[WIP] Live system on a harddisk?

[wobo]

I'm not new to live systems and to the dd command. But this is new:
I want to write (not install!) a live iso on the internal hard disk (4Gb SSD). Raises questions:
1. Can I get away without swap (2Gb RAM)?
2. How could I add a writable section (aka "persistent home")?
3. How could I add the necessary drivers (wifi, which is not on the live system)?

Using a chroot to install and setup a working system (on another machine with a large harddisk) and then change that to a live iso does not help because of the different hardware.

[doktor5000]

1. Can I get away without swap (2Gb RAM)?

Depends if you want to use suspend/hibernation?

[wobo]

No, suspend to disk is not possible anyway (2GB RAM, 4GB harddisk).

[doktor5000]

Well, you could still use an sd card or usb stick for that, no?

[wobo]

yes, an SD is an option. But I think this is not the main question.

[doktor5000]

Maybe it would be better to poke, say blino on irc or via mail about the persistent thingie?
Also would be nice to hear the outcome, to document this on the wiki ...

For 3. you could try http://www.mandrivauser.de/doku/doku.ph ... madeiso_en
but another solution would be more practical. I think blino could also maybe give you some hints about that.

[wobo]

I know the selfmade_iso howto but it does not apply here.
The whole task seems to be as complex as I feared.

[doktor5000]

That's why i suggested discussing this with blino (or somebody who has similar extensive
knowledge about things in that context) maybe some really smart idea will come out?

[wobo]

Yes, may be and I think talking with blino is the right thing to do. But ATM I don't have the time nor the energy to dig so deep into a single project.
Thx for the answers, I have a picture now.

So I would mark this thread as "Temporarily set aside"

[richardwest]

I'm not able to tell you how, but I know for a fact that this can be done. I have for a long time been running such a system on my EeePC 701 based on Unity-Linux. Unfortunately Unity has crawled to an almost stop at the moment, however JMiahman at http://www.synergy-linux.com is working on a system initially based on Fedora that will do exactly the same.

p.s. My system is based on Unity-Linux 2010 and is using KDE-3.5 as a desktop. It's not perfect but it works for me.

[wobo]

Thx Richard, will follow that link. It would be ideal if this could result in a solution for Mageia as well but I have no problem to use Fedora instead for this experiment

BTW: Thx to whoever put the WIP into the subject line - it looks as if I am busy experimenting!

[richardwest]

Another one to look at is PCLinuxOS with their live installer. I haven't tried it for some time but the original Synergy-Linux which evolved from EeePCLinuxOS worked the way you want.

For anyone reading who is not aware of the reason this "live" install is useful, consider that on a CD, 2GB of system can be run from a 700MB disk. If you have an EeePC or similar with only 4GB hard drive, it lets you have a 2GB operating system and still have over 3GB of data space out of the 4GB.

Also, for anyone who worries about the life of the SSD hard drive, mine has been deleted formatted and installed many hundreds of times since I bought it, I even did 12 full installs in one day.