Data Persistence and Storage Behavior in Sculpt OS

Help / Tech Support
1

I followed the installation and execution process for Sculpt OS. Everything was quite smooth and understandable for me. However, there was part of the process that I didn’t quite grasp. I wrote the operating system twice—once on USB storage and once on an SD card, both formatted as ext2. When it runs, there is no indication that the system’s data is being saved. For example, when I enter the update section and perform the update, it states that a reboot is required to apply the changes. However, there is no reboot process that allows for the new information to be recorded before the system restarts.

Once an image is installed, the dialog tells you “reboot to activate”. One way to do that is by changing the system state in /config/system to “reset”.

Once an image is installed, the dialog tells you “reboot to activate”. One way to do that is by changing the system state in /config/system to “reset”.

I don’t understand the storage process in Sculpt. Is there no storage available? Or does this process occur automatically if a specific type of drive or file system is used?

Essentially, is there a process for saving settings?

2

Are you using Sculpt OS 24.04 ? Here’s the relevant section, “Using a persistent storage device”:

https://genode.org/documentation/articles/sculpt-24-04#Using_a_persistent_storage_device

The steps described above used an in-memory file system (ram fs) as target for Sculpt OS, which is a nice playground for experimentation but otherwise impractical for real-world use because all downloads and configurations vanish when rebooting the system.

Sculpt OS supports USB storage, NVMe, and SATA (AHCI) as storage target. Only one target can be selected for use at a time. To select one of those targets for use, make sure to have deselected the “Use” button of the “ram fs” component.

Basically you have to deselect “ram” storage, and select a USB thumbdrive or a hard drive partition for storage.

There is also a section named “Storage device access and preparation” further down the page… Maybe it could be merged/restructured. Though it goes into more details in what happens ‘under the hood’, so it might make sense for it to remain a separate section.

3

I have to admit, I’ve been making the same mistake for the past two days. :person_facepalming: I ran two different tests—one with an SD card and another with SATA. Every time I tested with SATA, I had the USB flash drive still connected and completely missed the AHCI section. And when I finally caught that the USB was connected and removed it, I was mistakenly testing on the SD card, which isn’t supported.