Hello:

I did as per your instrucions and was able to log into recovery mode, with what would seem to be a fully working keyboard.
So I suspect there is an issue with SLiM, maybe caused by something else (?) eg: XOrg conf, Nvidia drivers ...

I guess I may be able to find a clue to whatever is happening in dmesg or one of the log files.
I'll have a look - any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

A.

Hello:

Yes, didn't see anything which would raise a flag.
But I'm not that proficient Linux-wise ...  8^/

It has the default SLiM and XFCE combination.
Is anything else missing?

What was in Jesse was working without any problems so I expected that if anything was missing, it would either get installed or reconfigured.
I'm not complaining but as it is a default Jesse (SLiM and XFCE) installation upgrade I expected no major hickups save maybe the Nvidia drivers acting up.

Thanks for your input.

A.

Hello:

No problem, thanks you for answering.  =-)

At the very start, when the login manager shows up.

As the keyboard is non responsive, F1 or any other input is not an option.

Same as I was using with Jesse, same as the one I use with PCLinux, all the same rig just on different drives for each.

No ...
It's a (ancient to some) very sturdy and dependable Wise USB keyboard salvaged from somewhere when I got my (also ancient to some) Sun workstation.
Has a PS2 plug on the side for the Wise optical mouse.
It all worked perfectly well with Jesse from the out-of-the-box install.

The only non-free I needed to install in Jesse were the drivers for my two Nvidia cards (I use three monitors).
No way the Devuan free drivers would work.

Maybe that's the catch - but I *do* see all three monitors lioke before, it's just the kb that does not respond.

Thanks for your input.

A.

Hello:

You're welcome ...
But the merit goes to the guy who found this 'workaround' ...

Unfortunately, it is not a solution.
It's a bug that won't get fixed.
And from what I have found, there does not seem to be an Xfce 4.12 jessie-backport in sight.

Cheers,

A.

Hello:

First of all, thank you for taking the time to write this up.  =-)

Indeed ...  8^\'/!

Which I quite evidently did not.

OK

Right.
I had it more or less clear up to that point.

Yes.
Done that once already.

I see ... (but still have to digest 100% ... )

OK.

I'm starting to get the idea behind the 'ouch'.

I'll have a look there ...

Indeed ...
But no big stuff. As it gets stuffed.

I understand.
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a dedicated persistent install for running a dedicated application from a netbook.
The princiopal idea is to run lighter than the XP installed in the machine and to run the Linux version of the app, keeping it as far away as possible from the XP instalaltion.

I should have left it alone, but ...
I had the idea that it had to be as 'up to date' as possible but looking back, while it may be a good idea for any running system, in this particular case it does not make much sense. More so after royally buggering it up.

Quite so ...
And probably much easier.

Now, that would mean booting up the live *.iso, upgrading and changing everything I need to change while up and then 'refracting' it all into a new iso which will keep all the changes.
Right?

Anything specific I'd have to be aware of when doing this?

OK.

Once again, thank you very much for writing this up.

Best,

A.

Hello:

I would seem so.
If you have two with the same name, the one that shows up on the screen is the first one on the list.

I wanted to do something like that but I had the idea that it would muck up someting.
Easy to remember and hard to forget is the way here.

You've been most helpful.
I can now run my Linux based app off a lightweight distro in a netbook by just booting from an SD Card and keeping all settings in the HDD.

And should the SD Card goe south for any reason, installing the same distro in the same manner on any other SD Card should get things back to normal.
A dog with with two tails.  =-)

Thanks a lot.

Cheers,

A.

Hello:

Sorry ...
HDD in a XP setup with an ext4 partition labeled 'livedata'.
SD Card with an ext4 partiton labeled 'persistence'.

This is /syslinux/live.cfg

label persistence
menu label vuudo+HDD persistence
kernel /vuudo/live/vmlinuz
append initrd=/vuudo/live/initrd.img boot=live union=aufs  persistence persistence-label=livedata live-media-path=/vuudo/live      

label persistence
menu label vuudo+SDCard persistence
kernel /vuudo/live/vmlinuz
append initrd=/vuudo/live/initrd.img boot=live union=aufs  persistence persistence-media=removable-usb live-media-path=/vuudo/live      

label vuudo
menu label vuudo
kernel /vuudo/live/vmlinuz 
append initrd=/vuudo/live/initrd.img boot=live union=aufs  live-media-path=/vuudo/live

label memtest
menu label Memory test
kernel /live/memtest86+.bin

Right!
That did the trick.  =-)
Mounting without persistence enabled me to mount both media/vuudo/persistence and media/vuudo/livedata and then run rsync.

I am aware that having two 'persistence' labels has the effect on not showing the second one as a choice at boot time.
Not that I need it, but just to know: does the label have to be persistence? 

Thanks a lot for your help.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Thanks for the fast reply.  8^)

OK.
Good to know.

Yes ...
I noticed that.
Good 'insurance'.

I guess I can also create and label the partition on the netbook's HDD with GParted. (?)

I think it may be something related to my using a Asus eeePC netbook?

With MIYO-i3 Jessie (I liked the WM GUI) it worked but there was something wrong with X and it would freeze and be unresponsive.
Something about init: Id"X" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.

With Devuan it would not boot but I only tried it a couple of times and gave up, not too much patience these days.

On a separate note: I think there may be something going on with syslinux (different versions?) and the success may also be tied to the OS used to run refracta2usb.

For example, one of my attempts was installing and running refracta2usb from my PCLinuxOS rig (not in the PCLinuxOS repo) and not from my Devuan rig.
The process was properly completed but it would not boot and I saw that the syslinux legend on screen said PCLinuxOS.

The Vuudo image was installed from within my Devuan rig and everything seems to work properly.

I'll try the perisitence on the HDD and see how it goes.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,

A.

Hello:

Yes ...

There's also something going on WRT syslinux versions not being compatible.
Bear in mind that the problem I posted about cropped up only when I resized the SD Card.
Up to that point, everything was perfectly well (apparently). 

The thing is that Refracta gave me no joy either, at least with the Devuan *.iso I've used.
But I was able to use Refracta to set up a Miyo-Extra-ascii on the SD Card.

Persistance seems to be an issue still so I'll have to try again.

Any ideas?
TIA

A.

Hello:

Yes.
I did that from the start with GParted (sorry I did not say so in my OP).

Partition -> Format to -> Cleared
and then, just in case ...
Partition -> Delete

The SD Card was absolutely 'blank' before using it with Rufus.

Thanks for your input.

A.

Hello:

It's not available in Jessie backports.
ie: http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports.

How do I go about installing it from the ASCII repositories?
Can such a thing be done?
ie: with impunity?  8^ D!

Thanks in advance,

A.

Hello:

Bump ...

Anyone?

Edit 20180321:

Evidently not.  =-/
No matter.

With the help of one of the admins at the Xfce forum, I finally managed to track down the problem to the *.desktop file launching LinSSID.
It was using gksudo in the command line but as I have chosen not to use sudo and restrict myself to using su (as done in PCLinuxOS), the app would not launch.

A duh moment?
Indeed, but ...
Needing LinSSID admin privileges to run, shouldn't the installation routine check for sudo being present and if not, make the exec use su instead?

In any case, changing the command to

gksu linssid

fixed the issue.

Cheers,

A.