And here we get to the usual CATCH22 when it comes to Linux, you either are not expert enough to understand/feel the difference between Ubuntu and *any* other distro...
Look, I couldn't care less about Ubuntu. Actually I despise Canonical.
I assure you that I fully understand the difference between Ubuntu and other distros.
If I were in charge we would all be running something Arch Linux based on our computers. Maybe Manjaro.
...you are (not?) a sophisticated enough Linux user to be capable to add the NTFS module and if needed add a cheat code to the Ubuntu kernel and recompile it.
Plain right. I am not enough experienced on Linux. I stated that right from the beginning. Adding NTFS module and adding the cheat code to the kernel is unfortunately completely out of my league.
Look, there are HUNDREDS of distro's around, among which TENS are good, reliable and well maintained, (and BTW UBUNTU, while well maintained and reliable is IMHO not that "good") among the TENS, there are several that do have adequate cheat codes and that CAN have a persistence file on NTFS, it is then most probably your fixation of having specifically UBUNTU with a persistence file on NTFS that is stopping you.
The problem is Arch to my knowledge doesn't have a conventional LiveCD/LiveUSB. The Arch LiveUSB only boots a minimal image that allows you **only** to install the OS. It is not a full blown desktop system...
Manjaro can do that but unfortunately Manjaro doesn't have live persistence on Easy2boot.
What's left? Red Hat based and Debian based, right? That means Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, MINT, Gentoo, etc.
CentOS is in essence RHEL and that means it's oooold. Gentoo is a bit like Arch, it's for geeks and seems to have a live system which was not built solely to help install the OS.
Between Ubuntu and MINT I would opt to go with the original and since I've had big yum issues with Fedora when I last tried it I ended up with Ubuntu...
But I would gladly go with Manjaro if it had persistence.
Or you could possibly point me to some distros that have a LiveCD/USB desktop environment, that have persistence and that can be used on a NTFS file system preferably not based on slackware and which have a proper package manager (not like Puppy). That would be of great help.
Ubuntu doesn't work if the persistence file is on an NTFS volume.
But why can't you create another ext3 volume called casper-rw, or a FAT32 volume with a persistence file on it.
I don't know if Ubuntu will detect a GPT ext3 or FAT32 volume though...
Steve I've pointed out that this laptop is not mine. It's my boss'. I am not allowed to install apps or OSes on it and less should I play with repartitioning.
It comes with 2 big NTFS partitions with Windows 7 installed on the first one and that's what I have to live with.
Hence why I tried Easy2boot from the beginning. I was only interested in putting the persistence file on the NTFS volume because using it on the USB pendisk is very very slow. At least on this computer it is way slow.