Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post here if you are a new Porteus member and you're looking for some help.
vanAuss
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#1 by vanAuss » 02 May 2020, 18:38

Hello there,
I am a newbie in Linux and especial in portables. I found this great distro Porteus and am very very happy with this. Its unbelievable simple to install, use, and super quick!

But the first problem I have, how I can save my settings and all changes to my USB stick?

Was make everything according to this manual http://www.porteus.org/component/conten ... guide.html

- booting is great and runs perfectly
- everything works perfectly in the system - installation, wifi, keyboard...
- But how I can save changes like installed apps or settings (wifi password, keyboard settings ?)

- I trying to save manager, create set everything according to the instructions in the APPEND line with the right path and name of file.
- I dont found answer on my problem in forum history

Can you pls someone help what i doing wrong ? I was very happy if i can use this very nice distro!

Thanks in advance
Van Auss

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Ed_P
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#2 by Ed_P » 02 May 2020, 19:08

Hello Van Auss. Welcome. :)

To save changes create a porteussave.dat file (Menu > Administration > Porteus save file manager), put it in your /changes folder, then add it to your boot menu with the changes= cheatcode.

Code: Select all

APPEND changes=/changes/porteussave.dat
Use the file to save setting changes and app settings, like browser bookmarks, but not files like movies and music downloads. For those big files save them directly to the USB stick. :happy62:


BTW There is a file in the root of the ISO titled USB_INSTALLATION.txt that is a good read also.


:o Just noticed you said you tried changing the APPEND line. Please post your line. Also an LS of your USB drive.

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:~$ ls -g /mnt/sdb1/
total 272
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root  2271 Mar 20 15:51 Dell2Dell.txt*
drwxrwxrwx  4 root 16384 Nov 21  2018 EFI/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root 16384 Apr 19 15:43 modules/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root 16384 Nov 21  2018 optional/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root 16384 Nov 21  2018 System\ Volume\ Information/
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root  1512 Apr 29  2018 USB_INSTALLATION.txt*
drwxrwxrwx  3 root 16384 Feb  2 07:59 Xfers/
drwxrwxrwx  5 root 16384 Nov 20  2018 boot/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root 16384 Apr 19 15:37 changes/
drwxrwxrwx  6 root 16384 Apr 29  2018 porteus/
guest@porteus:~$
Ed

vanAuss
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#3 by vanAuss » 02 May 2020, 20:04

Hi Ed,
thank you for quick answer. Of course i tried all from installation.txt

Meanwhile treid make it complete new - format USB to ext4, install 5.1.5-porteus and now i try reboot. I read in some topics i dont need to use cheatcode in case of ext4. I try to reboot my system and save only keyboard settings and wifi password, but not my installed firefox (my first attemp). What i need to use cheatcode now ? What i do wrong or missed ?

After new installation look like :
guest@porteus:~$ ls -g /mnt/sdb1/
total 16
drwx------ 2 root 16384 Mar 29 2018 lost+found/
guest@porteus:~$


many thanks in advance

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Ed_P
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#4 by Ed_P » 02 May 2020, 20:25

You are right with ext4 you don't need the changes= cheatcode. I've never tried the Kiosk 5.1.5 system so I don't know how things are added to it.

With Porteus though apps like firefox aren't installed. They are downloaded as modules and saved in the /modules folder which is added to the APPEND line with the extramod= cheatcode.

Code: Select all

APPEND extramod=/modules
BTW When you are booted to the USB drive the drive is sda1, so ls -g /mnt/sda1/ was what was needed.
Ed

vanAuss
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#5 by vanAuss » 02 May 2020, 20:34

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:~$ ls -g /mnt/sda1/
total 58524
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Desktop/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Documents/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Downloads/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Music/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Pictures/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Public/
drwxr-xr-x 2 users     4096 May  2 15:18 Videos/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  59875328 Mar 26 13:12 firefox-74.0-x86_64-enUS.xzm
drwx------ 2 root     16384 Jul  5  2019 lost+found/
drwxr-xr-x 9 root      4096 May  2 10:05 timeshift/
guest@porteus:~$ 
Do you have please, more info how about modules works and can i save it for next ?

