Size error for remaster of LiveUSB

[Member seaken64]

Just when I thought I understood the remaster operation I ran into a problem that has thrown me for a loop. I googled and found some previous forum threads on the subject. I think I started off with the wrong size root persistence file when I first made the LiveUSB persistent. But I still am not sure how to fix it.

I can’t decide if I should start over or try to fix this same LiveUSB drive.

I started with an 8GB Live USB and chose Persist-all. When the persist routine ran I chose 5GB for root and 1GB for home. I later did an dist-upgrade and I was going to do a remaster after the upgrade. But I’m getting a size error:

“Have: 368 megs available Need: 831”

SpaceFM says I have 4.7GB free on the disk. But the rootfs is 5.0G and homefs is 1024.0M and linuxfs is 965.6M.

I read through this thread but I am still confused as to what I should do.
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=39509&start=30

Would you recommend starting over?

Thanks for any tips,
Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

From bitjam:

One possible difficulty with the live-remaster is it will require roughly 1G or more free space on your live-usb because we make a 2nd copy of the large linuxfs file. If you don’t have enough live-usb space to live-remaster then you can use live-usb-maker to clone your current system to a larger live-usb. The latest version of live-usb-maker in my git repo will offer to copy over the persistence files too but they have to first be disabled. Just boot without persistence enabled to make the clone. You could also manually copy over /antiX/rootfs and /antiX/homefs to the new system.

I was re-reading a previous topic and found this. So, If I get a larger USB than the current 8GB I am having this problem with I can use live-USB-maker instead of remaster? I have another 8GB USB. Or do I need to use a 16GB?

Thanks,
Seaken64

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by seaken64.

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

sudo persist-makefs
When you run that command, several options are available and the immediate (pre-selected) option is to perform a resize operation. As I recall, you can choose to make your rootfs smaller. For example, if it is showing that only 1.4Gb is currently used (only 1.4 of the preallocated 5.0Gb), you chould specify 1.5Gb as the new rootfs size.

After the resize operation, reboot. Visit /live/boot-dev/antiX/ and check for (and selectively delete) any files named *.old residing there. Afterward, when you attempt a live-remaster (or live-USB-maker) operation, hopefully sufficient available space will now be available. You asked “do I need to use a 16Gb drive”. Wow, no ~~ some of my persistent remastered//remasterable installations still reside on 4Gb drives.

Following the live-remaster operation, you are free to once again increase the allocated size of the rootfs.
(IMO, preallocating greater than 1Gb beyond the amount currently used is undesirable.)

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thank you. I tried that operation but I get the following warning message:

Can't resize %s while it is already mounted.

Can I unmount the rootfs file while running Live persistent? Maybe I will try turning off persistence and see what that does.

Seaken64

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by seaken64.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I rebooted with the LiveUSB and turned off peristence and ran the persist-makefs routine. This time it did not give me the warning message. But when it asked for the size I could only select from between 250M and 358M. I figured this was not going to work since that was the message I got before that I only had 368M available and I needed 831. But I went ahead and tried it by clicking thru. It tried to do something but I could see in the terminal there were all sorts of failure messages. It ended up failing to create the rootfs due to lack of space. I was brought back to the application screen so I then selected “Make rootfs new file for remastering”. That also failed to finish.

I looked at the files and now the rootfs file was gone and I had a rootfs.bak file. I rebooted and chose the persist-static. I was asked to create a new rootfs file and I followed thru using the automatic choice. I was asked to enter both new passwords. Then I got to the desktop with the default wallpaper.

I guess the choice was made for me to “start over”. But now I wonder if I can just rename the rootfs.bak file to rootfs and reboot. That may get my previous persitent setup back.

It’s not a big deal. I did not have a lot of stuff changed. I just had a wallpaper and a new user and the SeaMonkey browser. I also wanted to have it fully upgraded. I will start over and try to use better file sizes this time. But first I will try renaming the rootfs.bak file and see what happens. Of course that may just put me back where I was with a lack of space and have to start over anyway. But I want to see what happens.

Seaken64

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by seaken64.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

If you use dynamic persistence, as well as the size of the downloads, you also need to take into consideration the amount of RAM you have.
If you don’t have much RAM. you should use static persistence.

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks anti, so maybe this is more of a RAM issue? I was running in static mode. I was thinking the remaster routine was not finding enough space on the USB.

I do have only 1GB of RAM.

Seaken64

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Yes, with 1GB RAM I’d stick with static persistence.

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Moderator christophe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

If you don’t mind starting over… This is what I do with my 1 GB RAM computer & Live USB:

1. Boot your freshly-made live USB; select persist_static on boot-up menu.

2. Make your root persistence file 1.5 GB. (That has proven to be enough for me to add the few progs I use & run dist-upgrade.) Go with 2 GB if you add a lot of programs.

