Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post here if you are a new Porteus member and you're looking for some help.
lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#1 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 13:32

Hi,
I'm completely new to porteus, and my Linux knowledge in general is quite limited (still).
The other day I set up my old MSI Wind netbook (2GB RAM, 1.6GHz ATOM CPU, 1024x600 screen) using Linux Mint XFCE, which is fine but still pushes the CPU to its llimits. So I came across porteus.
The netbook is limited to 32 bit architecture so I chose porteus 4.0 with xfce.
I started by formatting an 8 GB USB pen drive to FAT32, copied the ISO's content to it then ran the Windows installer as is described here. Also modified the /porteus/porteus-v4.0-i586.cfg file to make sure I have the right keymap and timezone:

Code: Select all

kmap=de
timezone=Europe/Berlin
No problem to boot from the USB drive, and apparently my modifications are working.
Next I followed the instructions creating a 512 MB savefile as /porteus/portauessave.dat using the default xsf as file system. On my netbook the pen drive is mounted as /mnt/sdb, so the entry in porteus-v4.0-i586.cfg is

Code: Select all

changes=/mnt/sdb/porteus/porteussave.dat
Problem is: apparently my porteussave.dat file is never recognized, at least that's what I'm told on every boot-up, so I'm constantly booting as "Always Fresh".
I tried numerous times to rebuild (using both ext4 and xfs, also extending the size to 1 GB) or recover the .dat file but without success. Also tried to "tab" into the "Graphical" selection on boot and enter

Code: Select all

APPEND changes=/porteussave.dat
but no success.
I also tried to re-format the USB drive using ext4 than do the entire setup process from my Linux Mint setup using these instructions. Seems to work, but then I can't boot from the pen drive, the boot sequence starts telling me that there's no bootable kernel found stopping with

Code: Select all

boot:
No idea what I'm supposed to enter here...
So meanwhile I'm back at base 1, i.e. with a FAT32 formatted drive and no chance to save my changes.

Anyone having an idea what else I could try?

== UPDATE ==
I managed to mount may savefile in Linux Mint using

Code: Select all

sudo mkdir loop /mt/loop
sudo mount -o loop /mnt/sdb/porteus/porteussave.dat
So I can hava a look at its contents; appears like a properly xfs formatted partition containing what looks like a proper structure (/etc, /home, /root, /run, /usr and /var)

User avatar
Ed_P
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 8343
Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 22:12
Distribution: Cinnamon 5.01 ISO
Location: Western NY, USA

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#2 by Ed_P » 05 Jan 2020, 14:02

Hello Im089.

Try

Code: Select all

changes=/porteus/porteussave.dat
. Or

Code: Select all

changes=EXIT:/porteus/porteussave.dat
which is what I use.
Ed

donald
Full of knowledge
Full of knowledge
Posts: 2065
Joined: 17 Jun 2013, 13:17
Distribution: Porteus 3.2.2 XFCE 32bit
Location: Germany

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#3 by donald » 05 Jan 2020, 15:14

Hi lm089

Q: bios or uefi maschine?

Some things to try/test:

a) Add the changes path to your savefile in /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg

b) --> the pen drive is mounted as /mnt/sdb <-- I've seen this once or twice
and am still wondering how this works (does it?) without a proper partitioning scheme.
My drives are always mounted at (e.g.) sdb1 etc.

c) You could boot into copy to ram mode login=root (hit tab at the splash screen
and add login=root to the line)
The thumbdrive is not in use anymore in Copy2ram mode (you could remove it) so
you're now able to do the partitioning/porteus setup within a running porteus.
There are some GUI tools!..

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#4 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 15:34

Ed_P wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 14:02
Hello Im089.

Try

Code: Select all

changes=/porteus/porteussave.dat
. Or

Code: Select all

changes=EXIT:/porteus/porteussave.dat
which is what I use.
Thanks for your quick answer!
Had wanted to try tghe "EXIT:" variant anyways, but none are working in my case; weird

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#5 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 15:38

donald wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 15:14
Hi lm089

Q: bios or uefi maschine?

Some things to try/test:

a) Add the changes path to your savefile in /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg

b) --> the pen drive is mounted as /mnt/sdb <-- I've seen this once or twice
and am still wondering how this works (does it?) without a proper partitioning scheme.
My drives are always mounted at (e.g.) sdb1 etc.

c) You could boot into copy to ram mode login=root (hit tab at the splash screen
and add login=root to the line)
The thumbdrive is not in use anymore in Copy2ram mode (you could remove it) so
you're now able to do the partitioning/porteus setup within a running porteus.
There are some GUI tools!..
Many thanks for your input, it's highly appreciated!

1.: It's a BIOS machine
a) I tried, with "changes=/mnt/sdb/porteus/porteussave.dat", but no success
b) I agree; although I'm not a very experienced Linux user that made me wonder as well, but apparently that's how it is here. During the boot sequence I see various references to this path, e.g. when the "rootcopy" content is loaded etc...
c) I tried, am logged in as root; but I cannot eject the drive, am always told "volume is busy" /tried reight click on volume > Eject Volume, as well as "Unmount" from Gparted...
Last edited by lm089 on 05 Jan 2020, 16:43, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Blaze
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3869
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 11:31
Distribution: ⟰ Porteus current ☯ all DEs ☯
Location: ☭ Russian Federation, Lipetsk region, Dankov
Contact:

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#6 by Blaze » 05 Jan 2020, 15:39

Hi lm089.
Happy New Year!
Can you try to replace /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz on this current :url: initrd.xz (2020-01-05) and test it?

UPDATE.

I removed link because I have some issues with boot.

