[opensuse-support] OS LEAP on a USB stick
Hi, all -- Wow... This went absolutely nowhere on the opensuse@ list! Let's try it here in -support to see if there are any opinions. I have a media server stuffed full of hard drives, and I have to date been using Knoppix with a Casper partition on a USB drive to run it. The idea was that 1) replacing the boot media should be easy (and I clone the stick to another every once in a while) and 2) upgrading should be easy (by just whipping up a fresh stick with the latest version and comparing my persistence partition files with the new fresh versions) while 3) maintenance should be simple. It's worked well enough so far, but ... I'm about to bring another server in-house, and I maybe want just a bit more than Knoppix, although I still won't have disk slots to spare. I need the simple stability of LEAP, which will of course get updates regularly anyway, and wonder about running on a thumb drive in the same way. This one will run MySQL/Maria, probably run a web server, and will handle email and need at least a basic forwarding MTA if not the real thing. I imagine that I'd want to run without swap (*gasp* yes, that discussion again ;-) and figure I'm stuck with content changes right in the live OS rather than in an overlay volume. Does that sound right, or is there a LEAP live image (no, I haven't gone looking yet) that can UNIONFS on top in the same way? TIA & HANW :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Try openSUSE LEAP Live. Boot it the first time it will make a cow disk and all changes will be persistent. Then mount your HDDs add the mount points to fstab and away you go! Have a lot of fun! Ariez On 05/03/2020 11:35, David T-G wrote:
Hi, all --
Wow... This went absolutely nowhere on the opensuse@ list! Let's try it here in -support to see if there are any opinions.
I have a media server stuffed full of hard drives, and I have to date been using Knoppix with a Casper partition on a USB drive to run it. The idea was that 1) replacing the boot media should be easy (and I clone the stick to another every once in a while) and 2) upgrading should be easy (by just whipping up a fresh stick with the latest version and comparing my persistence partition files with the new fresh versions) while 3) maintenance should be simple. It's worked well enough so far, but ...
I'm about to bring another server in-house, and I maybe want just a bit more than Knoppix, although I still won't have disk slots to spare. I need the simple stability of LEAP, which will of course get updates regularly anyway, and wonder about running on a thumb drive in the same way. This one will run MySQL/Maria, probably run a web server, and will handle email and need at least a basic forwarding MTA if not the real thing.
I imagine that I'd want to run without swap (*gasp* yes, that discussion again ;-) and figure I'm stuck with content changes right in the live OS rather than in an overlay volume. Does that sound right, or is there a LEAP live image (no, I haven't gone looking yet) that can UNIONFS on top in the same way?
TIA & HANW
:-D
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Ariez, et al -- ...and then Ariez J Vachha said... % % Try openSUSE LEAP Live. Boot it the first time it will make a cow disk Oh, cool! That's delightful. Yes, I'll definitely try that. Thanks! % and all changes will be persistent. Then mount your HDDs add the mount % points to fstab and away you go! That's the idea :-) % % Have a lot of fun! % Ariez Have a great weekend :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, all -- ...and then davidtg-robot@justpickone.org said... % % ...and then Ariez J Vachha said... % % % % Try openSUSE LEAP Live. Boot it the first time it will make a cow disk % % Oh, cool! That's delightful. Yes, I'll definitely try that. Thanks! [snip] Proof of concept proven: I now have one running and I have changed the password. Next to play with it and see how much I like it. Thanks again! HANW :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Le 05/03/2020 à 04:35, David T-G a écrit :
Hi, all --
Wow... This went absolutely nowhere on the opensuse@ list!
not seen your post there :-( first you would probably be better using an usb ssd than an usb pen drive, better then if usb3. usb3 disk can be used exactly like any internal drive. The only caveat is that if you add some software to the (live?) initial unit, your usb drive may not work on an other computer than the one you build on, but this shouldn't be a problem for you. I specially like the msata or m2 enclosures, nearly as small as pen drives but much faster. jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
jdd, et al -- ...and then jdd@dodin.org said... % % Le 05/03/2020 à 04:35, David T-G a écrit : % > % >Wow... This went absolutely nowhere on the opensuse@ list! % % not seen your post there :-( No worries, especially as Ariez confirmed that it made it through. I can be persistent ;-) % % first you would probably be better using an usb ssd than an usb pen % drive, better then if usb3. [snip] I like that idea, but the price is out of my range. I can buy three 32G thumb drives for $20-$30 and have redundancy, a life expectancy of well over a year, and more than enough space for the base install versus, what, a minimum of $80 for a single SSD? The SSD just isn't worth it for my application. But thanks anyway :-) HANW :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Le 06/03/2020 à 03:51, David T-G a écrit :
jdd, et al --
...and then jdd@dodin.org said... % % Le 05/03/2020 à 04:35, David T-G a écrit : % > % >Wow... This went absolutely nowhere on the opensuse@ list! % % not seen your post there :-(
No worries, especially as Ariez confirmed that it made it through. I can be persistent ;-)
% % first you would probably be better using an usb ssd than an usb pen % drive, better then if usb3. [snip]
I like that idea, but the price is out of my range. I can buy three 32G thumb drives for $20-$30 and have redundancy, a life expectancy of well over a year, and more than enough space for the base install versus, what, a minimum of $80 for a single SSD? The SSD just isn't worth it for my application.
