Weird problem with persistent live usb installation.

[spirosbomberkl]

I have debian 8 on a usb drive using this guide. I used a debian 8.2 64-bit image with mate. It mostly works fine, but at some random moments something happens and the system stops working for the most parts. For example if I am in a terminal when it happens it stops being able to find most commands, like if they are not installed. If I open another terminal, or many other windows, the characters are replaced by boxes. Sudo seems to stop working as well. This has happened a few times. I have been able to fix it each time by plugging the usb drive into another linux system(often a livecd at the same computer) and running fsck on both partitions. After this the problem is solved and everything works normally again, until it happens again and I have to do the same thing.

I am looking for a more permanent solution that stops the problem from happening in the first place.

[kiyop]

I wonder if the partitions in the usb, especially that for persistence have/has bad sector(s).
How about check file system by fsck or so with -c -c option?

Code: Select all

fsck -f -y -c -c /dev/sdXY

Refer

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man fsck

[pendrachken]

Also have you ruled out USB hardware failure / kernel support?

Sounds to me like the USB bus is somehow getting interrupted during a write operation and corrupting the FS.

I would look at the disk itself as Kiyop said, as well as the machine hardware first. maybe try a live disk with an updated kernel from backports to see if it is a USB kernel driver issue.

[Timoj]

Hi, i face the same issue in Debian 11. persistent live. In 7 out of 10 commands the result is 'command not found'.
I also noticed in the file system that many programs are not installed, such as synclient, synaptics and libinput.
I' m trying to configure touchpad settings to activate tap to click. Is this because the commands cannot executed in live systems? On the other hand in many other distros the command line is working perfectly even in a live cd/dvd.

[sunrat]

@Timoj This topic is seven years old and about an ancient version of Debian. Please start a new topic. You will need to post more details about your system and the commands you are trying to run.

[Timoj]

i will do so in the near future as at the moment am trying to install the system in usb before the install in the HDD,
Thank you