- This topic has 153 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated May 5-10:25 pm by Brian Masinick.
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dugin
I performed a second remaster, a Personal remaster, but the desktop shortcuts, disable Conky, and systray Connman were not implemented, and I lost bookmarks as well. The only thing I can think of that might have gone wrong was not saving files under /home in the new “Personal” remaster. Something presented by Dolphin makes me not want to do that, but maybe this is not right. Should I save to /home for personal settings? BTW, what is the difference between home and Demo?
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
I performed a second remaster, a Personal remaster, but the desktop shortcuts, disable Conky, and systray Connman were not implemented, and I lost bookmarks as well.
You have to re-do those settings, because they were lost when you did a general remaster.
Do a personal remaster always, unless you have a good reason not to. 😉
(Something for you to experiment with much later: Lately, I use ONLY /home persistence. It’s just personal taste. I say that only to keep your mind open to further experimentation, down the line.)
BTW, what is the difference between home and Demo?
You’ve conflated some things here apparently. That’s OK. Just forget about that — keep doing what you are doing. Play with it & ask questions.
Bottom line so far: You are doing well with persist_root or p_static_root, but do personal remaster (saves personal settings).
confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
I was performing a personal remaster, but I declined to save to /home. That was the problem (mistake). Personal settings were not saved if I didn’t save to /home. But if the only way to save personal settings is to save to /home, why ask me where to save them? antiX could at least hint that /home is where personal setting are supposed to go.
I have problem. I maintain and update 163 indexes, which serve as cross references. I use this set of indexes to augment my memory. Each index is an instance of geany, and contains names of artists in alphabetical order. I frequently add a name (edit text) to these indexes in multiple places, as a cross reference to find things that I can’t quite remember. Using antiX I can’t easily edit a geany file because of permissions, and keep in mind we’re talking about 163 geany files that reside in a directory on my data partition. I tried to change permission to write and read for one index, but I still can’t add a name (edit text), not in Rox nor in Rox as root. Any suggestion?
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
I was performing a personal remaster, but I declined to save to /home. That was the problem. Personal settings were not saved if I didn’t save to /home. But if the only way to save personal settings is to save to /home, why ask me where to save them? antiX could at least hint that /home is where personal setting are supposed to go.
I’m not going to argue, but I want to make it clear for anyone reading who is unfamiliar. It does have a short explanation on the opening remaster window.
I feel this notice is very succinct.- This reply was modified 1 year ago by christophe.
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confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
Brian Masinick
I agree; the explanation is very clear.
Also I have tried it both ways.
When you use General, it’s intended for situations where the results are used for general purposes, for example, distribution to others.Personal is specifically for saving your own ‘personal’ set-up, very obvious to me anyway.
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Brian MasinickI understand the diff between personal and general remaster, I just didn’t recall/realize that personal settings save to /home. I mentioned that I had done a personal remaster and lost my bookmarks, etc. It was assumed I had done a general remaster and consequently my personal settings did not persist. That is not correct. I did a personal remaster but I declined to save to /home, which was my mistake, and so I lost my bookmarks, etc. In the image above, there is no mention of /home, much less a hint that personal settings save to /home. As I recall, the option to save to /home is also a query in the general remaster.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
That is not correct. I did a personal remaster but I declined to save to /home, which was my mistake, and so I lost my bookmarks, etc. In the image above, there is no mention of /home, much less a hint that personal settings save to /home. As I recall, the option to save to /home is also a query in the general remaster.
Ah, now I see what you mean. The question is not to save “to /home,” but rather it is “do you want to save /home in the remaster?”
The idea is that /home is where the user details are stored in all Linux distros. And if someone has a separate homefs file (home persistence file) — that maybe won’t fit on the boot device, and/or is on another device (hdd/usb-stick/etc.), you get the choice. (The homefs survives remasters – it doesn’t get replaced. So if you have one, you don’t really “NEED” it in the remaster (linuxfs) file.)
I understand the frustration. BUT, I also gratefully take that as part of the learning curve — sometimes we end up failing (at least partially) when learning something new. And the antiX live system is “new” compared to the vast majority. I believe it’s worth it. 🙂 I hope you do, too.
confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
OH, not save to /home, but save /home itself. I didn’t read that right, it seems. Thanks for clarifying. Yes, we keep trying.
On second thought, if I do another personal remaster, do I save /home again? Can I do as many personal remasters as I desire? Does /home get overwritten each time?
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
If you are using persist_root or p_static_root, then you are saving the whole system in the “root” persistence (no separate /home persistence file).
If you use persist_all or persist_static, then you are prompted to make a homefs mounted at /home. This home persistence is always “static,” that is, saved immediately to the disk, separately from any root persistence you may (or may not) have.
SO: this homefs (home persistence file) is kept between & through all remasters. Using persist_all, persist_static or persist_home, you can omit saving your /home directory when you remaster, if you want to save the disk space (because your homefs will be mounted at /home, so any files saved there in your remaster will be effectively “hidden” behind the mount point).
HOWEVER: if you are using persist_root or p_static_root, (or no persistence at all), then YOU DO NOT HAVE A SEPARATE homefs. That’s when you DO need to save /home in the new remaster.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by christophe.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by christophe.
confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
In the case of persist_root, is /home.old deleted after I perform a personal remaster?
