Best rescue CD/USB?

[Qqmike]

And so, with your Kubuntu LIVE USB (i.e., not a HDD install to a USB), in a live session, you take your OS updates (through Muon, Synaptic, whatever) and they stick (because of persistence)?

[Buddlespit]

I use Archlinux install image on a 1G USB key and chroot (arch-chroot) into the system to fix it. It's all cli. Can I add a link to the Archwiki Beginners Guide?

[Qqmike]

"Can I add a link to the Archwiki Beginners Guide?"

Sure, you bet, no problem. Then help me round up dibl and MoonRise to answer my persistent, persistent question(s)! ;-)

Actually, there is a problem -- a problem with conversational English. The younger generation(s) have added "no problem" to our everyday vocabulary. A young person does something for you, you say thank you, he/she says, "No problem." Well, MY generation, when we hear "no problem," that tells us that apparently there is or was some problem! When I hold the door open for a lady, she says "Thank you," and I say, "You bet," if she is younger, under, say, 40 or 45, she might wonder what that means! You bet what? betting on something? what you betting on, that I won't trip through the door?

And so on like that. This is my first post/email/etc/ today, if that tells you anything.

[dibl]

help me round up dibl and MoonRise to answer my persistent, persistent question(s)! ;-)

Yeah, I saw that. ;-)

As a philosophical matter, I have failed to comprehend the advantage of an "ISO + persistent" over a conventional full installation of Linux on a USB stick or SDHC card. One time a couple years ago, I followed the excellent instructions in the siduction manual and made one, just to prove it is possible, and it worked.* But, with 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB USB sticks as cheap as they are, if I want a current, fully functional portable Linux system, I would just install the complete distribution on a stick and use that. However, I have no use for a "spare" Linux system that still needs upgraded to be current and complete. I'd rather just go with the Live ISO, which is (normally) a compilation that the developers have spent some effort to ensure is well integrated and fully functional. Thus my Parted Magic, ver. {last year}, and a couple of other aging Live USB sticks that work just great.

Actually, there is a problem -- a problem with conversational English. The younger generation(s) have added "no problem" to our everyday vocabulary. A young person does something for you, you say thank you, he/she says, "No problem." Well, MY generation, when we hear "no problem," that tells us that apparently there is or was some problem! When I hold the door open for a lady, she says "Thank you," and I say, "You bet," if she is younger, under, say, 40 or 45, she might wonder what that means! You bet what? betting on something? what you betting on, that I won't trip through the door?

Yes, this is indeed getting to be a bit of a challenge for me too ....


*Definition of "works": It worked once, for me, and I have no clue whether anyone else in the world has ever made it functional, or whether they ever will. ;-)

[Qqmike]

I found some things in the aptosid manual:

Live USB a better option for a rescue USB that might be used on various computers:
Full installation to a USB/SD/flash (behaves as normal HD installation)


Other note worthy points are:

• A USB-stick/SD/flash-card install will be usually be bound to the PC that initiated the original installation. If it is your intention to be able to use the USB/SD/flash stick on other PCs, it should not have non-free graphics drivers and cheatcodes pre configured, with the exception to probably have the vesa boot code hard coded into the grub.cfg, (all to be attended to after a successful installation).
• After booting the USB-stick/SD/flash-card to another PC, you will need to alter fstab to access the PCs hard drives.
• "fromiso" with "persist" is a better option should portability be the intention.

- - - - -

And this implies that updates should persist:
Installing software whilst on a Live-CD

apt-get update
apt-get install your-preferred-package
Note: when you power off the Live-CD, no changes will be kept, except if you enable fromiso and persist.

- - - - -

So the Manual does indicate that the live USB w/persistence should work OK and be update-able.

[dibl]

What I typically do is partition my USB stick into two partitions, with one of the partitions just a little larger than needed for the Live ISO. The balance of the space in the second partition is for general data storage. The Live ISO will boot on anything. The data partition is also usable on any PC (if you put it in the first partition so Windows can see it). From the booted Live system, you can of course mount any partition of the host PC as well as the data partition on the USB stick, and copy data at will.

[Qqmike]

Thanks, dibl, good idea. The part I'm edgy about is this: You put a live aptosid on your flash drive. Periodically, it should be updated, the same way you should keep a HDD OS updated through time. Can that be done in a live USB aptosid session AND, if so, will the updates to the OS persist (assuming you enabled persistence etc.)? I think it should work, that's the theory. But my past shaky experiences with Live flash drives some years ago make me a bit punchy about this.

[dibl]

Periodically, it should be updated, the same way you should keep a HDD OS updated through time.

That is absolutely true for a hdd installation of sid, but it is less true, IMHO, for a portable USB stick. Consider the work that went into "freezing" the combination of software in the Live ISO release, and then consider the inherently rolling (i.e. little bit unstable) nature of Debian sid including whatever desktop you chose. Couple of days ago, it wanted to rip out all the xserver packages while xorg was being upgraded to 1.1.5. While I diligently maintain my productive systems and upgrade them whenever it is safe to do so, I don't need that headache on a USB stick that I only pull out now and again. So I use a given Live ISO as it is, until something motivates me to install a newer one.

