Is it generally safe (non-destructive) simply to mount and copy files from an old file from a system that won't boot?

[pwrcul]

Thanks for the tip. I skimmed it and will come back.

[pwrcul]

The live USB fell asleep when I did.
Is there a way to make it persistent?
Or does it recall all you did before with no worries?

This morning I got it to start up and load the live neon by pressing the restart key next to the flashing power key. The USB drive was still in place.

I plan to be careful if I mount anything.

[pwrcul]

My woke USB live Neon fell asleep on me as I talked to somebody on the phone.... within minutes.

Could that be a problem or what to do?

[claydoh]

My woke USB live Neon fell asleep on me as I talked to somebody on the phone.... within minutes.

You can change the power settings, as well as the screen locking ones, the same way you do on a normal install. KDE's defaults for sleep are a bit short, 5 mins iirc, if on battery, and not much longer if plugged in. Screen locking is iirc 5 mins as well.

Is there a way to make it persistent?
Or does it recall all you did before with no worries?

It is a live, read-only thing, so no, normally any changes or settings made won't stick.
There are a couple of options, though not necessarily simple and straightforward.

You could install the OS to another USB drive, just as if it were an internal one. This takes some extra steps to make sure the boot loader files are placed on the USB stick. The process can be confusing, and neon's Calamares is not the same thing as K/Ubuntu's Ubiquity

Another is to use a tool such as Mkusb, or Unetbootin to add a 'persistence' file when creating the live USB. This is probably the easiest method to try.

The issue may be that neon does have a very slightly different layout in its OS image than an Ubuntu ISO does, and I am not sure if it will work or not for neon. It *should* but who knows for sure.
Unetbootin as the USB creator is probably the easiest to use, though for me it has been the least reliable.
MKusb is confusing af to use (see this page for examples of this mess). This page is a little less messy

[pwrcul]

Thanks, claydoh.
I have opened a terminal and partition manager. It was not so anxious to sleep then,


I checked findmnt and mount -l and if the mnt directory still had the mnt/recover but all that is gone from the previous live DVD.

On the WD Passport I deleted the strange Podcasts folder and will copy it again when I get back from the store.

I will changed the power settings by turning off power saving. I will see if it persists as I am at store.

[pwrcul]

I want to extract and backup my Firefox bookmarks from my old \.mozilla/firefox directory that is in /mnt/recover.
With Dolphin I cannot even see the subdirectories of \.mozilla with hidden files made visible as a checkmarked option.
With the Terminal I get an error message of cd being a shell command and that I can't run it directly as in sudo cd firefox in the \.mozilla directory.
The message mentions using the -s option for running a privileged shell or the -D option for running a command in a specific directory.
I decided to stop and ask guidance before proceeding after more checking.

I was able to copy Documents, etc. to my WD Passport drive. Of course my live USB has persistence.

[Schwarzer Kater]

To get to a root shell enter e.g. sudo -i .
Be careful because you are in a root login shell then (you can see this by the # in the command prompt)!!!
No more sudo is nessessary (or even useful) then, but double-check what you are doing and typing, please, because you now can easily bork your system and data by a typo!
exit to get back to your user shell.

[pwrcul]

Thanks, Schwarzer Kater.

Since I make typos all the time I will need another way to proceed carefully especially as I know of no clear method yet to accomplish my goal which I think includes copying the Firefox places.sqlite file and the bookmarkbackups folder to a backup device.

Unless there is a way with Dolphin I would want to use the cp command to copy both the places.sqlite and the bookmarkbackups folder from my profile.
I am guessing I can use sudo for that and copy to my WD Passport drive.

The command would be sudo cp \.mozilla/firefox/q16psona.default-release/places.sqlite and state my target. I need a target that will be like /media/neon/My Passport (or /dev/sdf1) and a folder name or maybe a thumb drive would be better? How much space my target needs ought to be checked also.

So far that is what I am thinking.

[pwrcul]

My backup problem has been solved. Thank you for all the help.

I believe that I have sufficiently backed up my Documents, etc. and key bookmarks etc.
Firefox bookmarks items were the hardest because of my limited Linux plumbing knowledge and experience.
I figured that out by trial and error and looking up messages. The successful commands were cp and cp -r with places.sqlite and bookmarkbackups and a few other files.

I will remove my WD Passport and my Firefox containing thumb drive backups and next see if there is a way to repair the system that won't boot.
I expect, though, that I will need to install a new copy of Neon.