[Grml] Re: persistent root?

[T]

On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 20:18:30 +0200, Michael Prokop wrote:

> * T <mlist4suntong at yahoo.com> [20060705 18:15]:
>> On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:01:11 +0200, Michael Prokop wrote:
> 
>> > ... Adjust your live-cd system with the configuration framework:
>> > http://grml.org/config/
> 
>> If one can afford the persistenthome, ie, have a local partition to use,
>> would it a great idea to offer a total persistent grml system on local
>> partition?
> 
>> I mean, since we can use the unionfs to allows user to install packages,
>> tweak configs, why don't we save the changes on disk, instead of in ram.
>> So with persistentroot, no need to save-config/restore-config every
>> time...
> 
> Someone has to implement it. :) I have some more important stuff on my
> todo list and would like to see unionfs in a more stable state before
> doing such a major modification with unionctl (inclusion in mainline
> kernel once would be great).

FYI, more insight on this topic. 

SuSE has been able to do this for ages. Ie, not just a persistent home,
but a persistent root for new packages and updated configure files. 

Slax was able to merge several unionfs into root, so that, say if you
don't need the OpenOffice, then it is not necessary to mount that part of
unionfs, saving lot of CD access time and speed up CD access quite a lot. 

What I find the most advanced solution is Puppy Linux, which offers ups to
about 5 layers of unionfs. a persistent root is just one of the 5 layers.
They can even allow a real HD partition (not only CD!) to be the base
system. Check out the full detail at:

 http://www.puppyos.com/development/howpuppyworks.html

where some nice graph is used. 

Hope someday we can have that in Grml too. To me, I don't care too much if
the packages are most up to date or not. But this, a persistent root, is a
major functionality improvement to me. 

thanks