Thanks.
Linux 6.6.11-porteus #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Jan 14 12:07:37 MSK 2024 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v6 @ 3.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
MS-7A12 » [AMD/ATI] Navi 23 [Radeon RX 6600] [1002:73ff] (rev c7) » Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 K2 3200MHz C16

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#7 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 16:47

Happy New Year as well!
Thanks for looking into this; let me say that this is not a realy big issue for me at the moment, but of course I'd love to get it working some day.

donald
Full of knowledge
Full of knowledge
Posts: 2065
Joined: 17 Jun 2013, 13:17
Distribution: Porteus 3.2.2 XFCE 32bit
Location: Germany

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#8 by donald » 05 Jan 2020, 17:15

--> not able to unmount <--
oopps -- yep, 1st problem arising from the sdb thing being a drive not a partition.
(other probs may follow)

Do you have a 2nd usb thumbdrive which we can format properly and install porteus to it
while porteus is running?
or any other PC running linux?
(I have no experience with windows)

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#9 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 17:46

donald wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 17:15
--> not able to unmount <--
oopps -- yep, 1st problem arising from the sdb thing being a drive not a partition.
(other probs may follow)

Do you have a 2nd usb thumbdrive which we can format properly and install porteus to it
while porteus is running?
or any other PC running linux?
(I have no experience with windows)
That's what I tried the other day using Linux Mint XFCE: formatted my drive as ext4, then mounted the .iso from Mint, copied everything over and ran the Linux-installer. Resulted in the system not booting at all. But yeah, I can try utilizing a 2nd USB drive; a bit later though.
BTW: when I had tried formatting that drive from Mint (both through gparted or using mkfs.ext4, tried both ways) it was still mounted as /mnt/sdb
Last edited by lm089 on 05 Jan 2020, 17:52, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Blaze
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3869
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 11:31
Distribution: ⟰ Porteus current ☯ all DEs ☯
Location: ☭ Russian Federation, Lipetsk region, Dankov
Contact:

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#10 by Blaze » 05 Jan 2020, 17:48

Ok, I tested current :url: initrd.xz (2020-01-05) - this is link on it http://www.mediafire.com/file/tofjbu2xe ... rd.xz/file
Linux 6.6.11-porteus #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Jan 14 12:07:37 MSK 2024 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v6 @ 3.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
MS-7A12 » [AMD/ATI] Navi 23 [Radeon RX 6600] [1002:73ff] (rev c7) » Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 K2 3200MHz C16

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#11 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 19:36

Blaze wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 17:48
Ok, I tested current :url: initrd.xz (2020-01-05) - this is link on it http://www.mediafire.com/file/tofjbu2xe ... rd.xz/file
Thanks!
replaced the original intrd.xz with this new one, then tried to boot from the USB; not working though. After the screen is refreshed to this message
"searching for porteus-V5.0-i586.cfg file" I receive this:
"Porteus data not found...."
Boot sequence is halted.
The above message "searching for..." points to a wrong .cfg file: on my device this file is called "/porteus/porteus-v4.0-i586.cfg"
Is it safe just to rename the .cfg?

User avatar
Blaze
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3869
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 11:31
Distribution: ⟰ Porteus current ☯ all DEs ☯
Location: ☭ Russian Federation, Lipetsk region, Dankov
Contact:

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#12 by Blaze » 05 Jan 2020, 19:43

This initrd for Porteus 5.0
lm089 wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 19:36
Is it safe just to rename the .cfg?
Yes, you can try this variant :)
Linux 6.6.11-porteus #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Jan 14 12:07:37 MSK 2024 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v6 @ 3.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
MS-7A12 » [AMD/ATI] Navi 23 [Radeon RX 6600] [1002:73ff] (rev c7) » Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 K2 3200MHz C16

lm089
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Jan 2020, 13:00
Distribution: 32bit xfce

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#13 by lm089 » 05 Jan 2020, 20:09

Blaze wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 19:43
This initrd for Porteus 5.0
lm089 wrote:
05 Jan 2020, 19:36
Is it safe just to rename the .cfg?
Yes, you can try this variant :)
Yep, booting again now. :good:
And the partition is now used as /mnt/sdb1, so now there appears to be a proper partition
But original problem remains :(

=== UPDATE ===
Got it working now by defining the changes in /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg instead of /porteus/porteus-v5.0-i586.cfg, as someone suggested before; only at my first attempt I did it the wrong way; now in the "LABEL GRAPHICAL" block I replaced this line

Code: Select all

APPEND changes=/porteus
with

Code: Select all

APPEND changes=EXIT:/porteus/porteussave.dat
Only now WiFi isn't working any longer :o
I'll keep on trying

=== UPDATE 2 ===
got it mostly working now by
1. getting back to the original initrd.xz file and restoring the original filename for /porteus/porteus-v4.0-i586.cfg
2. changing the "LABEL GRAPHICAL" block as stated above
looks quite ok now, there's only one strange screen output after

Code: Select all

INIT: Entering runlevel: 4
it says:

Code: Select all

/home/guest/.bash_profile: line 1: $'\377\377\377\377...' : command not found
But I don't see any problems after porteus is booted up, so maybe that's to be neglected...

Many thanks to everyone trying to help here! :thumbsup:

=== UPDATE 3 (just for completeness) ===
just did a complete new setup (re-formatted pendrive, copied everything over, left initrd.xz untouched etc.); created porteussave.dat and set the 'changes=' link inside the main porteus.cfg; now everything appears to be fine, those .bash_profile errors are gone etc.
Thanks again for your support

User avatar
Ed_P
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 8343
Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 22:12
Distribution: Cinnamon 5.01 ISO
Location: Western NY, USA

Unable to store changes to savefile.dat

Post#14 by Ed_P » 06 Jan 2020, 22:27

:good: Thanks for the updates Im089. Always good to hear happy endings. :happy62:
Ed

Post Reply