Live Persistence: toram=store

[Member bci]

The The AntiX Fans Wiki presents a table of boot parameters to use with a live system. One of them particularly caught my eye:
toram=store.

Under “Live Boot File Loading” on that page, toram
appears under the heading “Load to RAM”. The ‘store’ option is
described thus:

toram=store will also only load the linuxfs file and keep
the connection with the live media (no “eject” of the Live
media). Useful if you want to keep the Live device connected because
you want to access (or save) files using the LiveUSB-Storage feature.

However, I’ve tried this, and the Live-usb-storage
folder isn’t present.

Has anybody else tried this feature? I’ve looked a bit at the
‘/live/init’ and ‘/etc/init.d/live-usb-storage’ scripts. I’ve included
here:

1. The contents of this boot’s /live/config/initrd.out
2. The contents of /var/log/live/initrd.log
3. The contents of /var/log/live/live-init.log
4. The output of inxi -F

Recently I was able to clone an antiX frugal installation onto a USB stick (in hopes of creating
another frugal installation off of it, but that’s another discussion). Anyway, the USB installation (USB 2.0!) works so well that I’ve decided to stick with it for now! (Pun was accidental…)

Dynamic root persistence works fine. Along those lines, I’ve gotten
used to using the Live-usb-storage folder, and so seeing that there’s
a toram=store option gives users the best of both worlds.

– Brandon

System: Host: antix1 Kernel: 5.10.57-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: IceWM 2.9.4
Distro: antiX-21_x64-full Grup Yorum 31 October 2021
Machine: Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 42983SU v: ThinkPad X220 Tablet serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: 42983SU serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: LENOVO v: 8DET58WW (1.28 ) date: 02/14/2012
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 55.6 Wh (100.0%) condition: 55.6/62.6 Wh (88.7%)
ID-2: BAT1 charge: 54.5 Wh (99.6%) condition: 54.7/64.4 Wh (85.0%)
CPU: Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-2520M bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB
Speed: 923 MHz min/max: 800/3200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 923 2: 1511 3: 2990 4: 2992
Graphics: Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
Device-2: Chicony Lenovo Integrated Camera (0.3MP) type: USB driver: uvcvideo
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366×768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 3000 (SNB GT2) v: 3.3 Mesa 20.3.5
Audio: Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.57-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes
Network: Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
IF: eth0 state: down mac: f0:de:f1:ae:56:58
Device-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 8c:70:5a:21:3b:bc
Drives: Local Storage: total: 312.95 GiB used: 5.4 MiB (0.0%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST320LT007-9ZV142 size: 298.09 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: PNY model: USB 2.0 FD size: 14.86 GiB
Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1978
Info: Processes: 139 Uptime: 16m Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 4.25 GiB (55.5%) Shell: emacs inxi: 3.3.06

• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by bci. Reason: Error uploading files (filetypes forbidden for security reasons)

Attachments:

1. InitrdOutfile.txt
2. InitrdLogfile.txt
3. LiveinitLogfile.txt

[Anonymous]

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> tried this feature?
FWIW, no, I never have

LiveinitLogfile.txt excerpt:

Fri Jan 28 08:33:13 EST 2022 /live/etc/init.d/live-usb-storage
live-usb-storage: Configure Live-usb storage
Disabling live-usb storage

^— that output would be emitted from the do_start() routine within /live/etc/init.d/live-usb-storage if DISABLE=true
DISABLE is set true if /boot-dev/antiX/state/nostore flagfile is present
.
The nostore (and dostore) cheatcode is “sticky”. If, during a prior boot, you had specified nostore…
…but during a subsequent boot had not specified dostore, that would explain the absence of Live-usb-storage.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: From skidoo

[Moderator christophe]

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Wow! Thanks for that explanation, skidoo!

I’ve used that boot code with no problems on different systems, trying it out. It works great! (As expected.)

But I’d have no idea of “why” your ( @bci ) Live-usb-storage was disabled. (Now we know. And, most importantly, how to fix it.)

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member bci]

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Thanks, @skidoo and @christophe for your replies!

Lamentably, still no dice for me: I’ve tried forcing ‘dostore’ to make sure that got fixed, but still nothing comes up: I don’t get the symlink to Live-usb-storage. Again, not a deal breaker, but it’s even curious why this should even be the case: I’ve looked at the Bash scripts again, and things (AFAICT) look OK. This excerpt from /live/etc/init.d/live-usb-storage stands out:

test -e $root_dir/state/nostore && DISABLE=true
[ -n “$DID_TORAM” -a -z “$TORAM_STORE” ] && DISABLE=true

echo_script “$_Configure_Live_usb_storage_” $0

Right now, I’m in a toram=store boot, and the directory ‘/live/boot-dev/’ is empty.

I guess I may have to move on from this issue for now (but any ongoing suggestions or ideas are of
course always welcome 🙂 )

In case it helps, here are some videos of me booting into the antiX USB: first, without toram (but with persist-root set) and next, with toram=store set:

without toram
with toram=store

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by bci. Reason: Attempt to use "target=_blank" as anchor-tag attribute

[Moderator christophe]

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Yes. I don’t know why it isn’t working for you, I’m sorry.

Right now, I’m running an antiX core w/ hlwm and minimal other tools added, running toram=store. Everything is as expected, with the boot device mounted, with Live-usb-storage.

When you did this:

I’ve tried forcing ‘dostore’ to make sure that got fixed, but still nothing comes up: I don’t get the symlink to Live-usb-storage.

Did you then save your settings on the boot menu, so your dostore settings were then saved? Perhaps it requires a reboot to use the “saved” settings.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member bci]

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I accidentally stumbled on something interesting: when I don’t enable any persistence, and then set toram=store, the feature works for me. (I previously did dostore in case, as it was remarked that it was a sticky setting.)

However, the feature doesn’t seem to be enabled when combined with dynamic root persistence. I suspect, then, that the existing features are present by design, and are not bugs: innocent until proven guilty. 🙂

(I tried several combinations of F4 Options, F5 Persist, and F8 Save.
The two combinations that I did, that worked, were none-off-off, and dostore-p_static_root-save. I suspect that the latter should work now without dostore and save set.)

So far, still learning!

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