[Bug 1851123] Re: Ubuntu 19.10 and focal live cloned create and mount casper-rw partition

[sudodus]

I see and understand now that mounting casper-rw in live-only mode is by
intention and not a bug.

I think the important thing is that it is possible to unmount all
partitions on the drive when running live-only with 'toram'.

It is also valuable to learn about the boot option 'nopersistent.'

So I am looking forward to you making 'toram' disable mounting the
casper-rw partition for logging, but running with the boot option
'persistent' should still make the overlay for persistence work (I mean
persistence together with 'toram', releasing '/cdrom' from the 'drive
device', which makes the system more responsive, if possible).

Please notice that users can have reasons to switch between 'live-only
toram' and 'persistent live'. One reason is maintenance of the casper-rw
partition, another reason is to switch between a mode where things can
be saved (also malware) and a clean read-only mode.

I think all users of persistent live Ubuntu systems will be happy to
learn about all boot options, that are relevant for the persistent live
feature and how to use them. So please advice where to find such
information (or write about it for us if there is no web site, where it
is easy to find). I am willing to help with these efforts. (I had never
heard about nopersistent and todisk before you mentioned it.)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1851123

Title:
  Ubuntu 19.10 and focal live cloned create and mount casper-rw
  partition

Status in casper package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  It is very good that it is easy to create and use a casper-rw
  partition to run Ubuntu persistent live in the versions 19.10 and
  Focal Fossa, and that it is even created automatically, when there is
  unallocated drive space behind the used part in a live drive.

  But I think the system for doing that is 'too eager'. Maybe it is a
  feature that is left from the development and debugging phase.

  - It would be enough (best), if the casper-rw partition is created
  only when it is needed, that is when the live system is booted with
  the boot option 'persistent'.

  - We (I am talking for users who like persistent live drives) can
  accept that the casper-rw partition is created even when the drive is
  booted live only (without the boot option 'persistent').

  - But we think it is a bug, that the live-only system is also mounting
  the casper-rw partition on the mount point /var/log and/or /var/crash
  and keeps it busy so that it cannot be unmounted.

  This way the drive is not really live-only, and it is not possible to
  manage the drive space behind the system in an independent way. For
  example, it is not possible to detach the drive by using the boot
  option 'toram', and it is not possible to repair the casper-rw
  partition when running live in the same drive. It will be necessary to
  have two linux systems to do such tasks.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
  Package: casper 1.428
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-18.19-generic 5.3.1
  Uname: Linux 5.3.0-18-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu9
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperVersion: 1.428
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Sun Nov  3 11:15:29 2019
  LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Alpha amd64 (20191103)
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm-256color
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: casper
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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