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

[sudodus]

I installed Xubuntu when running a persistent live Ubuntu system

1. With the options 'toram' 'nopersistent'

It was truly live-only (and the installation worked).

2. With the default settings (no extra boot option compared what comes
with the iso file)

The casper-rw partition received and stored an install log (and the
installation worked).

---
tester at tester-SATELLITE-PRO-C850-19W:~$ sudo lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE  LABEL                   UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                                        
├─sda1 vfat                            9B34-A9E8                                           
├─sda2 ext4                            aee3c5e5-e695-49e9-9598-ac8671f30181                
├─sda3 ext4                            cf57ee56-dba4-4494-9475-07af55933ac3   16,2G    25% /
└─sda4 ext4                            e1ce9f48-8214-4cae-ba35-c4a62f7f6d78                
sdb                                                                                        
├─sdb1 ntfs    usbdata                 0B539A8875BBB7D6                                    
├─sdb2                                                                                     
├─sdb3 vfat    usbboot                 112D-C9F8                                           
├─sdb4 iso9660 Xubuntu 20.04 LTS amd64 2019-11-10-02-05-43-00                              
└─sdb5 ext4    casper-rw               28567df4-354c-4061-ae21-431c30d01939                
sr0                                                                                        
tester at tester-SATELLITE-PRO-C850-19W:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt
tester at tester-SATELLITE-PRO-C850-19W:~$ sudo du -hs /mnt/*
1,4M    /mnt/install-logs-2019-11-10.0
16K     /mnt/lost+found
43M     /mnt/upper
8,0K    /mnt/work
tester at tester-SATELLITE-PRO-C850-19W:~$ 
---

I realize that this is a useful feature and not a bug.

But as stated earlier, this is new territory, and I think some of us,
who use live and persistent live drives may have problems to use drives
with this new feature. So it would still be valuable to get a
modification such that 'toram' alone will turn off saving log files to
the casper-rw partition and make it possible to unmount it.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to casper in Ubuntu.
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)

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/+bug/1851123/+subscriptions