On Friday, July 22, 2016 01:41:01 PM Pascal Hambourg wrote: > Le 22/07/2016 à 18:04, Richard Owlett a écrit : > > That base install *SHALL BE* on a read-only partition (e.g. sda5). > > I wish to "almost clone" it to sda5, (e.g. sda6, sda7, sda8). > > (...) > > > Does that make sense? > > Not really. > 1) You cannot install on a read-only partition. > 2) It does not make sense to clone to sda5 something which is already on > sda5.
I'm tempted to attempt to amplify or clarify Pascal's response, but I'm not sure I remember enough to do so. Iirc, a Linux installation needs some place to write some information, and thus, unless you make some sort of special provision (as is done, iiuc, for at least some pendrive installations), you will have problems running Linux. Again, iirc, some of those pendrive installations load everything they use into a RAM drive image and run the software from there. You could do the same. Some other pendrive installations do things like write what they need to write to a writable partition on the harddrive (hopefully, after asking for a location and permission from the user), or to some portion of the pendrive, or to a temporarily created RAM disk. My response is (I'm sure), not 100% accurate in the details, but I hope it gives you some clues to pursue further.