Hi, how would I go about creating a simple puppy, installed on a USB drive, that installs a puppy with a load of other packages on to a hard drive (much like a cd installer, if you haven't noticed)?
Also, would it be possible to make it so that there are several installation options, each installs software from a different location?
Also, would it be possible to make it so that it installs all the packages from a folder, so that adding new packages to the folder doesn't require changing anything else?
Basically, I need a simple installation of linux on many PCs, but some PCs need more functionality that others. Some are developement machines running loads of stuff, some are servers running java and matchbox window maker, some are clients, running the same as the server.
Thanks in advance!
If you need any more information, just ask, and I'm sorry about my first post being a long winded request.
How to create a USB-to-Hard drive installer?
Interesting question!
I am guessing that once you have done a full install to a USB flash drive, just using that to do a hard drive install would not be that hard. You would just have to learn how to get around the weird part of the script where it wants you to supply the CD, I think just to fetch a file or two.
In order to install more than that, presumably you could remaster the CD-USB first to include everything you want.
Or at the other extreme, you could load up the USB with all the different dotpup etc modules that you want, that install them custom manually on each machine as desired. Of course, once Puppy is running, if the computers are networked, you could add modules that way.
I'm afraid the bottom line is, Puppy is a good foundation for what you want to do, but nowhere near the Puppy of our Dreams, that would let you easily package everything up in a very modular transportable way and then easily customize each computer by just checking off which modules or sets you did or did not want. You'll be learning as you go, and we'll want to hear about what you learn.
I think the most powerful approach Puppy offers is the whole .sfs squash filesystem add-on option. Puppy currently automounts some, and you could sure modify rc.sysinit to do more. And I think Puppy2 is evolving further in that direction. So, if you just have a few flavors of big bunches of modules that you want on select computers, this could be a great solution.
I am guessing that once you have done a full install to a USB flash drive, just using that to do a hard drive install would not be that hard. You would just have to learn how to get around the weird part of the script where it wants you to supply the CD, I think just to fetch a file or two.
In order to install more than that, presumably you could remaster the CD-USB first to include everything you want.
Or at the other extreme, you could load up the USB with all the different dotpup etc modules that you want, that install them custom manually on each machine as desired. Of course, once Puppy is running, if the computers are networked, you could add modules that way.
I'm afraid the bottom line is, Puppy is a good foundation for what you want to do, but nowhere near the Puppy of our Dreams, that would let you easily package everything up in a very modular transportable way and then easily customize each computer by just checking off which modules or sets you did or did not want. You'll be learning as you go, and we'll want to hear about what you learn.
I think the most powerful approach Puppy offers is the whole .sfs squash filesystem add-on option. Puppy currently automounts some, and you could sure modify rc.sysinit to do more. And I think Puppy2 is evolving further in that direction. So, if you just have a few flavors of big bunches of modules that you want on select computers, this could be a great solution.
Well, I have large USB devices available (caddies capable of taking IDE hard drives, so pretty much 300gig of space, thanks to work paying for everything that I need to get the job done 
although I'll try and keep it to 1 or 2 gig), so that is good.
I'll look into Puppy more tomorrow. It's either that or read Linux From Scratch, and I don't want to spend hours compiling the toolkit, before I can get a system up and running.
If I get something working, I'll be sure to post a solution, incase someone else wants to know what I did.
Thanks!
although I'll try and keep it to 1 or 2 gig), so that is good.I'll look into Puppy more tomorrow. It's either that or read Linux From Scratch, and I don't want to spend hours compiling the toolkit, before I can get a system up and running.
If I get something working, I'll be sure to post a solution, incase someone else wants to know what I did.
Thanks!