Manjaro XFCE 20.0.3 - Persistent USB - released

Announcements Releases
21

You can plug the flash drive in a PC and edit

/etc/passwd

change manjaro:x:1000:1000::/home/manjaro:/bin/bash

to

manjaro:x:0:0::/home/manjaro:/bin/bash

so you are root now

But it didn’t show the wifi app. I am unable to connect to the network.

Any hints?

22

@andreapuppet, please share yout ISO with US, please.

Many thanks.

23

I don’t have an .iso – I just built the persistent system using Phil’s instructions on his Alma github page (linked in my previous post). Then I added the graphical desktop environment (Gnome in my case) and configured everything as though I’d installed a minimal system to a physical hard drive. Give it a try – it’s easier than I thought it would be.

24

@philm I’m wondering if the latest os-prober updates are preventing Alma from creating a new image.

When issuing sudo alma create -e /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_USB_Flash_Disk-0:0 I get the following:

Error: Error querying information about the block device

Caused by:
    No such file or directory (os error 2)

I’ve tried it with two different usb sticks on two different computers, same result across the board.

25

I did create an USB-stick today, and it worked.
But a few days ago it did not work. There were a few errors reported then. But i did not copy them. :frowning:

26

Interesting that it works for you. I tried again and am unable to install, with the same error reported in my previous post.

27

Maybe try with linux54 on your host system. Newer kernels might added some regressions.

28

Thanks, Phil. I booted into Linux54 and tried again, but I get the same error. Tried a different USB, and also tried formatting to both Fat32 and Ext4, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I also tried reinstalling alma-git with its arch script dependency, but the error pops up again. I noticed that this started happening after GRUB and OS-Prober went through their recent “upgrades.”

29

then try with older versions of grub to see if that is the case.

30

Will see about downgrading GRUB when I get home from work.

31

@philm Issuing sudo downgrade grub I see multiple instances of version 2.04 (my current version) along with one 2.06. Would any of these work for testing purposes here?

32

for some reason i always get
“ERROR: device ‘UUID=foobar’ not found skipping fsck
mount: /new_root: cant find UUID=foobar,
You are now being dropped to emerygency shell
sh: cant access tty: job control turned off”

I even created a new img using your tutorials but it also gives this error.

33

i built with 5.11 and with latest grub and it built fine.

34

I buildt with kernel 5.10 and it did work. In the first run i got some errors. But when i did it again after a reboot and 10 Minutes it worked without error. Because i know that the USB-Stick is formated and therefor deleted this seems odd to me.

Later then i switched successfully to btrfs :wink:

  • I converted etx4 to btrfs with the stick at my desktop linux and the partition not mounted
    btrfs-convert /dev/*partition*
  • got the new UUID from
    lsblk -dno LABEL /dev/*partition*
  • mounted the Partition “1” and changed the grub.cfg with mc. Replacing every old UUID with the new one
  • mounted the partition “3” and changed the /etc/fstab. Commenting the first Line with “#” and adding a new line with UUID= … and 0 as last number instead of 1. I also added “,compress=zstd”

Thank you @philm

P.S.: I did forget to mention that i used a preset. manjaro-xfce
P.S.2: Now i deleted “ext2_saved”, and did compress everything i had installed with zstd:9 and the usage got down from 7.4G to 3.2G

35

Well it was a long time ago. Maybe I find time to spin a new one …

1 Like
36

I booted to the tty1, manually installed the xfce desktop, but am unable to log in to any user account. I created the account using useradd -m chris -p password
but now that I booted into the xfce login screen, I cannot login.
Help would be appreciated

Edit:

I looked again at the user file and I think the problem was it wasn’t actually configured to save the passwords.
All working now

37

TIP for next time:
When you use a preset (like manjaro-xfce ) the USER will be created automatic. You only export the ALMA_USER for alma. Alma will ask you for the password when it is needed:

sudo su
export ALMA_USER=myUsername
alma create --presets ./presets/xfce-manjaro

But beforehand you have to download the presets to the directory you choose to start alma in.
P.S.: and the user is in sudoers :+1:

38

I did not name the usb-Drive when starting alma, but selected it inside alma from a list. Maybe this was the difference.

39

Oh! I click on the word direct below the paragraph that talks about a downloadable image and then it takes me to a page where I can download the ready-made USB-Image. I wish that had been more clearly explained.

Today the image is manjaro-xfce-20.0.3-20200704-USB8GB-unstable.img.gz. The forum will not permit me to put the link to this image. It is now saying 4hours to download the 1.6GB file.

I was also able to generate a working live USB with no GUI desktop on a Manjaro PC with the following:

sudo pamac install alma-git

ls /dev/disk/by-id/usb*

sudo alma create /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_USB_Flash_Disk-0:0

Then create a newuser with root privileges and install a GUI desktop.

40

What do you mean? Links?

I wouldn"t bother, that is quite old and the updates alone will probably be the same size on top of that.