Salutations,

I'm trying to run a live usb system with a persistent volume greater than 4gb. If I use pendrivelinux , some distros give me the option to add a 4gb persistent casper file. The problem is that I can't go higher than that.

I know that Tails OS does have a script to do this once you install it on a usb drive but I don't think the persistent volume saves desktop settings and changes.

I've tried with Debian, Elementary and Mint. I'm posting on Debian sub-forum because my ideal distro would be debian or mostly-debian distro (like crunchbang).

The problem that I encounter and the tutorials I've read say that the proper procedure is to create a 2nd partition (ext2, ext3 or ext4) and then boot the system using the 2nd partition as the persistent volume. The partition is supposed to be labelled casper-rw.

When I do try to boot up, I either get a black screen or it boots without the persistent volume.

My ideal live usb distro would be a minimal Debian live usb with persistent volume so I can add whatever I want to it.

Any help with this? The existing answers and tutorials I've read haven't been of any help.

This is my flash drive

Have you read the link below?

http://askubuntu.com/questions/39748...-more-than-4gb

The standard method is to just create the Live CD on a flash drive. After booting it to test, boot another system that has GParted on it and shrink the partition on which you have the Live CD to a little larger than the actual filesystem data, then create another partition and format it ext2, 3 or 4 and for Ubuntu/Mint etc., name it casper-rw. I don't use Debian so I'm not sure the casper-rw will work. Some Debian user might be able to tell you.

After reading those articles it seems they key component is labeling the partition as casper-rw. It doesn't seem to matter what filesystem format you choose so long as it supports >4GB. If you need that persistent filesystem accessible from a wide variety of OS then choose a widely supported FS like exFAT (which supports 64GB partitions and is rw in all major operating systems). Otherwise, go with your preference. Any partition tool should work e.g. Gparted or parted.

Since that's the case it should work just fine with Debian. I'll play with it myself on a 32GB flash drive.

I'd have to disagree with that as far as using it for persistence, at least according to the Ubuntu site below under Creating casper-rw filesystem. Post back your results if you try it on Debian.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD/Persistence

Why are you still using this setup? Just install the system to the usb and you can run a real install.

I want to use the usb on multiple computers.

I have installed OS's on flash drives but it's a hinder when I try to use the flash drive on different computers with different hardware.

Why run a real install when portability is needed? Live takes up far less space on a USB stick, leaving more room for persistence.

http://cosmolinux.no-ip.org/raconetl...rsistence.html
I did it in this way, only took the Debian 8.1 and put it on a 8 GB stick.
Suppose it would make a 4 GB partition (can't remember if it occurred me..) then take QParted and adjust the size using this partition tool.
I tried the stick on 2 PC's, works perfectly.
Use it as a spare "disk" to boot our data server when the boot disk has a problem; webdav/Apache/SSH are also installed and every works as if it was the original hard disk... Settings are persistent as it should be.

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