antiX repo reset after reboot

[Member GeoffC]

I am running an antiX 19.3 live usb with static persistence enabled.
The antiX repo mirror auto-configured for my location is not ideal and often gives errors.
If I use the Repo Manager utility to select a different mirror on the “antiX repos” tab, the change doesn’t survive a reboot, despite static persistence being set.
Is there some way to make the repo change stick, or somewhere I can change the default mirror to a different one? Thanks 🙂

[Anonymous]

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The popup states “changes will take effect when apt update is next performed”.
try this:
Immediately after running repo-manager then (prior to shutdown) perform an apt update.
Does the change to now stick, across restarts?

>>> “with static persistence enabled”

If, for the current session, you had chosen “static_home” (perhaps accidentally)
that would explain why the change didn’t “stick”.

The output from this will let you see which (if any) persistence is active for the current session:
cat /proc/cmdline
For checking which persistence mode had been selected during past sessions, geez, idunno.
( when only home persistence is in effect, maybe a logfile is preserved, pathed under /live/boot-dev/…state/ ? )

[Member ModdIt]

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HiGeoffC,
Different persons different ways,
Just make your important changes. After setup of apt sources update your system, install any software
you want, customise desktop confirm things work then do a live remaster. Select Personal unless you want to give
an image to others. That will preserve most of your changes. You can change excluded files list before remastering
if wished for.
You still have an opportunity to rollback to previous state if needed as well as fastest boot time.
Persistence can be slow if files are large.

Clone your remastered stick to a second one or create an ISO file on a non volatile medium, means DVD or an
external HDD, SDD.. If you have a backup you can be up and running in a few minutes if anything untoward happens.

As also recommended by skidoo, saving important work to a separate stick or other device is a very good idea.

[Member GeoffC]

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Thanks for your replies 🙂

I tried changing the repo again using Repo Manager, confirmed the change to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list with inxi -r then performed sudo apt update which completed normally. Then I rebooted, but the system came back up with the repo reset to the old unwanted mirror again.

Using cat /proc/cmdline confirms a persist_static state (both before and after reboot – I haven’t changed it for months).

Something is definitely resetting the repo at bootup time. I don’t think a remaster will help with this situation, because it the repo be reset again as soon as I reboot the remastered system.

I just wondered if there was a setting somewhere I could change to stop this happening. I can keep changing the repo each time I update using Repo Manager, but I am running a few antiX systems, which I update regularly so its getting a bit tiresome having to do it all the time 🙂

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Try norepo cheat at boot menu

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member GeoffC]

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Well done – that did the trick!

I put ‘norepo’ in the start commandline parameters and the repos came up unchanged after bootup.
Is this the best way to do it then?

Is this the same as the disable=r parameter?

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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GeoffC wrote:

Is this the same as the disable=r parameter?

Yes it is.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member GeoffC]

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OK, excellent.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my query – I’m very grateful 🙂

[Member ModdIt]

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GeoffC wrote:
I don’t think a remaster will help with this situation, because it the repo be reset again as soon as I reboot the remastered system.

Remastering has worked for me on numerous occasions after repo changes so unless something has been broken in last days it should just work.

Will run live this evening make some changes and check if sticking.

[Member ModdIt]

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Just grabbed a stick, made changes to sources, saved them, remastered.

Reboot, changes as expected still present.

So revert, then remaster again, changes stuck, as in most cases antiX works exactly as it should 🙂

[Member GeoffC]

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Thanks for making the effort to check that. I don’t know why our live USBs are behaving differently – are you using any commandline options at the boot menu? I only had disable=F, because I use rsyslog. I tried changing back to disable=lxF, but my repository is still reset at bootup.

Anyway, the disable=r [norepo] option works for my systems now, so that solves my issue. It also confirms that the repos were being reset at bootup (disable=r –> don’t localize repos based on timezone). I don’t know why this doesn’t seem to happen on your system.

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi GeoffC, maybe I have an answer to
(disable=r –> don’t localize repos based on timezone). I don’t know why this doesn’t seem to happen on your system.

When I prepare a new stick and before rebooting I speed test repos then update from fastest one, at least start to
customise my system then make a personal remaster. Passed on setup is a personal remaster with none of my private
files or stuff like wlan setup included.

I do remaster quite frequently, larger updates, newly installed packages especially if self compiled are a
regular trigger.

I will need to check but i think only a general remaster for distribution should reset repos to time zone based.
Here in Germany that is a pain as a number of major debian repos are very unreliable at present, especially
RTWH Aachen which is default. The other influence might be that I setup persistence once only on first boot,
should I forget and be asked any for settings again I switch off and boot again straight to my configured system.

My habit is to also save anything of importance to a second stick as well as the one I booted from.
And quite often clone my main sticks.

I do also have an installed system but find different sticks for different tasks most convenient.
Especially when self compiled applications are involved, That can be “interesting”. A non booting or unstable running
stick is a matter of a few minutes to revert and reboot :-).

[Anonymous]

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only a general remaster for distribution [will] reset repos to time zone based.

FWIW, I sifted through the code to confirm
live-remaster{—}installed-to-live::do_repo()
The reset of repo(s) only occurs if a general remaster is requested.
In this case, “country” is reverted to default (US) and default repos for the default country are assigned.

The detail unclear to me is this:
“At time of creating a personal remaster, are the /proc/cmdline parameters currently in effect taken into consideration?”

Separate from the individual “cheat codes”, we have available the “dostore” and “nostore” directives… and, on the LegacyBIOS bootscreen (during liveboot, at least) we have the the “F8 Save” option. IIRC, F8 acts same as (might be identical to) declaring “dostore” ~~ causing all of the currently-selected options to be captured, and reapplied, during future boot sessions.

If someone types “norepo” (or disable=rXXX) on the bootline, does that apply to only the current session… or is the r detail automatically saved (and possibly later forgotten by the user, unless s/he peeks at /proc/cmdline)… and beyond just the r detail, I don’t know which other (any? all?) cheat codes would be considered when performing a personal live-remaster.

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks for confirmation skidoo,

I think quite a lot of user confusion comes due the preset general (redistribution) button.

On 19. series for passing on to kids I modified the script to default personal, after that
no more anguished nighttime my files are gone calls.

Might be worth thinking about changing remaster default to personal. Comments anyone ?.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by ModdIt.

[Anonymous]

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preset general (redistribution) button.

Previously discussed, at length (hmm, maybe back before moddit arrived)… the consensus was that having ‘general’ preselected is important, to guard against assidentally divulging personal/sensitive files.

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