q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

Raf47 · 2025-03-01 09:41

Hi all, how can I make a q4os 5 Aquarius USB stick installation persistent? Thanks

hchiper · 2025-03-01 10:11

Isn't an installation persistent by definition?
Please describe more precisely what you want to do.

Raf47 · 2025-03-01 12:14

For me, persistent installation on USB means that when the session ends and I turn off the PC, when I restart it, I find the configuration and data that I had entered previously. Thank you

hchiper · 2025-03-01 16:36

I think there is a misunderstanding somewhere.
Are you using an USB with the system installed on it or are you using an USB with a live image?
How exactly did you create the USB you are using?

Now I guess you are just booting a live image. And the USB with the live image is never "persistent"; nothing is really written on the live USB (customizations, installed packages, user's files...). Anything you believe you have saved during a live session is saved only to the RAM and is lost at shutdown.

Q1derous · 2025-03-01 23:36

Hey Raf47,
You're going to love this! And hchiper, you're going to want to take note of it as well.
Raf ... head on over to Ventoy
ventoy.net
(Sorrry, you'll have to copy / paste the links. When I hit Submit for this reply, a msg said "You are not allowed to post links". K-fine, I'll just color them blue!)

It is indeed possible to have persistence. And Ventoy will provide that and a lot more!
There is a bit of a learning curve involved at first. But it's straight forward enough.
Just take it a step at a time and be patient as you work through the process.

Ventoy uses a Persistence plugin (see below).
And yes, it works with Q4OS ... and many others:
ventoy.net/en/isolist.html

Note the option when creating the Ventoy stick to create a separate partition (Reserved Disk Space) on the USB drive that can also be used to save data (eg. in addition to the ISO partition with persistence)! Recommend using a good sized USB 3.0.
ventoy.net/en/doc_disk_layout_gpt.html

Here is the plugin: Plugin > About Path Matching > Ventoy Persistence Plugin
ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

Once you've got it all set up, if you find you're running out of space, there's even a bash script to non-destructively extend / increase the size of the persistence for the ISO you're testing.
Eg. - if you used the 4 GB option, you can increase it later to 8, 10, 12+ GB. And you can do it again and again, if you have room on the USB of course.

Also Note - the Persistence img that you'll want to download and use with Q4OS is the Casper-RW one (once you've got all the images downloaded and extracted, you'll then extract (again) that one to create a 4 GB .dat file):
github.com/ventoy/backend/releases
sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -s 4096 -t xfs ----> persistence.dat in 4GB size and xfs filesystem (ext2/3/4 xfs are supported) and casper-rw label
persistence_xfs_4GB_casper-rw.dat.7z
Recommend going with the 4 GB .dat file. As noted, it can also be increased later with the ExtendPersistent.img script (placed in the same directory as the persistence.dat file) Remember to do a backup first .

And, of course, always a good idea to watch a few tutorial videos first. Just do a search, there's lots out there.
Good luck and have fun with it!

Cheers

crosscourt · 2025-03-01 23:50

My only concern would be performance , as youre running an OS on a USB 3.0 stick which pales in performance to having an SSD in your system. A live media session also runs far better than an OS running on a USB 3.0 stick.

If youre running older hardware the performance would be even worse, or by some chance using a USB 2.0 stick,ouch!

Last edited by crosscourt (2025-03-01 23:59)

Q1derous · 2025-03-02 00:01

This is true, very true.
It will depend on the machine it's plugged into and the amount of RAM available.
As well as the speed of the USB thumbdrive.

That being said:
1 - if it's just for testing purposes, shouldn't be a big deal
2 - it will give an idea of how the OS will work on the machine and hardware they're thinking of doing the actual install on, and
3 - with Q4OS being light and lean itself, should still be pretty responsive

crosscourt · 2025-03-02 00:07

Sorry to say even on a high end system, USB 3.0 sticks are hugely slower than even Sata ssds, let alone NVME . Most modern systems have quite a bit of ram usually 16gb so a live session would run fairly snappy. Older systems with 4gb of ram or less would really suffer with a USB stick.

Doing it this way would skew how the system performs and give a false feel to that user. A live session is enough to see how compatible it is on a given system, and only installing directly to hardware will give you an accurate picture as to how it will perform.

Last edited by crosscourt (2025-03-02 00:12)

Q1derous · 2025-03-02 00:11

Re/

A live media session also runs far better than an OS running on a USB 3.0 stick.

