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Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Windows?

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 15:08
by rgroner
I'd like to make a Porteus install to a USB key that will still allow the key to not only be accessible by Windows, but to have the changes visible and editable from within Windows as well. Is that possible? If I choose a FAT32 Porteus install (which would be Windows accessible), then it makes me use a .dat file instead of a changes directory. Is the contents of the .dat file easily alterable? Or is there some way in a FAT32 install to have a changes directory instead of the file?

Thanks.

Re: Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Window

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 16:20
by brokenman
but to have the changes visible and editable from within Windows as well. Is that possible?
This is the problem part. Windows doesn't handle non-windows file systems very well. I assume that you want to mount the .dat file in windows and edit the contents. I haven't tried exfat yet.

Re: Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Window

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 16:33
by rgroner
brokenman wrote: I assume that you want to mount the .dat file in windows and edit the contents. I haven't tried exfat yet.
If that would work...

The main issue here is that Windows is the predominant OS here (no surprise I suppose), and the engineers that are using this USB key to boot Porteus on the target system would like to be able to make changes to the OS or access changed files from their Windows system after it runs on the target system (instead of having to boot back into Porteus with save changes enabled). It's just a convenience thing.

Re: Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Window

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 19:34
by brokenman
Do you have ssh access to the Porteus machine?

Re: Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Window

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 19:54
by rgroner
brokenman wrote:Do you have ssh access to the Porteus machine?
Could, but the system is not a permanent thing.

Basically, we use these drives to test our hardware. We boot up the system with Porteus, execute tests (of the system, or of hardware attached to the system), and then "shutdown" the system. Part of the big appeal of Porteus is that it is tolerant of power interruptions (when the testing guy just removes power...which he does often).

However, to update the tests on the Porteus drive, our software test engineer has to access the drive. So, for maintenance and setup purposes, it'd make things a lot easier if he could access the Porteus drive from Windows (specifically, access where the changes are stored). That way he sets up the drive over at his workstation, and then can hand the USB drive back to the tester and all they have to do is boot with it to do their tests.

Re: Porteus install to USB key, changes accessible in Window

Posted: 22 Dec 2015, 22:19
by rgroner
I formatted the disk with exfat and copied the files over from the DVD in Windows. I ran the windows installer and it errored out that it didn't recognize the file system. So I tried running the installer in Linux, and it didn't recognize the file system either.