to be the work one. That's why I wanted to be able to boot the flashdrive OS on any of the 3 machines.

At reading this detail, I'm excusing myself from further participation in this topic.

xref:
Live USB vs Corporate machine

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Skidoo, thanks, I hadn't noticed there were 2 different programs there.

I came to the realization that the frugal install didn't really solve anything for me because I still had to have the USB in, and then when I'd go to a different machine, how would I get it to use the rootfs and homefs if I can't move it from one to the other. So I think the best answer was to just install to the SSD and create a live USB from it, and when I'm on the road, just save things to a certain area and use rsync or something to sync that area before I go and after I get back.

I went in and explained the double laptop travelling issue (25 lbs and very bulky), and they gave me permission and showed me how to get it to boot to the flashdrive so I can use the company machine. I told them I'd just run from the flashdrive and not use the hard disk so as not to cause problems.

PS: I installed the live-usb-maker and yes its much simpler