Description of problem: from a discussion with Martin Whitaker: "you mentioned in the past that the Mga 7 lives would have "persistence" as a feature/function. In fact that feature is included on the 6.1 64-bit Live ISOs. I backported the fix that allows the ISOs to be used with multibootusb, and the persistence feature came with it." As the latest Live ISOs (and probably Mga7 Live ISOs onwards) now have this function available, would it be feasible to add this function as an option to Isodumper. Many other distros Lives have the ability to have persistence enabled for a USB . I am prepared to assist with the testing of this feature. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. enable Isodumper to have the option to add a persistence partition 2. 3.
meant to add: "It would certainly be nice if Isodumper supported it. The procedure is fairly straightforward - after you've dumped the ISO, just add another partition on the USB stick, format it (ext4 filesystem is probably best) and set the partition label to "mgalive-persist". But both diskdrake and gparted don't allow you to create the extra partition - they see the iso9660 partition and assume the device is optical media - so you have to use fdisk and mkfs."
Persistence on live isos as USB stick is working "out of the box"?! Did we announce this nice feature properly?
CC: (none) => fri
(In reply to Morgan Leijström from comment #2) > Persistence on live isos as USB stick is working "out of the box"?! > Did we announce this nice feature properly? according to MartinW, it came as a "bonus" with the fix for use with "multibootusb". as the 6.1s were an rollup of existing updates, no need really to announce the change for the persistence feature as some work is needed to be done to make a persistent USB. Likely it will be announced for the Mga7 Lives though. So, my thoughts are, as this function is now available, we have the excellent Isodumper, is this a chance to improve it for release with Mga7, and at the same time, update the Mga6 isodumper to enable the new Mga7 Lives to be written to USB with persistence available. do you agree a useful function for Isodumper if possible? comment 1 advises the likely procedure, so not quite "out of the box" :). I guess, if possible, the GUI will have a tick box with "do you want to enable persistence?", and user entry textbox for the partition label, so that it could be used for other distro Lives that support persistence, with "mgalive-persist" as the default.
CC: (none) => marja11, yves.brungard_mageiaAssignee: bugsquad => mageiatools
Hello, This would be surely a great feature. I can work on that for Isodumper. It can help if a manual process of the creation of persistence is described here.
(In reply to papoteur from comment #4) > It can help if a manual process of the creation of persistence is described > here. I've just done it like this: sudo dd if=Mageia-6.1-LiveDVD-Xfce-x86_64-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdf bs=1M sudo fdisk /dev/sdf << EOF n p 3 w EOF sudo mkfs.ext4 -L mgalive-persist /dev/sdf3 The two blank lines in the commands to fdisk select the default values, which cause the persistence partition to fill the remaining free space. parted can't be used, because it treats the iso9660 partition as free space. For 6.1 this is an experimental feature. Known limitations are: - only works on the 64-bit ISOs (this is already fixed for mga7) - if you run draklive-install and choose to remove unneeded locales and drivers, that will remove them from the live system as well - although you can install kernel updates, the live system will always boot from the original kernel
CC: (none) => mageia
Thanks Martin, This works fine :) Is the persistent partition always the third?
(In reply to papoteur from comment #6) > Thanks Martin, > This works fine :) > Is the persistent partition always the third? It doesn't have to be - it searches for the 'mgalive-persist' label.
The option has been added in Isodumper 1.05. The label is coded in 'mgalive-persist'.
Thus closing
Resolution: (none) => FIXEDStatus: NEW => RESOLVED
had a quick look; created a live Xfce64 with persistence on a 8GB stick and rebooted. under /run is mgalive directory. how-ever saving a document to, for example, "documents" or the desktop and then rebooting the system does not restore the document. am I doing something wrong?
(In reply to ben mcmonagle from comment #10) > am I doing something wrong? That should work. If you plug the USB stick into a working system, can you mount the 3rd partition. It should have an ext4 filesystem labelled 'mgalive-persist'. If the live boot detected it, it should contain two top-level directories, 'work' and 'memory', and any new/modified files should appear in the filesystem under 'memory'. I've not got a cauldron system on real H/W at the moment, so can't test the new Isodumper just yet.
I used isodumper on my cauldron system to burn 7 beta Xfce iso with a persistent partition to an 8GB usb stick and booted to the live system. I created a text file and saved it to Documents. I installed kernel-devel which was not already installed. I shut down the live system. On rebooting into the live system, the file that I had saved was present in Documents and kernel-devel was reported as installed. It looks to me as though the persistent partition is working as intended.
CC: (none) => jim
must have been the stick. wrote to another stick, booted into the live session, created and saved a document. rebooted system back to the live- saved document there. sorry for the noise. looks like something for the next Mageia Blog, as it is working great.
Should be updated in mga6 too! - Users of mga6 should be able to facilitate the persistence of already released Mageia 6.1 isos, and of course the coming Mageia 7.
Resolution: FIXED => (none)Status: RESOLVED => REOPENEDWhiteboard: (none) => MGA6TOO
... and added to release notes of both mga6(.1) and mga7 in sections https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_6_Release_Notes#Available_installation_media , where it talks about USB flash drive and https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_6_Release_Notes#Isodumper And of course in https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installation_Media#Dump_Mageia_ISO_on_a_USB_flash_drive Also in the manual, at https://doc.mageia.org/installer/6/en/content/Select-and-use-ISOs.html#d4e159 i propose to change "You can use a graphical tool like IsoDumper" to "The graphical tool IsoDumper which is included in Mageia lets you safely dump the iso to USB and make it bootable, and you also have the option to let it use the rest of the stick for persistent user documents as well ass settings and system updates. Whis works for iso images of MAgeia 6.1 and later." (...when the mga6 isodumper is updated that is)
Keywords: (none) => FOR_RELEASENOTES6
On the 6.1 ISOs, the persistence partition isn't unmounted when you shut down, so fsck always has to repair it on reboot. This is unlikely to cause a problem, as all writes should have been flushed before shutdown, but even so, I'd prefer not to advertise this feature for 6.1.
