Isodumper file manager

[measter]

Isodumper's file manager section is too limited. I need to be able to access an .iso on another device and the file manager is too restrictive. I'm booting a live Mageia 9 (from Ventoy). I want to be able to direct the isodumper to an .iso on another device which is accessible from the conventional file manager, but the file manager embedded in isodumper won't let me direct it.

[measter]

I've written the xfce Mageia 9 to a 16G USB using Win Rufus in dd mode, which means the 3.3G Mag part is on a dos part and there is a little 4 meg vfat part after, leaving 11G of unallocated space. My goal is to make the live persistent presumably w/ isodumper or alternatively using the diskdrak in MCC, or even using gparted booting another distro to create another partition for the persistence.

[measter]

Now I'm in the isodumper-gtk 1.56; it looks like I can use it aiming at the Mageia USB. Hmm. No, it says it will destroy data, as if it thought it were rewriting the entire disk. I'll try to manage it with diskdrak.

[measter]

I don't know how to do this manually; I see that the little vfat 4meg part is labeled MGAISO-ESP, but I don't know how to rig the mgalive-persist part from the diskdrak, I think I'll look at it with gparted.

[measter]

Hmm. gparted only sees the USB as an iso9660, but disks sees it like the MCC diskdrak. I could make a part out of the unallocated, but I have unknowns. I'll make it ext4, not extended, don't know any other parameters that isodumper would do if it were doing it.

[sturmvogel]

The easiest solution would have been to have the ISO on the same device so that Isodumper can find it (please keep in mind that this tool is not intended to have the fully functionality of a file mager).

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Persistent_live_systems

[measter]

Thanks. The persistent live suggests that the persistent device can be configured by booting a live. It isn't 'practical' to be able to boot a live distro which also has a separate partition containing an .iso. I can 'put another' .iso on a Ventoy stick, but then I can't see the .iso on it. Any number of .iso writers to USB can write a live, but there is no 'alternate' partition to park something.

I've run into internal file managers before that needed an 'option' to view another device. It seems that I'm pretty close to what I want; I can see that booting the live Mageia took it upon itself to write directories for memory and work, so the live recognizes the ext4 partition, but I don't know how to get the live into the 'mood' to be persistent. In the case of MX, the persistent condition starts at the time of the boot.

Hmmm. Maybe I can 'start over' by putting the Mag .iso into the mgalive-persist part and writing to /another/ USB.


Removed quote. ~Germ

[measter]

Hmmm. Maybe I can 'start over' by putting the Mag .iso into the mgalive-persist part and writing to /another/ USB.

Ha. That seems to have worked. It appears that a Mageia w/ persistence created w/ the isodumper doesn't need to be told to be persistent, it just 'is'. My next idea is to try to figure out to do it onto an SSD. I have configured both Puppy Bookworm 64 (off a Ventoy USB to a SSD persistence) and MX XFCE 23.5 (off a Ventoy on SSD to its frugal persistence on SSD) for persistence. Neither of those need a separate partition, they just need to know how to find the persistence data. I don't use 'Ventoy persistence' because it isn't 'good enough' to do system changes, as far as I can tell it is just a place to park data, like the persistence Win Rufus can do w/ certain distro/s.

I was unsuccessful trying to do it w/ Barry Kauler's Easy OS.

[measter]

Another thing wrong w/ isodumper window is its resize function doesn't work right. Instead of the resizer allowing resizing up/down|R/L, it only allows the 'lateral' sideways resizing when it can need to be resized from the bottom up.