Porteus

Is there anywhere to read how module activation should appear from the user's point of view? I ask because things do not appear to be happening as they used to. If I activate a module then reboot I generally lose the module. The only way I can be sure to have a module permanently activated is to manually place it in /porteus/modules then it will work on reboot. I am sure it never used to happen this way in Slax or v0.9 but I've been struggling to understand what is happening in 1.0 and 1.1. Also when I activate a module it disappears from its file location. Where does it go to?

I tried running the Porteus Package Manager and first time through it asks me to set up a location for the modules, suggesting /mnt/sdb1/porteus/modules (the location already set up during the installation). What happens if I then boot of another PC which already has an sda and sdb? Presumably my modules will then be in sdc. Will PPM then fail? Is there any reason why it can't assume the modules folder under the porteus directory irrespective of the sd the drive is using? Or have I misunderstood?

TIA,

Nick

Hi nick,

If your module disappears when you activate it, then you have placed it inside your live filesystem. It does get relocated (I forget where at the moment -- somewhere in /mnt/live/ I think). The modules should be stored in a permanent location, such as /porteus/modules or /porteus/optional on your flash drive. It is the default (for as long as I can recall) that modules in /porteus/modules will activate on startup, and those in /porteus/optional (or elsewhere) will not, and this is regardless of whether or not they were activated in previous sessions.

Putting modules in /porteus/modules will activate them on startup regardless of your flash drive's mount point, but you might have a good point with regards to PPM -- in order to use it on a second computer, you may need to modify it's configuration on the second computer to point to the /optional folder inside the different mount point (I'm not sure about this, but brokenman will know for sure). Perhaps we should establish a symlink or two, such as /mnt/live/optional/ and /mnt/live/modules/, which get created at each boot-up and point to /porteus/optional and /porteus/modules on the boot device? Users could then point PPM to this directory and get around this...

Thanks, nick!!

currently modules are moved to /mnt/live/memory/modules folder.
in next Porteus version i'll change this behaviour and modules wont be reloacated anymore (as it's confusing for many fresh users).
it will be in user's interest to move them to /porteus/modules manually.

Perhaps we should establish a symlink or two, such as /mnt/live/optional/ and /mnt/live/modules/, which get created at each boot-up and point to /porteus/optional and /porteus/modules on the boot device? Users could then point PPM to this directory and get around this...

good idea. i'll add this function to linuxrc for next Porteus version.

as it's confusing for many fresh users
Yes i agree. To users they appear to vanish. I am glad the change will be made not to move outside of live file system.

In regards to PPM, If you change to a different PC with a different drive path (sdxx) then you will need to adjust the modules storage folder in the settings. Thats all.