3. Cancel (or whatever the similar option is available) when you’re prompted for HOME persistence. (I’ll explain why below).

4. Enter your system. Configure/add/remove your programs & run dist-upgrade like you have been. You should have ample space for this in your 1.5-2 GB persistence.

5. Do your REMASTER. Make sure you include your /home in the new persistence file, when prompted.
Options: I like the fastest-compressing choice, because I find I have enough room on the 8 gig stick, & it takes a lot less time to complete. But any compression choice will work. You’ll be asked to create a new root persistence file afterward. Since I already have my programs set up & the occasional upgrades only trickle in, I usually set the new root at about 1 GB. (Then later, I just repeat the remastering process whenever I see it’s filling up.) Reboot directly afterwards.

6. Once your system is back up, go back to where you make your persistence files and choode the option to FIX broken/outdated files. It offers for you to delete the previous linuxfs & rootfs (.bak) files. Do this, since you don’t need them anymore (if everything is working, of course).

7. The reason not to make a home persistence file: Make symbolic links from Live-usb-storage to use your whole flash drive instead. The easiest way (to me) is to:
a. open 2 ROX windows
b. open 1 to home (probably already there), and open the other to ~/Live-usb-storage
c. select & drag your document folders in home (Documents, Downloads, etc) – MOVE (NOT copy) these to Live-usb-storage
d. select these same folders in Live-usb-storage and drag them back to your home folder – but this time, make sure to select “link (relative)” – NOT copy or move. This keeps the files in the “open” space outside of your persistence files, but all your programs treat them as in your home folder. My experience has been that I was only using about 50 MB of my home persistence file after I did this, so I eventually just stopped creating the separate home file (i.e., the whole thing was just wasting space)! And it opens up all my flash drive space for downloads, game files, etc – and the system treats them as if they are “in” my home directory once they are linked back this way.

Hope this helps!

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I actually prefer to run a frugal install to hard drive rather than run liveusb (usb2).
It is faster to boot, apps open faster, reboot is faster and so is persistence/remastering.
The whole experience seems smoother.
My rootfs is also 1.5GB and I regularly remaster and remove old backed up rootfs, linuxfs files.

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

seaken64 wrote:

It’s not a big deal. I did not have a lot of stuff changed. I just had a wallpaper and a new user and the SeaMonkey browser. I also wanted to have it fully upgraded. I will start over and try to use better file sizes this time. But first I will try renaming the rootfs.bak file and see what happens. Of course that may just put me back where I was with a lack of space and have to start over anyway. But I want to see what happens.

I rebooted into MX from the hard drive and deleted (using Root Thunar) the newly created rootfs (which BTW was sized at 2.1G by the auto mode) and renamed the rootfs.bak file to rootfs (which is now sized at 5.4G). Then I rebooted again to the LiveUSB and chose persist-static.

Okay, that worked to get my changes back. I was autologged in to my new user with my new wallpaper and the conky shows “Persist Root Enabled” and “/Disk: 1.16G / 4.86G”. I’m back where I was.

So now I am wondering if I can do this re-size outside of the LiveUSB. I will go back and refer to one of those other threads that mentioned using live-usb-maker to do the remaster. If that doesn’t work I’ll just start over.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

christophe wrote:

If you don’t mind starting over… This is what I do with my 1 GB RAM computer & Live USB:

1. Boot your freshly-made live USB; select persist_static on boot-up menu.

2. Make your root persistence file 1.5 GB. (That has proven to be enough for me to add the few progs I use & run dist-upgrade.) Go with 2 GB if you add a lot of programs.

3. Cancel (or whatever the similar option is available) when you’re prompted for HOME persistence. (I’ll explain why below).

4. Enter your system. Configure/add/remove your programs & run dist-upgrade like you have been. You should have ample space for this in your 1.5-2 GB persistence.

5. Do your REMASTER. Make sure you include your /home in the new persistence file, when prompted.
Options: I like the fastest-compressing choice, because I find I have enough room on the 8 gig stick, & it takes a lot less time to complete. But any compression choice will work. You’ll be asked to create a new root persistence file afterward. Since I already have my programs set up & the occasional upgrades only trickle in, I usually set the new root at about 1 GB. (Then later, I just repeat the remastering process whenever I see it’s filling up.) Reboot directly afterwards.

6. Once your system is back up, go back to where you make your persistence files and choode the option to FIX broken/outdated files. It offers for you to delete the previous linuxfs & rootfs (.bak) files. Do this, since you don’t need them anymore (if everything is working, of course).