What exactly are the personal settings, that are stored in /home? It would be useful to see both a list of general settings and a list of personal settings, for comparison.
I’m trying to evaluate when I would need to do a personal remaster. Bookmarks, browser settings, desktop settings,…- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
In the case of persist_root
Remastering with persist_root, you get everything in your system compressed into the file named linuxfs.new. Upon reboot, the live boot system checks for linuxfs.new, and if it exists, the old linuxfs becomes linuxfs.old and it renames linux.new to linuxfs. Then the linuxfs file becomes the whole of your linux system. And the boot process continues.
With persist_root, the system ignores any homefs, homefs.old, or homefs.new that may be on the disk, because you are specifically stating that you are not using it. On the file system hierarchy, we start with “/” (termed root sometimes), and /home is beneath that, so it is all saved together in the root persistence file.
All the old files are kept after a remaster, in case you needed to do a rollback.
I normally delete those old files through the “set up persistence” program (under “antiX” in the menu), if my first bootup was fine after a remaster.You won’t have a homefs unless you use (or ever used) the other remaster methods.
What exactly are the personal settings, that are stored in /home? It would be useful to see both a list of general settings and a list of personal settings, for comparison.
Basically every file in /home is either your personal settings, or your music/video/text personal documents/files.
The basic settings (defaults) are in the /etc/skel directory, and get copied to /home IF you do a GENERAL remaster.You may want to try this:
1. move all your videos, music, documents, etc. (i.e., ALL your non-settings files & folders in /home/demo into the /home/demo/Live-usb-storage directory.
2. using rox file manager, drag the folders BACK to your home folder, choose “Link (relative)” instead of “move” this time.
3. reboot, using persist_all persistence (this prompts you to make a homefs persistence file, if not already created).
4. make it 300-500 MB (yes, megabytes)NOW you have all the documents & other files in the ~/Live-usb-storage directory – which is actually using the unused space on the live-usb (not the linuxfs nor the homefs). And the homefs can be small, because it only needs to hold the settings files. And the “link” behaves as though the files & folders for your personal files ARE still in the /home folder, as before.
I’m trying to evaluate when I would need to do a personal remaster. Bookmarks, browser settings, desktop settings,…
Do a remaster (always do personal unless you are making it to distribute to others, like a “respin”) when your persistence file starts filling up.
If you are doing toram, then the whole system is being copied into ram, PLUS the changes in your persistence file. Remember you need ram for regular system “ram” usage! So that’s how to gauge it. The persistence file isn’t compressed like the linuxfs is, so you get a bit of space usage benefit by remastering, too.- This reply was modified 1 year ago by christophe.
confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
Well, I’ve got a /home now. If I do a personal remaster, should I say no to the question of do I want to save /home for this remaster?
EDIT: Sorry, I already asked that. Thanks for elaborating.
- This reply was modified 1 year ago by dugin.
christophe
if you are using persist_root or p_static_root, (or no persistence at all), then YOU DO NOT HAVE A SEPARATE homefs. That’s when you DO need to save /home in the new remaster.
Just to clarify: every Linux system has “/home” — a directory in the file structure.
With persist_root, you have the /home rolled into the “/” (root) persistence file.So, basically, in most circumstances, I recommend the following “commandments” 🙂
ALWAYS save your /home in the remaster if you are using persist_root or p_static_root.
ALWAYS do a personal remaster.
Do your remaster prior to running out of RAM. (If I were to set it up like you are doing now, I’d remaster prior to having only 1 GB left, after being loaded toram + persistence file. Check this in “htop,” perhaps.)confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019
Brian Masinick
@christophe: wrote: “I understand the frustration. BUT, I also gratefully take that as part of the learning curve — sometimes we end up failing (at least partially) when learning something new. And the antiX live system is “new” compared to the vast majority. I believe it’s worth it. 🙂 I hope you do, too.”
I’m NOT new to antiX, nor am I new to UNIX or Linux distributions, but I still make mistakes from time to time, and though I’ve been using systems for decades, that doesn’t mean I know everything; far from it! I’m certain there is more than I do not know (or remember) than what I know.
I do get around pretty well and I can comfortably install something new, and unless I need to look something up like authentication credentials or something that prevents me from using a system until I find it or learn it, usually I can put a new Linux system image from whatever distribution I choose and navigate it well enough to do routine things, and yet learn as I go.
Most people are “novices” at something, or almost certainly only familiar with areas they utilize in their every day lives or work. So it is kind and appropriate to be helpful to others, and if we happen to know something and we can devote a few minutes, it’s appreciated when it’s shared. Thanks Christophe, I know you are an excellent example of this, which is why I quoted what you recently shared.
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Brian MasinickI’ve tried Synaptics 6 times now. I may have lucked up and installed xfburn once, on a frugal install with liveDVD boot. The last 5 times I tried to install programs (xfburn, locales-all) Synaptics has failed. I’m not going to try again. I wish I could uninstall Synaptics so I’m not even tempted to try it again, that’s how I feel about it. I have never used a Linux opertating system that did not have burning software. I know xfburn is not the greatest burning software, but it is the resident default burner for the Full version of antiX. The antiX package installer should provide xfburn and locales-all, the latter because of inherent space limitations of the frugal/usb install-remaster methods.
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