... I would suggest, after fresh install of BAMT, doing all of your customizing, configure it, let it run for an hour or so, check if all is behaving as you like, then shutdown and pull raw image from the stick (vice versa the way you've done it initially). When (and not if, since it's only a matter of time) the stick fails, you still have your configuration and don't have to start over.
I send all config command I need as a single line / paste, I wget my conf file and pool from a web location. It's taking me less than a minute to adapt a new BAMT usb to work on a rig
Now, if your goal is to find a key that will last forever, or a very long time, then probably the cheap ones are less likely to be what you want (however, there still seems a decent chance they will be fine). Maybe we should gather stats on which usb keys seem to hold up and put info on the wiki, as we did for motherboards.
Good idea except I bet we're not the only one concerned by this so might as well be able to find data on that elsewhere. (ULTRA-SPEED (wal-mart) = all dud)
BTW when your usb key is blinking, does it indicate whether its reading or writing? I am concerned that you saw them blinking more than once a minute, maybe something is happening that I don't know about. However if it's just reading every so often, it may be unavoidable. Would be good to know, usb keys have limited read cycles too, though much higher than write.
I don't know if it write of read, from a 1min observation, : 20sec , blinked once, 40sec, blink 2, 3sec, blink 1, 5sec, blink 5. (total 10 blink in 1.5min) I would have to make longer monitoring, say filming an hours, but I'm using a rather default setup and don't think
I will be the one discovering something that way.
I am not trying to be rude, I am trying to help you find a solution that works for you. Several times in IRC and here you have mentioned how Windows worked better for you. Most recently you said:
"I went to linux for stability but I find it to be less reliable than a windows box. Or is it just BAMT ?"
If you are finding BAMT unreliable, then I encourage you to use whatever *is* reliable. Life is too short, pick your battles
I say it just isn't going to happen because I think you have done more than enough work trying to sort it out, and we still seem to have some problems.
Maybe I have the wrong impression and all the other issues are sorted out, besides the usb key. I thought you still had miners locking up and all the various troubles that have been mentioned before. This is why I recommend to just go with what works.
I was being very specific in saying "is it just BAMT ?" meaning as a linux noob I do not always see the line were BAMT stop and Linux start but I though I knew very well when OS stop and Hardware start, I am often shy asking because I do not expect you to help fixing problems beyond your code. (I really appreciate you did a few time).
I did have many different problems, some instability were cause by extenders, weird GPU, dual PSU, some GPU don't support low mem clock, I could go ON AND ON... There is so many sources of trouble adding up when working with
completely different hardware on a dozen rig, I think it is understandable I will not bash linux in general at the first sight of a problem.