[dibl]

So all this talk about bootable USB sticks for recovery and disk management purposes caused me to go get the new version of Parted Magic. The bad news is, he now charges a whopping $4.99 for the ISO. As a parasite who has been using the free ISO for years and can't remember ever paying, I was happy to pay for it. The good news -- this thing is beautiful! It is both 32-bit and 64-bit capable -- you choose that on the boot menu it puts up. And Mike, it has everything you listed except photorec. I spent no more than 10 minutes making a very nice tool with an ancient 4GB USB stick. Here is all it takes (assuming you have previously installed unetbootin):

1. Insert a XX GB empty USB stick into your KDE system, do not mount it.

2. Alt-F2 "kdesu (or kdesudo as applicable) gparted" & set a 580MB ext2 partition on the left end, execute, and set "boot" flag.

3. Unplug the USB stick, plug it back in, and use Dolphin (or something else) to mount it.

4. Alt-F2 "kdesu unetbootin", browse to your downloaded Parted Magic ISO, make sure unetbootin has found the correct /dev/sdxx for the partition on the target USB stick and "OK".

5. When it is finished, remove the USB stick and test it on at least two computers.

6. Assuming the USB stick boots the installed OS satisfactorily, insert it again, and again Alt-F2 "kdesu gparted".

7. On the graphic, unmount your partition, right-click and choose "Resize/Move", in the new graphic grab your partition in the middle and drag it to the right end, and again click on "Resize/Move" and it will be staged for execution.

8. Right-click on the unpartitioned space in the lower graphic, and choose "New", and make it FAT32, give it a label like "DATA" if you wish, click "+ADD" and this operation will be staged for execution.

9. Click the big green checkmark and both the Resize/Move and the creation of the second partition and filesystem will be executed.

10. Remove the USB stick and test it on your two favorite guinea pig systems.

If you use whatever utility your test system has to choose the boot device, it will boot Parted Magic. If you insert it into a running PC, including a Windows PC, the applicable "notifier" will offer to open the first FAT32 storage partition. So you have a recovery/disk management tool and a few GB of data storage, on a single stick, for $5 and 10 minutes of effort.

[Qqmike]

Good work, dibl.

Yes, I noticed the $5, also.

TestDisk (almost always) includes PhotoRec as PhotoRec is "part" of TestDisk.

You make a point about advantages of NOT updating Live USB OS. As I mentioned, that very old sidux Live USB worked fine for me the other day.

Thanks.

[MoonRise]

And so, with your Kubuntu LIVE USB (i.e., not a HDD install to a USB), in a live session, you take your OS updates (through Muon, Synaptic, whatever) and they stick (because of persistence)?

Well, I've installed software to it and it remained. I never have done an update but I would think it would based on the fact I was able to install other software that stuck. I'll have to confirm that though.


Edit: After catching up on this chain, I can say I have this live USB on an 8GB stick. Just FYI on that. I thought it necessary with persistence and needed space for that. I'll check as soon as I can and let you know. By the way, I have used Startup Disk Creator and UNetbootin. Both seem to create viable boot USB.

[Qqmike]

Thanks, MoonRise.

[MoonRise]

OK. Here we go. Jsut for a fresh perspective I reformated my boot USB using UNetbootin just because I've been in the habit of using the Startup Disk Creator. Wanted to see the differences again. I can say I like UNetbootin boot options. After booting into the desktop I went to konsole and installed Synaptic. I then used Synaptic to install FireFox and Thunderbird. Rebooted and all is still there even the shortcuts in /USER/BIN. I would think that means even updates will stick with persistance. I'm actually posting this via FireFox from this Live USB. The ONLY issue I have as I stated, is it won't boot on my Desktop. My work laptop great. I just can't figure out why. The older ones I had used to but these newer created ones do not. Somthing has changed in the way they ID a boot USB when created. Don't know but anyway I hope this helps!

[Qqmike]

Yeah, thanks, MoonRise. Interesting that it won't boot on your desktop PC. (BIOS settings are OK, right? "boot from USB," and set the boot order to boot 1st from the USB when there is not CD present, like that.)
What happens when you try to boot the USB on the desktop PC?

[MoonRise]

I've checked and set everything possible BIOS wise. Still no go. I just now even found something related to a CFG file on the USB but even that didn't work. The error I get when it tries to boot from the USB is "BOOT ERROR". This is before it ever even gets to the boot menu like it does on the laptop. I've looked at the partition flags and what is set is BOOT and LBA which is what I would expect. Just really, really perplexing. If I can get it working on this machine I know it'll work on any other and be a truly good recovery boot device. Still Googling.....