Persistence > 4GB Devices SOLVED

[barf]

I got really excited when I discovered LiveUSB. I happened to have a 4GB stick doing nothing so I installed it on that with a 2GB persistence layer and it worked. I then tried a 8GB device but persistence didn't work. I tried another (different make) 8GB with the same result. After much experimenting I found that by creating two 4GB fat16 partitions and installing the Os on one these persistence worked again. I hope this helps others and I'd love to hear about the experiences others have had using LiveUSB.

[artu72]

Does it work making ext3 partitions on an usb stick (obviously, one create it on Linux) ?

[barf]

Just tried it with ext3 partitions today. Sorry to say it didn't work

[ddalley]

OK, so what is the difference?

Did you lose presistence because you used a file system that doesn't allow persistence?

I have been experimenting with Fedora and I have had a lot of trouble with getting the KDE versions to work, and there are differences between the Gnome and KDE versions beyond just the GUI. I finally got a 2 Gb stick working with a 64-bit KDE version, but I lost persistence with this particular install. I tried using the NTFS, but the installer refused to use it. Fine, I used the FAT32 fs and it was accepted, but it has no persistence.

Must we always use FAT16? Which other ones work? I was using Windows to format, but I might be able to use a Linux for ext2 (I keep hearing ext3 is bad for flash memory).

-

Having dealt with Gnome for a while, I decided to wear out a KDE install. Man, it's weird. :eek: I've heard it referred to being "close to Windows", but it is like no other interface I have used since the early '80s.

[barf]

A 2 gig stick does not have enough space on it for much of a persitence layer. Try a 4 gig and see how it goes.

[ddalley]

I'll do that, at some point (I have a 4Gb Gnome version running), but, if it installed properly, why would it affect persistence?

[barf]

I have no Idea!! If you ever find out let me know.

[lambcutlet]

This may be of interest to some of you

items
hardware: 8GB usb stick
software: F10, Gparted, Livecd-tools and MythDora10.21 livecd

using 'gparted' formatted the usb stick with 'fat32' as one partition then set 'boot' under manage flags
I haven't tried different partition formats yet.

using this http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo
i installed 'livecd-tools'
yum install livecd-tools
performed this to install the ISO and create 2GB data persistence (2047 max value, currently)
$ livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 2047 /path/to/ISO /dev/USBPARTITIONNAME

i used a livecd of mythdora as the ISO

when i rebooted the PC to test the USB stick it always baulked, Grub never started.
to correct this i had to load in the MBR manually
$ cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin > /dev/sdb


The USB stick works OK.

[barf]

Thats very useful info, thanks for posting.
How does the persistence perform?

[artu72]

I have instead installed regular F10 on a 16 GB usb stick formatted as ext2. It works fine, but sometimes the system frezees due to slow writes on the stick.

I find that for larger usb sticks (>4 GB) it is better to make a regular installation than running a live (although with persistence) image.

[barf]

I never thought to try a full distro. I'll give that a go. Thanks