Ubuntu Live CD Q

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
I keep an Ubuntu LTS on a USB stick on my person at all times.

Interesting idea! I should start doing that.

If you do, familiarize yourself with the various keys one must press to bring up boot sequence prompts. Some systems have menus that are accessible by pressing F9 (or some variant) during boot, while others will require you to enter the BIOS settings and find (some variant of) "boot sequence" and set the USB port to precede the HDD(s). On a system with which I am unfamiliar I will often haphazardly hit DEL, F1, F2, F9, F10, F11 and F12 during boot. Usually something interesting, if not helpful, happens. ;^)

 

[ClutchDisc]

Haha yea I would guess something interesting would happen pressing all those at once! It seems that one that is most often used is F2.

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
I keep an Ubuntu LTS on a USB stick on my person at all times.

Funny you mention that. Ironically, I've been doing the same thing for a few months without knowing it. I normally carry a USB stick to deal with surveillance footage at one of my businesses, since the server has no optical drive (much to my chagrin). When I pulled some files off last week, I noticed I had a couple Ubuntu images on there.

OK you guys have chatted now...how about some suggestions regarding a MB setting for persistence? This looks to be a potential landmine for others wanting to try out UB.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
OK you guys have chatted now...how about some suggestions regarding a MB setting for persistence? This looks to be a potential landmine for others wanting to try out UB.

Okay, I'll do some thinking on it, but I'll be tied up for the next little bit. I'll read the thread from front to back again so I don't miss anything, then I can ask questions if I need clarification.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver

how about some suggestions regarding a MB setting for persistence? This looks to be a potential landmine for others wanting to try out UB.


I have not set persistence for my USB stick as is it just the right size for the live media.

I also try to dissuade users, who wish to run it properly, from using it from their live stick. I will boot from the stick to show them what Ubuntu (or Mint or whatever else you wish) can do; and if they want it installed I will install it.

I suppose it'd be useful for people to use a live USB stick for travel and/ or quasi-anonymous (use TAILS for best anonymity!) usage; at which point I guess the persistence file ought to be set for the maximum remainder of the driver unless there is some sort of weird FAT32 4GB file size limit.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
It gets to the Install UB or Live Mode. Once I saw a message regarding "this computer only has 0bytes of disk space remaining." I'm using an 8Gb stick.

I finally had the chance to reread here and do some thinking. I haven't done a lot of booting off of USB sticks, so some of this is going to be spitballing at first. How does LiLi actually set up your USB stick for booting? Is it basically telling the computer that it is the same as whatever other removable media that one might use (i.e. a DVD or CD)? In that case, it may decide to view that specific USB device as read only, including providing the message that 0 bytes are available.

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: sleddriver
It gets to the Install UB or Live Mode. Once I saw a message regarding "this computer only has 0bytes of disk space remaining." I'm using an 8Gb stick.

I finally had the chance to reread here and do some thinking. I haven't done a lot of booting off of USB sticks, so some of this is going to be spitballing at first. How does LiLi actually set up your USB stick for booting? Is it basically telling the computer that it is the same as whatever other removable media that one might use (i.e. a DVD or CD)? In that case, it may decide to view that specific USB device as read only, including providing the message that 0 bytes are available.

Good Q. Not sure. There is a website about it. You might find some answers there.

The only reason I went with adding some mem-space to the installation was so I could save some webpages, and add-ons to FF, like ghostery, adblock+, etc. and a few others. This would give me a chance to save the mods for the next time I used it.

Today it dragged the B130 to a crawl when I opened FF, for some reason. Too bad UB doesn't have something like Process Explorer or even Task Manager. I shut down twice and rebooted from the stick, and it hung twice. Said it had crashed/hung due to an internal error.

I'd reloaded it onto a tiny PNY stub-stick of 8G. Haven't had much time to diagnose. That's all I have for now. Thanks for responding.

 

[Subdued]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Too bad UB doesn't have something like Process Explorer or even Task Manager. I shut down twice and rebooted from the stick, and it hung twice. Said it had crashed/hung due to an internal error.


yes it does, it's called System Monitor.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
I'd reloaded it onto a tiny PNY stub-stick of 8G. Haven't had much time to diagnose. That's all I have for now. Thanks for responding.