Thanks in advance

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ncmprhnsbl
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#6 by ncmprhnsbl » 02 May 2020, 21:51

none of this is making any sense :D
Ed_P wrote:
02 May 2020, 20:25
and saved in the /modules folder which is added to the APPEND line with the extramod= cheatcode.
nope.. any modules in the <usb>/porteus/modules folder are loaded automatically, no extramod= cheatcode is needed.
Ed_P wrote:
02 May 2020, 20:25
When you are booted to the USB drive the drive is sda1,
never in my experience... sda* is usually the internal hard drive and sdb1 is generally correct to be the external usb booted from..
however, the ls outputs are making even less sense..
vanAuss, can you post the contents of /var/log/porteus-livedbg ? (from the running porteus that is)
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

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Ed_P
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#7 by Ed_P » 02 May 2020, 22:14

ncmprhnsbl wrote:
02 May 2020, 21:51
none of this is making any sense :D

nope.. any modules in the <usb>/porteus/modules folder are loaded automatically, no extramod= cheatcode is needed.
Thanks for clarifying that. I always think of it as for system modules rather than things we users add. 00x modules to fix bugs and add printers etc. Browsers and games and alike are kept separate. But than again I only have a couple of USB drives, in my world I boot ISO files and everything is governed by cheatcodes. :)
Ed

vanAuss
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#8 by vanAuss » 03 May 2020, 10:27

ncmprhnsbl wrote:
02 May 2020, 21:51
none of this is making any sense :D
Ed_P wrote:
02 May 2020, 20:25
and saved in the /modules folder which is added to the APPEND line with the extramod= cheatcode.
nope.. any modules in the <usb>/porteus/modules folder are loaded automatically, no extramod= cheatcode is needed.
Ed_P wrote:
02 May 2020, 20:25
When you are booted to the USB drive the drive is sda1,
never in my experience... sda* is usually the internal hard drive and sdb1 is generally correct to be the external usb booted from..
however, the ls outputs are making even less sense..
vanAuss, can you post the contents of /var/log/porteus-livedbg ? (from the running porteus that is)
Thank you for carry novice like me, except someone from dev team! :)

Is it what you need ?

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/var/log# cat porteus-livedbg 
# Recognized devices:
/dev/sda1: UUID="f89b6d8b-2f70-424c-b259-fdf4424892bc" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdb1: UUID="1a542036-eb04-4642-8222-dbcaea81b667" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdc1: UUID="028edfa0-282e-48c4-8516-3c56e03b8f6d" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdd1: LABEL="PORTEUS" UUID="315f9274-b520-d601-301b-9274b520d601" TYPE="ext4" 

# Booting device:
/mnt/sdd1

# Porteus data found in:
/mnt/sdd1/porteus

# Changes are stored in:
/porteus

# Non standard /rootcopy dir:
none

# Modules activated during boot time:
/mnt/sdd1/porteus/base/000-kernel.xzm
/mnt/sdd1/porteus/base/001-core.xzm
/mnt/sdd1/porteus/base/002-xorg.xzm
/mnt/sdd1/porteus/base/003-xfce.xzm
root@porteus:/var/log# 

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ncmprhnsbl
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#9 by ncmprhnsbl » 03 May 2020, 13:32

vanAuss wrote:
03 May 2020, 10:27
Is it what you need ?
perfect :) .. so your booting device where porteus is frugally installed is sdd1
vanAuss wrote:
02 May 2020, 20:04
install 5.1.5-porteus
not sure about this? the kernel version?
anyway, your sdd1 install should look similar to this:

Code: Select all

$ tree -L 2 sdb1
sdb1
├── EFI
│   └── boot
├── USB_INSTALLATION.txt
├── boot
│   ├── Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
│   ├── Porteus-installer-for-Windows.exe
│   ├── docs
│   └── syslinux     <<<this is where your porteus.cfg bootloader config file is, to add cheats to the APPEND line 
├── lost+found [error opening dir]
└── porteus
    ├── base   <<<< where the base system modules reside (best left alone until you know what you're doing ;)
    ├── make_iso.sh
    ├── modules   <<<<this is where you put modules(*.xzm) if you want them active from boot time
    ├── optional    <<<<if you put modules here, they can be activated at boot with cheatcode: load=blah;blah2;etc
    ├── porteus-v5.0-x86_64.cfg  <<< this also takes cheatcodes, however there are some that won't work
    └── rootcopy   <<<< a sort of mirror filesystem(that you create yourself) that is overlayed on the filesystem at boot, but is only modified manually
    |___changes  <<<< this folder should be present if the default changes=/porteus cheatcode is present on the  APPEND line
note the 'changes=' cheatcode can also point to any POSIX(ext*) drive or partition attached.. eg. changes=/dev/sda/myotherchanges
also, with the 'extramod' cheatcode you load modules from any attached drive.. eg. if you used extramod=/mnt/sda1 ,your firefox module that's there would be loaded at boot.. not to mention that you navigate your filemanager to where ever you have some modules and activate(and deactivate) them with mouseclicks at any time after boot..
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

vanAuss
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Save settings and apps after shut down or reboot

Post#10 by vanAuss » 03 May 2020, 18:06

Thank you very much for all. Now is great explained for me! :beer:

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