60Go 24€ https://www.amazon.fr/Transcend-TS64GMSA230S-interne-mSATA-SATA/dp/B07GMF7GX... box:file:///usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop https://www.amazon.fr/Adaptateur-SuperSpeed-Aluminium-KingSpec-Transcend/dp/... and you can probably have some cheaper, I didn't really search. the main advantage is that you can treat them (usb3) exactly as internal disk and so install exactly what you want. A live disk is not as simple to manage backup don't have to be made on same kind of hardware jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Le 06/03/2020 à 08:53, jdd@dodin.org a écrit :
box:file:///usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop
I don't know how this link come in my mail, but you can forget it sorry :-( jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
jdd, et al -- ...and then jdd@dodin.org said... % % Le 06/03/2020 à 03:51, David T-G a écrit : % > % >I like that idea, but the price is out of my range. I can buy three 32G % >thumb drives for $20-$30 and have redundancy, a life expectancy of well % >over a year, and more than enough space for the base install versus, % >what, a minimum of $80 for a single SSD? The SSD just isn't worth it for % >my application. % % 60Go 24??? % % https://www.amazon.fr/Transcend-TS64GMSA230S-interne-mSATA-SATA/dp/B07GMF7GX... ... % https://www.amazon.fr/Adaptateur-SuperSpeed-Aluminium-KingSpec-Transcend/dp/... Merci, but the card alone is $23 plus shipping, and a similar box (I for some reason couldn't find this one on my amazon.com side) would cost something more. Conversely, I can grab a basic thumb drive https://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-CZ60-32GB-USB-Flash-Drive-2-0-Black-Red/2... right now. Why settle for USB 2 on a thumb drive? Because it's cheap and simple and disposable and because I can; I don't need significant speed for the OS, and it doesn't swap. % % and you can probably have some cheaper, I didn't really search. the % main advantage is that you can treat them (usb3) exactly as internal % disk and so install exactly what you want. A live disk is not as % simple to manage There is that, and that's an honest consideration. Now that I have one running, I'm going to have to evaluate just how much 1) customization & updating and 2) ongoing work it will take. The nice think about the KNOPPIX version for diskfarm is that I just change out ISO images every year or so, reapply my few localizations, et voila. % % backup don't have to be made on same kind of hardware True, but it's a lot easier when you can just dd from the one with the orange tail to the one with the green tail and put the green one back in the drawer :-) % % jdd Merci again :-) :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-support+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-support+owner@opensuse.org
Folks, Here's my 2 cents worth and also some personal experience. I do think an SSD would be better, but the persistent storage is in COW format which should I believe and please correct me if my understanding is wrong, substantially reduces the number of physical writes on the USB stick. I have a client with a factory where cost was a factor with dozens of disk-less machines running on a USB sticks as they do most of their read write to NFS shares and no failures after almost two years.... To each their own is what I believe Linux is all about. Most importantly. Have a lot of Fun! :) Cheers, Ariez On 06/03/2020 20:35, David T-G wrote:
jdd, et al --
...and then jdd@dodin.org said... % % Le 06/03/2020 à 03:51, David T-G a écrit : % > % >I like that idea, but the price is out of my range. I can buy three 32G % >thumb drives for $20-$30 and have redundancy, a life expectancy of well % >over a year, and more than enough space for the base install versus, % >what, a minimum of $80 for a single SSD? The SSD just isn't worth it for % >my application. % % 60Go 24??? % % https://www.amazon.fr/Transcend-TS64GMSA230S-interne-mSATA-SATA/dp/B07GMF7GX... ... % https://www.amazon.fr/Adaptateur-SuperSpeed-Aluminium-KingSpec-Transcend/dp/...
Merci, but the card alone is $23 plus shipping, and a similar box (I for some reason couldn't find this one on my amazon.com side) would cost something more. Conversely, I can grab a basic thumb drive
https://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-CZ60-32GB-USB-Flash-Drive-2-0-Black-Red/2...
right now.
Why settle for USB 2 on a thumb drive? Because it's cheap and simple and disposable and because I can; I don't need significant speed for the OS, and it doesn't swap.
% % and you can probably have some cheaper, I didn't really search. the % main advantage is that you can treat them (usb3) exactly as internal % disk and so install exactly what you want. A live disk is not as % simple to manage
There is that, and that's an honest consideration. Now that I have one running, I'm going to have to evaluate just how much 1) customization & updating and 2) ongoing work it will take. The nice think about the KNOPPIX version for diskfarm is that I just change out ISO images every year or so, reapply my few localizations, et voila.
% % backup don't have to be made on same kind of hardware
True, but it's a lot easier when you can just dd from the one with the orange tail to the one with the green tail and put the green one back in the drawer :-)
% % jdd
Merci again :-)
:-D
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participants (3)
-
Ariez J Vachha -
David T-G -
jdd＠dodin.org