As mentioned already, check System Monitor under System Tools. Nonetheless, yes, try it on a different stick and let me know how it goes, maybe a really big one, too, on the same system.

I know if I'm running certain LiveCDs, I can download packages (i.e. archive utilities) or Firefox addons to use during that seession. Obviously, they're not going on the DVD-R which was finalized, and the HDD was never mounted in the first place, so those go to RAM.

 

[sleddriver]

Update: I erased the PNY stick, set persistence to 1G using Lili and created a new install of U14. Worked without a hitch this time. No screen issues, or freezing. I don't know enough about U14 to troubleshoot much.

I did find SysMon. Thanks. I've gotten so used to Process Monitor on my XP system, it's all I ever use.

BTW, anyone have a reliable source for new batteries for the B130? I've had mixed results with off-brand ones. Thanks.

 

[Garak]

Remarkable. I'll have to play with Lili and some USB sticks one day and see how it goes. My main experience with USB sticks is that some have been very finicky.

I guess that's what's happened with their price going so low over the last number of years.

 

[sleddriver]

Just when I thought I was out of the ditch....as noted in my previous post, all worked fine. Then I took it with me to use in cordless mode while donating and it slid into the ditch again.

I noticed during boot-up, when a bunch of messages are being quickly scrolled on the screen it would pause at "468977 trying to unpack rootfs image to replace _______." Then it blanked the screen before I got the rest.

It made it to the try vs. install screen, the desktop appeared and mouse, keyboard actions were very slow. I opened SysMon and the cpu was pegged at 100%. The ap causing this was compiz.

I quit, rebooted, went through the same, then saw an error window "U14.04 has experienced an internal error. If you notice further problems, try restarting the computer. I'm presented with two choices: Show Details and Continue.

SD shows:

ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
Package: ubiquity2.18.7[origin:unknown]
Problem: Crash
Title: Ubiquity crashed with debconf.debconfError in command()10,"debian-installer/locale doesn't exist")

I click "continue" to see what'll happen. Dsktp appears. Open SysMon. Process "compiz" is using 60% of cpu. "dconf-service" is using 22%. Resources tab shows cpu @ 100%. (No wonder it was feeling quite warm on my lap...)

I turned it off, pulled the stick, and started Wxp from the HD. Dsktp appeared and everything worked fine.

The only difference between home and away was being on battery power away. At home, I just now restarted it with the stick, on batt. power (100% charged), and it showed the same errors as above.

Perhaps the PNY mem-stick is Tango Uniform? Is there a mem-stick Ram-checker? I'm now suspicious of it.

 

[Garak]

I'd be suspicious of the stick, too, but I don't know offhand a way to check them. I'm sure someone here does. As I mentioned, I don't rely on them a lot, so I've never needed to check them.

Compiz can be a bit of a resource hog, all things considered. That's one reason I do like the MATE desktop. It cuts down on the fanciness which isn't essential in the first place.

 

[sleddriver]

Re: Compiz in U14. It behaves when Ubuntu boots properly. No issues at all with U12 on a disk. I think it's pegging the cpu meter because a key U component wasn't loaded properly.

This has been my first experience with a potentially 'flaky' mem-stick and it's given me pause on their use. What happens if this were an important doc?

I'll have to check for a way to do a test on a mem-stick.

 

[Garak]

That's another good question. I wonder how easily things can be recovered from USB sticks if something goes awry. Testing with another stick might be in order.

As for important documents, I guess that's why multiple backups are important, particularly if it's a very important document.

 

[sleddriver]

Update:
Using the same 8G PNY mem-stick, I erased it, reinstalled U14 using Lili and set persistence to 0G (live mode). When it completed, I booted the B130 from it with no problems. Compiz shows 0% under SysMon. With no activity, cpu % graph shows roughly 15%.

This is normal it seems. So something was FUBAR with between U14, persistence and Lili.

Since the HD does show up, I'm thinking I could store anything I need on it.

 

[Garak]

Yes, you could store what you need on it, but you'd probably need to mount it first. Such devices do tend to "show up" when using a LiveCD, but aren't mounted unless explicitly done, and usually no write options are conducted unless you specifically call for them.

In any event, that's a pretty strange little problem! Hopefully, redoing the stuff you did keeps it in order.