Looking to create multiple persistent lives on the same usb with interchangeable dependencies.

SammyWinters

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I'm trying to create a live usb that has one persistent partition (sda3) for things I've tested, which I will use as my main OS (sda1>sda3). On top of that, I want to create another persistent partition (sda4) that I can mount on top of either the main OS, or just the ISO (sda1). So far, the closest I've come to achieving what I want is having to use two persistent partitions, switching out the labels to decide which one mounts on boot. I don't want to waste a whole bunch of storage in this fashion. I also don't want to have to keep switching them out manually, and accidentally fucking things up when I forget to change things properly, then have to start from scratch, which I've already done more than once. Also, in case it wasn't implied, the playground that is sda4 should never write to the main OS, just use it's resources.

TLDR: Me want live usb. Me want main persistent mount iso OOGA OOGA. Me want more persistent mount main persistent while main persistent mount iso. 3 way OOGAA OOGA. Me also want second persistent mount iso without main. Me not want make fire.
 


You made me chuckle. I don't bother with persistence on a USB - but some of the ventoy fans may be able to get you sorted. I'll ping one for you.

@captain-sensible
 
G'day @SammyWinters and welcome to linux.org :)

There is an article here

https://ostechnix.com/create-persistent-bootable-usb-using-ventoy-in-linux/

which may help you with what you are seeking to do.

You would be best advised to first familiarise yourself with Ventoy, and the author links to previous articles as follows

We have already discussed how to create multiboot USB drives with Ventoy application. Today, we will see how to create persistent bootable USB using Ventoy in Linux.

In the article I refer to, there is a part which says, in part

Create multiboot persistent USB with Ventoy​


In the above example, I have created only one persistence bootable USB with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Ventoy allows you to create multiboot persistent USB drives as well.


To enable persistent support for multiple ISOs, we need to change the ventoy.json file to match with the exact path of another ISO file and persistence.dat files.


For example, I am going to configure persistence support for Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04. So, I added the following lines in my ventoy.json file:

{
"persistence" : [
{
"image": "/ubuntu-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso",
"backend": "/persistence.dat"
},
{
"image": "/ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso",
"backend": "/persistence.dat"
}
]
}

Disclaimer for me is that while I have used Ventoy, I have yet to explore its Persistence and multiple Persistence features to evaluate them.

Andy @captain-sensible may have more in that regard.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Havn't (< that's a legitimate contraction, the dictionary be damned) got around to reading it yet. Busy on other things, but thx. I've used ventoy before. I'll give it a gander when I find some time.
 
with ventoy they achieve persistence via a file ; used to be only 1gig ; i think that's now been expanded . The type of file is now .dat i beleive
 
Damn, dude. I thought it was supposed to be up to me, and my RAM. Maybe I keep a USB with the base ISO, then install that to two different drives. One for testing, the other for what's worked out in the playground. Then recompile and copy to primary USB if it's goldylox? I'd just flash a live USB, rather than install, but I'd end up with an ISO for the primary. I'm not familiar with what it takes to form an ISO out of /sdx. Would love to know how I can build an exact replica of whatever it is I'm working with at the moment, and have that be bootable through a USB. I think I could work with that. P.S. using Parrot sec Rolling kde 4.11.3.
 

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