Booting Puppy frugal install via WinXP boot manager (Solved)

[campamax]

Hi all. I am a newbie Puppy enthusiast.
I am using Puppy both on my wife's laptop (booting from Live CD and storing personal data on a bloody USB key which does not allow me to boot from) an occasionally on my office PC (booting from live CD and storing personal data on a NTFS partition).

My idea was to make a manual frugal install on my hard drive (my second partition, the first containing WinXP), but since I do not want to risk to mess up the company PC, I would like a way to add someway an entry to the WinXP boot manager instead of installing GRUB.

Being quite ignorant on how to modify the boot file, I am looking for some help here.
Anyone has hints on how to do that??

Thanks in advance
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Campamax

[HairyWill]

The Lin'n'Win pages here give a good explanation.
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwin/contents.htm

The instructions are based on puppy 2.13. I think Brian has had a couple of reports of this not working for puppy 2.16 though it works fine for me and many others I believe. If it doesn't manage to boot puppy it won't damage your XP installation anyway.

When you are editing the menu.lst file you will need to include the kernel parameter, psubdir, something like this

Code: Select all

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/puppy.216/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 psubdir=/boot/puppy.216

Give it a go.

[campamax]

Thanks HairyWill for the suggested tutorial: very straightforward! I will give it a try as soon as can save some 15 minutes to do that. (Well, maybe while the boss goes out for lunch maybe...).

Thanks again for your lightning-fast answer!
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campamax

[campamax]

It worked! I had to put both the grub files and the Puppy files in c: (where Windows is installed). I first tried to put the grub files in D: but it did not work, then i put them in C: leaving Puppy on D; I addressed in the grub menu the Puppy files as in (hd0,1)/vmlinuz but it failed. Why? Is there an easy way to kep grub on c: but the Puppy files in D:?
What should I write??
Thanks in advance.
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campamax

[HairyWill]

It worked!

good!
There's not really any problem with the install being on the c: drive but as you have that shiny empty second partition we might as well use it. Its probably easiest if you post a copy of your menu.lst file, also what filesystem did you format the d: drive with?

[ICPUG]

Well done Campamax to get it working by yourself.

I read your posts Friday along with HairyWill's suggested menu.lst and I suspected some problems might occur - but you solved them.

Over the weekend I have been testing on my laptop which has Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed. It has 2 NTFS partitions (C,D in Windows speak) and 1 FAT32 partition (E in Windows speak). You also need to know that Dand E are EXTENDED partitions and NOT Primary partitions. I suspect this is similar to what you have.

I also have Puppy 2.16.1 - the very latest incarnation.

-------------------------------

This is what works for me. Please note: the use of capital letters or lower case letters must be matched :

1) grldr and menu.lst must be installed on the same partition as Windows - cannot avoid that, it is the only way grldr works.

2) On my D drive I have created the following directories:
\boot
\boot\puppy.216

In \boot\puppy.216 I put the two files initrd.gz and vmlinuz

VERY IMPORTANT: If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 you may have to put those two files in D:\ rather than D:\boot\puppy.216. This version of Windows has problems seeing below the root directory with grub. I am not even sure if it sees extended partitions but you are about to test that for me!

3) Irrespective of Windows version you must put the following files in D:\
pup_216.sfs
pup_save.2fs (if you have already got one)
zdrv_216.sfs

4) My menu.lst has the following stub for Puppy:

title Puppy 2.16.1 from NTFS
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/puppy.216/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd psubdir=boot/puppy.216
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/puppy.216/initrd.gz
boot

N.B. If you had to put the initrd.gz and vmlinuz in D:\ then the menu.lst stub becomes:

title Puppy 2.16.1 from NTFS
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd.gz
boot

-----------------------------

A difference from what you had was that I use (hd0,4) rather than (hd0,1).

This is what you need when your second partition is an Extended partition and not a Primary partition.

If you are going to try this make sure all traces of the Puppy files on your C: drive are gone - I suggest moving them to the D: drive (as I did). Puppy does not always like multiple copies found! Of course the grldr and menu.lst file MUST remain on C: drive as I said before.

Let us know what version of Windows (and service pack) you have and whether the above works for you.

ICPUG

[campamax]

Thanks ICPUG for your complete description.

I have XPsp2 and both drives are formatted NTFS.
These are the lines I added to menu.lst:

title Puppy Linux 2.16
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.gz
boot

Over the weekend I read with less hurry the Lin'n'Win tutorial and I discovered that to address extended partitions I have to start with index 4, so I planned to try with (hd0,4) as you suggested.
I will try as soon as I can.

Note that my Puppy starts from C:, but my PUP_SAVE file is safely on D:, and it works because Puppy looks for it in every accessible drive. So, even if the IT needs for some reason to crunch my C: partition, my PUP_SAVE remains safe on the other partition. For me, this is already a great goal.


Thanks to all of you for your promptness: I will let you know if I manage to keep Puppy on drive D:.

Bye
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campamax

[campamax]

(hd0,4) did not work. I am going to try with (hd0,1) next time.
Suggestions? Is there a way to find out what kind of partition my D: disk is? I tried with Partition Magic but it did not help.

Regards
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campamax

[HairyWill]

post output from

Code: Select all

fdisk -l

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parted /dev/hda/ print

[campamax]

Thanks HairyWill for your kind suggestions.
I actually simply tried with (hd0,1) and it worked, so I avoided further inspection, but thanks anyway: next time I will know how to do!

[ICPUG]

Campamax,

Glad to hear all is working as you want it now.

You tried (hd0,1) before and it didn't work. (That's before I suggested (hd0,4) ).

What have you done different that now makes it work with (hd0,1)?

ICPUG

[campamax]

I formerly forgot a slash, writing (hd0,1)vmlinuz instead of (hd0,1)/vmlinuz.....

Thanks again to all of you!
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campamax

[cerebral]

i am having trouble with this as well, i have followed these instructions to the letter, and it still wont work, it gets to grub when i want to load puppy then nothing happens, it just goes to grub command prompt thing. I am using Windows Xp SP2 and this is what i have added to menu.lst

title puppy 2.16
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.gz
boot

the puppy files are all in c:/
any suggeestions

[campamax]

Everything seems right.
Check via Explorer that the names of the files are all in lower case, otherwise - according to the Lin'&'Win tutorial - it does not work.

Try to write down the messages appearing - if any - when you choose to boot Linux.


This is my menu.lst:
##############################################
# GvR Sept 30th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=10
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title Puppy Linux from NTFS
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd (hd0,1)/initrd.gz
boot

##############################################

Hope this helps
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campamax



P.S.
A little add-in, not completely off-topic.

If the Puppy Linux files are on drive C: while the pup_save file is on D: (as in my former installation), during the boot procedure Puppy asks whether to use the pup_save file, while if I put on the same drive both the pup_save an the other Puppy files then the pup_save file is used without asking. This is good for me, but take this into account regarding to how you want to use Puppy.