Does Raspbian Buster's overlay file system work with Zynthian?

[catherder]

The latest Raspbian and Zynthian OS version “Buster” contains an option in raspi-config that allows to run the system with a read only file system.
Is it possible to use this feature with Zynthian without breaking the system ?
I would like to use this so I can power off my box without worries and without a shutdown command.

[Baggypants]

Someone had a go with it, search found it pretty quick.

Using overlayFS for read-only SD cards

In order to make Zynthian more “Live Friendly” and tolerant of unexpected power down, I am looking into what is required to bring overlayFS into Zynthian. OverlayFS provides a shadow filesystem so that the root filesystem can be mounted as read-only. When a reboot or normal shutdown is performed, a sync operation occurs and the root file system is mounted as read-write, and the modified files are copied to the SD card and then the filesystem is returned to read-only status before final shutdown…

[smiths73v3]

@Baggypants

Someone had a go with it, search found it pretty quick.

I’ll jump in on this and mention that I was paranoid at one point about lost power and crashing my Zynth. I’ve given up on the overlayFS and found it unnecessary.

I am using my Zynth for band rehearsal once a week at this point, and I’ve not had any issues. I do clean shutdown whenever possible, but I have pulled power unexpectedly and hard shutdown the board more times than I can count in the past 6 months without issues.

I think many of the issues I had were related to the following 3 things:

1. Raspberry Pi 3 (too many layers and the CPU was overloaded)
2. Unstable Software (Zythian has become quite stable since I started)
3. Bad Power

This last item Bad Power I suspect was the cause of most of my issues. I was attempting to power via USB, and bad cables, weak power bricks. I improved my build to directly power the Zynth using a bigger power supply, and soldered power wires. About this time all my bad/corrupted issues with SD cards were resolved.

I will admit though, because I plan on using this live I keep a spare configured SD card, and have 2 Zynths with me at all times… You just can’t leave anything to chance.

OZINE! One Zynth Is Not Enough.

[catherder]

I already had a look at this. My question here is specifically related to the option to enable/disable overlay fs through raspi-config without the need for any manual configuration. So I am interested to know if anyone went down that route.

[Baggypants]

I hadn’t realised it was in raspi-conf. No I don’t think anyone has.

[smiths73v3]

I have not tried this either. It was not previously available.