Persistence feature not understood

Question

I do not understand the feature 'persistence' in Ubuntu. I had installed Ubuntu14.04 version alongside my Windows 7 OS in my laptop. After working for a certain period and saving some bookmarks, when I logged in next time, say after one day, I do not find the saved bookmarks in the firefox browser. Why does it happen? What is live session? I had installed Ubuntu using an USB drive(Pendrive).

Answer 1

Persistence is the capability of an OS to keep files over boots. It may store your files on your RAM, which is always cleared every boot (that's the design of RAM). To make your OS persistent, it needs to be installed on some kind of writable (non-read-only) drive.

Losing your bookmarks is a perfect example of an OS that isn't setup to be persistent.

Live-session is a non-persistent version of an OS (particularly a Linux derivative). Either from USB or CD, your files created from a live-session won't save after reboots/logins. It's used to test the operating system, not use it fully (it's very similar to a kiosk).

You need to make sure that Ubuntu is actually installed, not just running off the USB the entire time.

Can you start Ubuntu without the USB in the computer?

Did you ever run something called "Install Ubuntu" from the USB drive?

Did you ever set a username, password, location, etc when installing ubuntu?

Look for something like "Install Ubuntu" on the live-session if any of those questions answer to "no".

If you did really install Ubuntu, it might be a permission issue that you are losing your bookmarks. Open a terminal and enter ls -lA / and post the output on a new question describing the problem more.