FrugalPup 20 - Puppy frugal installer.

[gyro]

@bigpup,
The short answer is, I've no idea which version of "mokutil" I have. Or if there are any that are better than the one I have.
Installing "mokutil" from the PPM was simply the easiest way to give it a go.
I just wanted to check that I could actually "reset" the MOK, and hence remove that key from the machine.

gyro

[bigpup]

That was the one thing I was going to complain about too.
Something, telling you to press enter, to make the directory, would seem to be needed.
That OK button just seems the logical thing to select.

[gyro]

@bigpup, and @mikesir,

I've added:

Code: Select all

 Note: If you use the "Create Folder" button,
 you need to hit the "Enter" key after typing the new folder name.

to the text at the top of the offending dialog in FrugalPup->Puppy.
And since DiskPup has a corresponding dialog, I've fixed that one too.
It will be in the next release.

Thanks for testing.

Your experiences confirm to me the value of the "confirm" dialog just before actually doing anything.

gyro

[bigpup]

What are you doing putting useful information in a program

Thanks for the added info!!

[gyro]

FrugalPup 16, StickPup 16, DiskPup 16 and f2StickPup 16 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_16.sfs' from http://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5lgzpeij1/frugalpup (2.1 MiB).

No real surprises.

Changes:

1. Full support for locating Puppy install directory in f2fs partition.

2. Uses Grub2 for both uefi and non-uefi booting, compiled from source.
(Nothing is signed, no support for "SecureBoot".)

3. Changes to the GUI to improve ease of use.

4. Added "Help" and "Settings" facilities.

5. New frontends 'f2StickPup' and 'DiskPup'

6. Changed internals that make creating frontends easier.

gyro

[bigpup]

Here is a topic about problem using StickPup to install to a 1GB USB flash drive.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117743

[bigpup]

I have been testing and using FrugalPup 16.
So far, nothing for me to report, as a problem, for me.

Well, other than no more UEFI booting with secure boot enabled.
Still hopping UEFI booting, with secure boot enabled, can be figured out.

[gyro]

Here is a topic about problem using StickPup to install to a 1GB USB flash drive.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117743

I've answered that question in that topic.
There is a problem in the code in that a nominal 1GB stick does not contain 1GiB of space, so the test should use a smaller number e.g. 800.
I pose the question, should the limit be a 1GB stick or 512MB stick?

I will modify the code for the next release.
Note: "f2StickPup" contains identical code, so it will also be modified.

gyro

[gyro]

Well, other than no more UEFI booting with secure boot enabled.
Still hopping UEFI booting, with secure boot enabled, can be figured out.

That is next on my list of things todo for FrugalPup.

A question is, what do we want to achieve with enabled "SecureBoot"?

1. Subvert it so that virtually anything (all unsigned) can be booted, e.g. FrugalPup v 15w.

2. Provide full MOK support so that a user can produce their own MOK and their machine will boot only things signed with their own MOK. i.e. honour the concept of "SecureBoot"

3. Something inbetween, i.e. Puppy is released with a MOK, and some significant files are checked to ensure they are signed with that MOK, thus making it difficult for a Puppy release to be used to completely subvert "SecureBoot".

Note: The "SecureBoot" stuff has been disabled in v16 by simply not including the file "/usr/local/frugalpup/grub2-sbm.tar.xz" in the ".sfs".

gyro

[gyro]

@bigpup,
Thanks for testing.
gyro

[bigpup]

I pose the question, should the limit be a 1GB stick or 512MB stick?

My vote is 512MB.

People still want to try dumb things.
Putting Puppy on a USB, with little room to save

[mikeslr]

...

A question is, what do we want to achieve with enabled "SecureBoot"?

1. Subvert it so that virtually anything (all unsigned) can be booted, e.g. FrugalPup v 15w.

2. Provide full MOK support so that a user can produce their own MOK and their machine will boot only things signed with their own MOK. i.e. honour the concept of "SecureBoot"

3. Something inbetween, i.e. Puppy is released with a MOK, and some significant files are checked to ensure they are signed with that MOK, thus making it difficult for a Puppy release to be used to completely subvert "SecureBoot"... gyro

Whichever provides the user of Puppy the most reliable method of booting Puppy. So, my vote is for "4": virtually any Puppy published with a UEFI key can be booted.

As I noted here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 079#859079 and in the post two down from that, Secure boot does not make an operating system more secure. It's real purpose was to leverage Microsoft's dominance as an operating system while it transitioned from a license seller to a license renter. We didn't ask for UEFI. But we have adapted. Puppies can, and currently are, published with a UEFI key. Let Microsoft and the manufacturers which toe the line it's created worry about preserving that dominance.

