why can't I use apt-get from MEPIS liveCD?
 

At some point, I tried to use Synaptic in the MEPIS 11 liveCD environment. I can't remember whether I was trying to install or remove software, but I think I really just wanted to see if I could--apt-get from a liveCD (with or without a graphical frontend). The MEPIS liveCD has never let me do it, always saying it couldn't write to /var/cache/apt. Because one of the other error messages said "read-only file system," I supposed this was normal, that I couldn't apt-get in any liveCD.

More recently, I tried it on some other distros and found that it could be done. Why doesn't MEPIS allow it?

Give the new alpha 12 a try.

I'll look at it, but if MEPIS 12 is in preparation (I hadn't heard), I must say I'm disappointed at how there is very little information posted so far on what MEPIS 12 will be like. Nothing at all on the mepis.org front page except some small notices that a prototype exists. If there's an iso, I guess I'll download it and try it in a virtual machine. Nothing here in the LQ MEPIS subforum either.

Presumably, that is correct: if the cache directory is on the CD/DVD, then you won't be able to write to the raw CD. You don't have to cache the packages and you could use a file system that did make /var/cache/apt look as if it were writeable, but that would also cause other confusion.

So Mepis has taken some design decisions that haven't helped in this particular use case but which may well help in others.

Note that removing software is potentially a different problem from adding software, so you should be careful to distinguish.

Then I guess with some other distros, the designers decided the confusion was acceptable, because offhand, I know two distros that can use apt-get in a liveCD: antiX and VectorLinux (slapt-get, in its case).

use the aufs cheatcode

http://www.mepiscommunity.org/user_m...ml#section03-3

I think that's normal for Mepis.

Oh, now it is only two you know of. Go to the Mepis form, use the search for "M12 alpha" that will take you to the list of posts for the alpha testing that has been going on for a while. Use the cheat code that Anticapitalista posted for M11. Gee what you need is on the opening screen.