... it actually IS the live media session that is running. It has just been provided with a persistence plugin / functionality.
It is not an OS installed onto the USB drive.

But yeah. Probably wouldn't recommend it as a daily driver, or for business purposes. Best for testing ISO's.

crosscourt · 2025-03-02 00:16

Once you make it persistent, there is a lot more going on, on the USB drive(reading and writing data directly to the drive) than youll see with the real live media session. It acts pretty much like an installed OS thus performance will really suffer. In fact youre really close to making it an installed OS on USB stick. I wouldnt bother testing isos this way, as normal live media sessions or running them in VM would be a much better option.
I did thousands of distro testings for a website and we installed every distro on hardware for testing as its the only real way to know what youll get.

Last edited by crosscourt (2025-03-02 00:19)

Q1derous · 2025-03-02 00:32

Well, there you go Raf, back to you.
That probably answers your question (and then some).
Guess it depends on what you have in mind re/ wanting persistence, and what resources you have available with your system.
Thanks for the extra (and expert) input crosscourt. Always good to have other viewpoints, understand all the pros and cons, that may be relevant when making such decisions.

crosscourt · 2025-03-02 00:35

No problem, welcome to the forums!

Q1derous · 2025-03-02 00:41

Thanks. Appreciate it.
Good to know there's friendly, knowledgeable help here if needed.

Cheers!

Q1derous · 2025-03-02 01:42

PS - BTW, since I'm about to start testing this as well, just to clarify re/ the "Desktop Profiles" feature.

That's just for bundling all the specific applications you want to install to the HD when you get to that point right?
Eg. - it doesn't also include any theme edits and configurations / changes to settings you've done to applications you've downloaded / installed during the Live session for testing ... does it?

Or if you install from Live, then add your applications and configure them, when you Export all that as a Desktop Profile, are individual applications config's saved as well so that if you set up another new system, you'd Import that profile and get all the applications pre-configured and be good to go. That could save SO much time, but it doesn't do that ... right??

EDIT:
If not (probably not), no worries. Just remembered I could do the install, edit themes, add apps, configure them all, and then back that all up to an ISO as a "clean base install" for future use.

Last edited by Q1derous (2025-03-02 02:14)

crosscourt · 2025-03-02 03:07

LOL!!! I agree with your edit as it far easier to do it that way and using the full desktop profile most of the time is the best choice.

q4osteam · 2025-03-02 09:48

Q1derous wrote:

... just to clarify re/ the "Desktop Profiles" feature. ...
That's just for bundling all the specific applications you want to install to the HD when you get to that point right?
Eg. - it doesn't also include any theme edits and configurations / changes to settings you've done to applications you've downloaded / installed during the Live session for testing ... does it?
Or if you install from Live, then add your applications and configure them, when you Export all that as a Desktop Profile, are individual applications config's saved as well so that if you set up another new system, you'd Import that profile and get all the applications pre-configured and be good to go. That could save SO much time, but it doesn't do that ... right??

Welcome @Q1derous, yes desktop profile saves Apt packages list and apply it on demand. At this point it does this object only, however we are actively developing Desktop profiler, so it will be available to save all of possible:
Apt repositroies, deb packages, flatpak apps, qsi applications, Deiban configuration as well as other system configuration, user confirguration, etc ...
So you could save a system snapshot at any point to a single file and apply it on fresh install or on current system. List of custom profiles may also be available online ... Much work ahead indeed

q4osteam · 2025-03-02 09:52

Q1derous wrote:

... so that if you set up another new system, you'd Import that profile and get all the applications pre-configured and be good to go. That could save SO much time, ...

So. Exactly said. That's the target idea ...

Last edited by q4osteam (2025-03-02 09:56)

Q4OS Forum

#1 2025-03-01 09:41

q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#2 2025-03-01 10:11

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#3 2025-03-01 12:14

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#4 2025-03-01 16:36

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#5 2025-03-01 23:36

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#6 2025-03-01 23:50

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#7 2025-03-02 00:01

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#8 2025-03-02 00:07

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#9 2025-03-02 00:11

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#10 2025-03-02 00:16

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#11 2025-03-02 00:32

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#12 2025-03-02 00:35

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#13 2025-03-02 00:41

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#14 2025-03-02 01:42

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#15 2025-03-02 03:07

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#16 2025-03-02 09:48

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

#17 2025-03-02 09:52

Re: q4os 5 Aquarius persistent

Board footer