7. The reason not to make a home persistence file: Make symbolic links from Live-usb-storage to use your whole flash drive instead. The easiest way (to me) is to:
a. open 2 ROX windows
b. open 1 to home (probably already there), and open the other to ~/Live-usb-storage
c. select & drag your document folders in home (Documents, Downloads, etc) – MOVE (NOT copy) these to Live-usb-storage
d. select these same folders in Live-usb-storage and drag them back to your home folder – but this time, make sure to select “link (relative)” – NOT copy or move. This keeps the files in the “open” space outside of your persistence files, but all your programs treat them as in your home folder. My experience has been that I was only using about 50 MB of my home persistence file after I did this, so I eventually just stopped creating the separate home file (i.e., the whole thing was just wasting space)! And it opens up all my flash drive space for downloads, game files, etc – and the system treats them as if they are “in” my home directory once they are linked back this way.

Hope this helps!

Yes, thank you. That does help. I think I am leaning toward starting over. I didn’t make that many changes and I am setting up a LiveUSB for only a limited use case. The laptop has a flakey hard disk so I wanted to have the LiveUSB as the main system and the machine is only used for playing music on our store stereo/audio system. Once I set it up I think the rootfs will rarely get used.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

anticapitalista wrote:

I actually prefer to run a frugal install to hard drive rather than run liveusb (usb2).
It is faster to boot, apps open faster, reboot is faster and so is persistence/remastering.
The whole experience seems smoother.
My rootfs is also 1.5GB and I regularly remaster and remove old backed up rootfs, linuxfs files.

Yes, I can see the value in that. But one of the reasons I want to setup this LiveUSB is that I use a lot of old retired computers. (Retired from everyday service in our business, so I have repurposed them). The laptop I had running antiX was used for music in the store but the hard disk is dying. I have had success using a LiveUSB to run this laptop. Also, once I get this LiveUSB setup correctly I can just plug it into another box if this laptop finally dies. If it dies I’ll just grab another retired box and plug in the LiveUSB and start playing music!

Thanks.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

christophe wrote:

3. Cancel (or whatever the similar option is available) when you’re prompted for HOME persistence. (I’ll explain why below).

7. The reason not to make a home persistence file: Make symbolic links from Live-usb-storage to use your whole flash drive instead. The easiest way (to me) is to:
a. open 2 ROX windows
b. open 1 to home (probably already there), and open the other to ~/Live-usb-storage
c. select & drag your document folders in home (Documents, Downloads, etc) – MOVE (NOT copy) these to Live-usb-storage
d. select these same folders in Live-usb-storage and drag them back to your home folder – but this time, make sure to select “link (relative)” – NOT copy or move. This keeps the files in the “open” space outside of your persistence files, but all your programs treat them as in your home folder. My experience has been that I was only using about 50 MB of my home persistence file after I did this, so I eventually just stopped creating the separate home file (i.e., the whole thing was just wasting space)! And it opens up all my flash drive space for downloads, game files, etc – and the system treats them as if they are “in” my home directory once they are linked back this way.

This is a good tip. And I will use it on my pocket USB, which I use as my main LiveUSB with antiX and for transfering a few files to my truck that I can get at while on the road and out of service. But on this project I think I will stay with the standard /home persist file. It will hold a new user profile for SeaMonkey and a wallpaper, but not much else. Won’t be downloading or creating content. Just logging in to music website and playing to stereo.

Thank you.

[Forum Admin BitJam]

Helpful

Up

0

::

seaken64 wrote:

I started with an 8GB Live USB and chose Persist-all. When the persist routine ran I chose 5GB for root and 1GB for home. I later did an dist-upgrade and I was going to do a remaster after the upgrade. But I’m getting a size error:

“Have: 368 megs available Need: 831”

This makes sense. I have an easy solution for you.

SpaceFM says I have 4.7GB free on the disk. But the rootfs is 5.0G and homefs is 1024.0M and linuxfs is 965.6M.

Different programs have different ideas of what “free space” means. You can see the difference with these two commands:

sudo du -sch /live/boot-dev
sudo du -sch --apparent-size /live/boot-dev

The difference is because we create rootfs and homefs as sparse files. The first command reports only the amount of space that has been used in these files. The 2nd one reports the “actual” size of the file even if all the space in the file system has not yet been used. We use the 2nd, otherwise it would be really easy to run out of space inside your rootfs file before all the space allocated was used. This would be bad. Trust me.

The simple solution is to boot with persistence *disabled* and then download and use the version of live-usb-maker from my git repo: https://github.com/BitJam/live-usb-maker When you clone with this version, it will copy the persistence files as long as they are not in use. This feature was added to help people who are the bind you find yourself. They need more room to do a remaster but they don’t want to lose their changes in persistence.

You need to disable persistence (or only use dynamic root persistence) to use this feature because we will not copy an active file system because that would be a bad thing to do.

HTH

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by BitJam.

Context is worth 80 IQ points -- Alan Kay

[Author]

Posts