Could that be solved by an update (saved persistently) ?
as no comments for a month, I am going to close. please re-open if you feel more could be done.
Status: REOPENED => RESOLVEDResolution: (none) => FIXED
BTW, thanks Martin and Papoteur. works great.
Release 1.94 is submitted as update in Mageia 6, to allow to create Mageia 7 Live images with persistence.
Resolution: FIXED => (none)Keywords: FOR_RELEASENOTES6 => IN_RELEASENOTES6Assignee: mageiatools => qa-bugsStatus: RESOLVED => REOPENED
Whiteboard: MGA6TOO => (none)Version: Cauldron => 6CC: (none) => tmb
(base system Mga6-32, plasma5 DE, sddm DM)\ kernel 4.18.20-desktop-1.mga6 # urpmi isodumper Use of uninitialized value in null operation at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.22.3/i386-linux-thread-multi/URPM/Resolve.pm line 1852. To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be installed: Package Version Release Arch (medium "Core Updates (distrib3)") python3-gnupg 0.3.8 2.1.mga6 noarch (medium "Core Updates Testing (distrib5)") isodumper 1.06 1.mga6 noarch isodumper-gtk 1.06 1.mga6 noarch python3-pydbus 0.6.0 1.mga6 noarch 412KB of additional disk space will be used. 252KB of packages will be retrieved. Proceed with the installation of the 4 packages? (Y/n) y invoke isodumper. choose Mageia-7-beta1-Live-Xfce-i586, enable persistence no progress bar percentages until 100% complete no write percentage in info window until complete reboot into Live system create and save .txt document. reboot into live - saved text document opened and text -ok
Hum, Launched isodumper --gtk, and yes, found the same behaviour. Window is not refreshed during the writing, in contrast with Qt one.
Should be OK now with 1.07 release, to package.
Packages in 6/core/updates_testing: ======================== isodumper-1.07-1.mga6.noarch.rpm isodumper-qt-1.07-1.mga6.noarch.rpm isodumper-gtk-1.07-1.mga6.noarch.rpm python2-pydbus-0.6.0-1.mga6.noarch.rpm python3-pydbus-0.6.0-1.mga6.noarch.rpm Source RPM: ======================== isodumper-1.07-1.mga6.src.rpm python-pydbus-0.6.0-1.mga6.src.rpm
CC: (none) => geiger.david68210
MGA6-32 MATE on IBM Thinkpad R50e No installation issues Used it to dump M7 Xfce Live on 4Gb (really 3.7) USB stick. Result as seen from MCC: 1 partition 2.2 Gb for the iso 1 partition MGALIVE-ESP vfat 4 Mb 1 unused space 1.5 Gb Just for curiosity I tried in MCC to increase the size of the MGALIVE-ESP partition, but as soon as I clicked the "Resize" button, I get an error: Bad FAT: Chain outside filesystem for /EFI /BOOT propagated. Anyway, I will try to boot this laptop with the stick.
CC: (none) => herman.viaene
My mistake: I did not set the option for persistent partition. I ldumped the USB stick again, with the option set, and all works as expected.
on mga6-64 plasma packages installed cleanly: - isodumper-1.07-1.mga6.noarch - isodumper-gtk-1.07-1.mga6.noarch - isodumper-qt-1.07-1.mga6.noarch - python3-gnupg-0.3.8-2.1.mga6.noarch - python3-pydbus-0.6.0-1.mga6.noarch used isodumper-qt to write mga7-beta1-xfce-live to 8GB stick mgalive-persist exists and is mountable booted live system installed kernel-devel and dependencies created a text file and saved it to Documents increased dpi to 120 switched mouse to single-click disabled mga welcome shut down live system booted live system on different hardware kernel-devel was reported as installed the text file that I had created was present and readable all three UI preferences that I had changed were preserved OK for mga6-64
on mga6-32 xfce packages updated cleanly: - isodumper-1.07-1.mga6.noarch - isodumper-gtk-1.07-1.mga6.noarch - python3-gnupg-0.3.8-2.1.mga6.noarch - python3-pydbus-0.6.0-1.mga6.noarch used isodumper-gtk to burn 7-beta1-Live-Xfce-i586 The progress bar functioned correctly and percentage completed was correctly reported OK for mga6-32
It would be good to have this available for people burning mga7 beta 2 live iso's I have added OK's and validated Suggested advisory: ************************************************ isodumper has been enhanced to optionally allow the creation of a persistent partition This enables changes made to the live system to be preserved through a reboot or restart of the live system. ************************************************ package list in comment 24
Whiteboard: (none) => MGA6-64-OK MGA6-32-OKKeywords: (none) => validated_updateCC: (none) => sysadmin-bugs
CC: (none) => davidwhodginsKeywords: (none) => advisory
An update for this issue has been pushed to the Mageia Updates repository. https://advisories.mageia.org/MGAA-2019-0014.html
Resolution: (none) => FIXEDStatus: REOPENED => RESOLVED