About USB-Size, whichever is easier. Considering the current size of operating systems and applications, about the only thing a 516 Mb USB-Key can be used for today is as a dedicated "boot" key: that is one which only contains the instructions (bootloader & associated files) to boot operating systems located on other drives.

[gyro]

Here is a topic about problem using StickPup to install to a 1GB USB flash drive.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117743

I'm leaning towards the acceptance of a 512MB stick, but the rejection of a 256MB stick.
See the other topic for more detail.

I'm looking at providing a patch, but I haven't decided which form the patch should be in, yet.

gyro

[gyro]

About USB-Size, whichever is easier. Considering the current size of operating systems and applications, about the only thing a 516 Mb USB-Key can be used for today is as a dedicated "boot" key: that is one which only contains the instructions (bootloader & associated files) to boot operating systems located on other drives.

Looking at various frugal installs of recent Puppies, a 512MB USB stick, should be big enough to contain a single frugal install and sucessfully boot.
So I intend to not stop users doing that with StickPup.
It just won't have much room left for "save" and/or local files.

I consider the smallest USB stick for a "useful" install of a single Puppy is 1GB.

When I produced a USB boot stick that contains only the bootloader, it used less than 10MiB, so even my ancient 16MB stick should be big enough for that.

gyro

[gyro]

FrugalPup 17, DiskPup 17, StickPup 17 and f2StickPup 17 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_17.sfs' from http://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5lgzpeij1/frugalpup (2.1 MiB).

This is a bugfix release.

Bug:
StickPup and f2StickPup reject 1GB USB stick as being too small.

Fix:
Both should accept USB sticks as small as 512MB.

gyro

[3guesses]

Just FYI, I used Frugal Pup v13 in an attempt to be able to boot a frugal install of Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64 in a dedicated partition on the internal eMMC of an Asus T100TA - and it completely trashed the machine. You can see further details on this thread: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php. It has taken a day for me to repair the damage.

Given my experience and the damage this package can do, my personal opinion is that Frugal Pup is too dangerous to be publicly available without considerable re-coding to incorporate extensive error-checking, warnings, logging of actions performed, etc, etc.

Yes, I am not best pleased,

[gyro]

Warning Warning Warning

"3guesses" has discovered, the hard way, an important issue with FrugalPup.
It completely clobbers any pre-existing bootloader stuff on the fat32 partition that it installs 'grub2' to.
This is a problem in a dual boot situation, if you choose to install 'grub2' to the fat32 parition that contains the uefi Windows boot.
This is not a problem if you choose a boot device, other than the Windows boot device.

A fixed version of FrugalPup will be available soon.

gyro

[foxpup]

It completely clobbers any pre-existing bootloader stuff on the fat32 partition that it installs 'grub2' to.

I had seen it some time ago.
I did not bother though, since Windows especially, on its updates, and other OS as well I presume, tend to put their own boot installation on top, messing up others.
Accepted bad behaviour

Most OS put their bootloader in its own spot /EFI/boot/OperSys together with their config, without changing anything else in /EFI/boot.
So they do not destroy all other boot installations.

There is complication that installs that are not Secure Boot may not show up in EFI BIOS.
Even the fallback spot will not show up if there is windows or another Secure Boot in the same partition and the fallback spot is not SB!
That happens on my Lenovo Ideapad 510

Code: Select all

BIOS Vendor: LENOVO
Version: 0XCN36WW
Release Date: 08/30/2016

So most OS will 'register' their bootloader in /EFI/boot/OperSys with EFI BIOS.
One can do that with 'efibootmgr'.
But this is not in all Puppys that support EFI boot.
And it will not even run in all, because of missing efivariables support in the kernel.

Most OS will put their own bootloader (or similar: shim, fallback, refind...) on the 'fallback' spot /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi.
I personally do not care much about the fallback spot.

There is also a precaution I take:
copy content of all ESP boot partition before changing (messing with) them.

[gyro]

@foxpup,
I think for now, I'll stick with using an alternate boot medium, and leave the Windows one to Windows.
I'll just make sure it's a lot more obvious in FrugalPup, if folk are choosing to clobber a Windows uefi boot.

gyro

[gyro]

Thers is another issue with FrugalPup v17 (and earlier), it does not contain support for 32bit efi, i.e. there is no '/EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi'.

I have discovered that this is the reason that my "Lenovo ideapad 100S-11IBY" has failed to recognise any of my "uefi" usb sticks until now, even though I had "SecureBoot" disabled.

This will be fixed in the next release.

gyro