I'm running MX-16.1 on my hard disk but decided to try an antiX-16.2 persistent USB boot. In the boot process, I disallow renaming the MX-16 root partition and then proceed to let the USB installer create an antiX subdirectory on my MX-16 hard disk root partition (which is does successfully). However, it cannot create either of the persistence files and reports the failure. I tied using the default persistence file size selections and also selecting my own custom sizes. There is plenty of space on the hard disk partition. I also tried setting the antiX subdirectory permissions to 777 and then re-trying a persistent boot. Nothing works so far.

When I boot my MX-16.1 USB stick in persistence mode, it works perfectly and creates the rootfs and homefs files.

You mean frugal install from a hard drive.
I confirm the error (this was also an error in MX16.1 early dev, but it got fixed). Give me time to trace the fix.

In the meantime, boot live usb, F5 frugal persist (it will fail to create the rootfs and homefs files), but once at the desktop, go to control centre, live tab, make persist (or whatever it is called). Create rootfs and then homefs (optiontal) then rebot. At boot menu choose F5 frugal persist and add/type fdev=sdaX (ie the partition where the frugal files are.)

anticapitalista wrote:You mean frugal install from a hard drive..
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Thanks, anticapitalista! I didn't use F5"frugal". Rather, I used F5"full" from the USB boot options.
I'll try your suggestion and report back.

Is the only difference between"frugal" and"full" being the defaults for the persistence file sizes? I have nearly all of a 2TB hard disk available so I'm not too worried about being frugal!

Oh...and just to be clear and comprehensive in my report here, I made the USB using antiX-16.2_386-full.iso file and I checked its md5sum.

I just tried F5 >>"frugal" and it created a /media/rootMX16/antiX-Frugal-4.4.10-antix.1-486-smp subdirectory but then tried to create rootfs and homefs (or somthing) and failed. It wanted to do a fsck too and that produced a segmentation fault!

Not sure what you want to do. Do you want to run antiX-16.2 from the usb device or run it from the hard drive?

anticapitalista wrote:Not sure what you want to do. Do you want to run antiX-1

anticapitalista wrote:Not sure what you want to do. Do you want to run antiX-16.2 from the usb device or run it from the hard drive?

I want to run antiX-16.2 from the usb but save its state (persistence) on the hard drive. I want to preserve my MX-16 system on the hard drive.

It doesn't seem see the fdev-sda1 option from the boot loader. I made the homefs and rootfs files using the Control Center utility, but the persistence feature still can't find them.

fdev= are you sure it is sda1?

What file system is MX on? ext4?

Yes. I'm running from the (non-persistent) antiX usb now and I get: and
Yup--sda1 is the MX-16 partition. I used the MX-16 installer defaults.

I did a fsck on this partition but it didn't help. The antiX USB persistence feature still tries to do a fsck and it causes a segmentation fault, which concerns me. We should not see segmentation faults!

Sadly I cannot do screen captures during USB boot to aid you in the debug of this problem I would have to take them with my camera.

The seg faults only appeared after you tried setting the antiX subdirectory permissions to 777, right?

If so, you will need to start from the beginning and install antiX-16.2 again to the usb device.

calinb wrote:I want to run antiX-16.2 from the usb but save its state (persistence) on the hard drive. I want to preserve my MX-16 system on the hard drive.

It doesn't seem see the fdev-sda1 option from the boot loader. I made the homefs and rootfs files using the Control Center utility, but the persistence feature still can't find them.

If you want to put the persistence files on partition sda1 then use the cheat"pdev=sda1" ("p" for persist). I haven't tested this recently so I wouldn't be greatly surprised if it didn't work.

Unrecognised boot options should be reported on the screen and in the file /var/log/live/initrd.log.

You can also use the cheat"bp=b9" to set a breakpoint at the end of the early boot process to pause the boot so you can read what is on the screen or take a picture.

My motive for running antiX persistent from the USB is my MX-16 system has intermittent wifi problems with my smartphone hotspot (as do other GNU/Linux systems I've run) but antiX wifi runs perfectly!

I need to compare the wifi driver and network differences between antiX and MX-16, which will require rebooting many times, I'm sure. __{{emoticon}}__ However, I'm getting bogged down with this new problem.

I think I will use clonezilla to backup my MX-16 system and then install antiX to the hard drive. My MX-16 USB booted persistently for me so I can compare a hard drive antiX installation to a USB persistent MX-16 boot and hopefully solve my wifi problem.

If I never solve it, perhaps I'll just retain my antiX system and add the extra packges to make it resemble MX-16 instead! Right now, I'm leaning that way anyhow (probably faster and easier than finding the root cause of my wifi problem).

I'll try to find time to take photos of the antiX persistence boot screens later.

There is a problem in antiX-16.2 that does not exist on MX-16.1 live with persistence either frugal or saving persistence file(s) to hard drive. I can reproduce it. I also remember it being fixed on MX-16. I can't remember the fix at the moment, we are working on it.

anticapitalista wrote:The seg faults only appeared after you tried setting the antiX subdirectory permissions to 777, right?

If so, you will need to start from the beginning and install antiX-16.2 again to the usb device.

I can remake the USB, but I completely deleted the chmod'ed 777 antiX subdirectory on my hard drive (sda1) and still got the segfaults when the USB boot wants to do a fsck. Why should deleting the directory not be sufficient?

BitJam wrote: If you want to put the persistence files on partition sda1 then use the cheat"pdev=sda1" ("p" for persist). I haven't tested this recently so I wouldn't be greatly surprised if it didn't work.

Unrecognised boot options should be reported on the screen and in the file /var/log/live/initrd.log.

You can also use the cheat"bp=b9" to set a breakpoint at the end of the early boot process to pause the boot so you can read what is on the screen or take a picture.

I tried"dev=sda1." I'll try pdev. Thanks!

anticapitalista wrote:There is a problem in antiX-16.2 that does not exist on MX-16.1 live with persistence either frugal or saving persistence file(s) to hard drive. I can reproduce it. I also remember it being fixed on MX-16. I can't remember the fix at the moment, we are working on it.

Thanks! Yes-- it appears to be fixed in MX-16.1. My MX-16.1 USB worked fine for me with the full persistence option. (I think it's the first option on the F5 menu.)

I found a persistence method that will work for me (though it's not the highest performance). I used an SD card in my card reader slot. The boot time persistence tools still don't work and produce seg faults (with either a VFAT or ext4 SD card). However, I can setup persistence on the SD card using the control center live tools (ext4 only, because VFAT still fails), but I must also add pdev=sdb1 to the USB live boot options line.

I suspect another USB memory stick in another USB port might work too.

Thanks for everyone's help!