Can somebody explain the mysteries of IT to me

[whs]

Today is not a good day - one of those days where I am ready to pull my hair out.

I have 2 identical 16GB USB3 sticks that I ordered the same day and got the same day. On stick#1 I installed a persistent Mint system and that works beautifully. Then I wanted to test whether I could image that stick and restore it on stick#2. That worked beautifully too. But then the problems began.

On stick#1 I installed VMware Player and that works well as you can see here. Then I thought that this may be worth a tutorial and wanted to repeat the exact same VMware installation process on stick#2 so that I could make some screenshots. Mint has a very nice screenshot program. One would think that repeating the exact same installation would be a piece of cake - not so. The thing does not budge.

Then I install a screen recorder on stick#2 and although it did not like VMware, the screen recorder works perfectly. Now I want that same screenrecorder on stick#1. One would think that it works like on stick#2 - not so. It does not work at all. And that is a program I have installed a few times in different Linux distros - always working.

After over 50 years in IT I still don't understand why these things happen - like the other day where one of my partitions vanished from one minute to the next without me doing anything. If you understand the mysteries of IT, please explain.

 

[Fantail]

Well that I dunno unless maybe the 2ns stick had a different format?

Today a customer was pondering what to change his password to - I said sometimes I use my Ex-Wifes first name followed by three 6's.

 

[whs]

Nah, the formats are exactly the same. In fact one is the image of the other.

 

[Layback Bear]

Wolfgang their has been times when I use a 3rd party partition tool I would have to reboot a couple three times before Windows would register the change.
Problem is I have no idea why.

Do you do reboots between using stick #1 and stick#2?

 

[whs]

Sure, I have to boot from the stick. I run the system from the stick. So each time I switch sticks, I have to reboot.

 

[MrWhoopee]

Ghost in the machine.

I have found my clients disturbingly receptive to the concept.

 

[whs]

Yeah, gremlins. LOL

 

[Layback Bear]

Wolfgang have you discovered any thing yet.
It's very hard to give suggestions to someone with your high level of knowledge on such matters.

 

[whs]

No Jack, I am still experimenting with the thing. I have 4 sticks now with portable Mint versions and they all behave differently. Now I am trying to create a larger casper-rw loop file which gets me into all kinds of deep yogurt. Unfortunately the setup program creates only a 4GB file and 90% of e.g. my 120GB stick is empty. And 4GB is not a lot of persistent storage if you want to put music and videos on it.

I did not really expect anybody to solve my problems. I guess I just had to vent because there was no logic to what was happening. Jimbo gave me some useful input in another thread on the 8-forums. He seems to know a lot about Linux. My problem is that my command line skills are very limited. And in Linux you always end up in Terminal if you want to do anything a bit advanced.

 

[Layback Bear]

I have no idea how to help you with knowledge of such things but I did find something of interest. Then I will quite while I'm behind.

linux - What is casper rw loop file and why do I need it to make saving persistant on usb flash drive? - Stack Overflowus

 

[whs]

Thanks Jack for posting the link. I think I am familiar with the file. My problem is to find out how to change it from 4GB to e.g. 10GB. There are commands like

cd /media/mint/casper-rw

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=10240 >> casper-rw
　
resize2fs casper-rw

Problem is, they don't work. And another method where you use Gparted to extend the file destroys the Grub and I have been unable to fix that bugger.

Maybe some Linux geek can have a look at those commands and tell me what's wrong with them.

 

[Layback Bear]

I will leave you alone.
Please post back when you got it figured out.

 

[whs]

I will Jack. I may just abandon the project. It is just a fun project that serves no particular purpose. I will make a last attempt and ask my buddies at the Mint forum for help.

 

[andrew129260]

How I fix stuff in IT:

The voodoo part I'm still working on

 

[whs]

Well, the good news is that I finally got a Casper-rw file that covers the remainder of my stick. But it only works on the 16GB stick. The installer allocated it there automatically. I would have loved to get it on my 120GB stick too, but not yet. Maybe some more experimenting will do it.

 

[mjf]

Probably a dumb question because I don't fully understand your setup...
You are running Mint plus other programs on the USB flash drive so what boot manager are you using?

I know with grub4dos, programs need to be contiguous and sometimes need to be preloaded into RAM if they are stored on the USB in a non contiguous fashion.

 

[whs]

Michael, I use the Universal USB Installer. That installs the system automatically (from an iso) with 3 clicks. Runs great and is very fast - especially for the internet.

 

[mjf]

Sorry I've never played with the Universal USB Installer. I wonder if you get the same problems with YUMI.
IT's a mystery to me as well.

 

[whs]

There is really no problem with the universal installer. The only mystery was that it did not use the whole stick for the casper-rw file - at least not on sticks larger than 16GBs. That restricts you in the amount of data you can put on the stick. But now I managed to get 12GBs and that is enough for the purpose.

 

[Layback Bear]

I'm surly confused. I have heard of a storage device being to small but never being to big to install things.