I've reinserted the opening line of the post I replied to. On Sun 26 Jun 2022 at 17:14:23 (+0200), to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Sun, Jun 26, 2022 at 09:28:21AM -0500, David Wright wrote: > > On Sun 26 Jun 2022 at 09:07:11 (+0200), Hans wrote: > > > > > > In your case I would suggest to build your own lifefile system with live- > > > build. > > > > > > [...] > > > > > > I am doing all this, when building kali-linux live-system, which building > > > is > > > almost the same as a debian-live system. > > > > > > Give it a try, maybe it helps. > > > > Sorry, but I can't see the attraction of a live system, as opposed to > > just building the Debian system on a stick. Care to explain? > > If I understand correctly, a live system > > - is thought to cope with a broader range of hardware (meaning: it > doesn't know exactly which hardware it's going to wake up on next)
That was my point—we know what the target system is here: /the/ old Dell laptop, to be used by a non-programming/configuring/commandline-user person. > - is not supposed to touch the host system persistent storage (aka > disks) That's something we apparently don't have to worry about, as it has no hard drive, so it can only touch what is deliberately inserted into it at the time. > - is not supposed to scribble on its own medium (unless you've set > aside a partition for that) Presumably, the OP will occasionally upgrade the OS-on-the-stick; perhaps when they notice a point-release on their own machine. > Perhaps it just has a tmpfs overlaid on its file system, so any change > is only ephemeral. > > so it is a slightly different usage profile than tailor-fitting a USB > stick for a given target system. > > Both have their uses. Agreed, in different circumstances. On Sun 26 Jun 2022 at 11:47:46 (-0400), Stefan Monnier wrote: > > Sorry, but I can't see the attraction of a live system, as opposed to > > just building the Debian system on a stick. Care to explain? > > Speaking as someone who's used such a "Debian system on a stick" as > a kind of replacement for a Debian live (mostly as a rescue > environment, really): I suspect the attraction is that Debian Live has > already been tuned for that use case (I had to make various minor > changes to fix annoyances when "moving" the stick between systems), and As above, the stick is for running on just the one, old Dell, laptop. > more importantly that it shouldn't get corrupted just because you > unplugged the stick at an "unfavorable" time. > > I've had to "redo" my stick a few times and I strongly suspect it was > because USB sticks aren't very reliable when it gets to unplugging them > while in the middle of a write (and a normal Debian install can write > to your stick without your explicit prompting, of course). With careful partitioning, the damage can be limited, by making /usr and /etc readonly, with /var separate, /tmp and any swap in memory, etc. > Note: this was my experience almost 10 years ago. Not sure it's > still relevant. And technically, I still think a normal Debian install > tweaked to be more like Debian Live should be superior. Cheers, David.
