Making permanent changes

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Making permanent changes
started by: mooreted

Posted by mooreted on Sep. 16 2006,17:37

I installed DSL on an old laptop and it runs great. The problem is: it is running from the ramdisk not the hard drive so I can't make permanent changes. Everything goes back to default when I reboot.

How to fix?

It looks like you have to save a backup and restore the backup every time. Is that correct?

Sounds unusable. Everything I create will be wiped out whenever I reboot.

Okay, I'm going to try a regular HD install. Still, I don't understand why you would want an OS to run from a ramdisk. You can't save any data, so it's useless right?

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 17 2006,04:12

Backup and restore is done automatically when enabled, so personal files are kept updated consistently after the initial setup.

Applications as myDSL packages can be made to install automatically.

You also have the ability to mount opt and/or home on a local disk for even more persistence.

Finally, since this is Linux you can automate just about anything else you want through a little scripting.

Running a system from ramdisk is faster than running from a drive, if you have a decent amount of ram to work with, and there are no worries about breaking the system, since a reboot can fix any damage.

I guess it depends on your point of view whether or not you want to look at it as unuseable. For many it apparently is very useable. Personally I use a pesistent home and myDSL applications, and have no problems keeping my data (except for that time when I was experimenting...but that was a stupid mistake on my part)