Frugal install Qs DONE

Using applications, configuring, problems
Post Reply
Message
Author
Barkingmad
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:20

Frugal install Qs DONE

#1 Post by Barkingmad »

Hello

I have tryed Puppy as a live CD and have done a full install to an older PC and made a great second machine and now I'd like to try it on my main PC along with Windows XP.

I would like to do a frugal instal to an existing partition and put GRUB on a floppy disk so that I can simply insert that disk to boot Puppy or remove it for Windows. I belive GRUB can make a boot menue to do this but I'm afrade of messing with the MBR so would rather use a floppy.

After reading all I can find about installing I am still not certain on the following points.

1) Can I install to a NTFS (preferably) or FAT32 "Logical Drive" in a Windows created extended partition?

2) If I install GRUB to a floppy does it still need an ext partition somewere?

3) If point 1) is NO and/or point 2) is YES is it safe or possible to use Gparted to shrink the NTFS "Logical Drive" then the extended partition to make some unparttioned space to use? How much room would I need for a frugal install -- 2Gb maybe?

4) If I can use an existing partiton do I have to set it as bootable with Gparted and will this have any efect on Windows' use of it?

Sorry to go on a bit but I've been getting my thougts in order as I type here. Thanks greatly for any help.

Will
Last edited by Barkingmad on Thu 10 Sep 2009, 15:28, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Ray MK
Posts: 774
Joined: Tue 05 Feb 2008, 09:10
Location: UK

#2 Post by Ray MK »

Hi

First thing to do - before you do anything else - is to very thoroughly
defrag your XP drive.

What puppy are you using?
How much ram do you have?
What size is your XP hard-drive?

After defrag - your files will be at the front end of your hdd and less
likely to be scrambled by shrinking the partition.

Hope that helps - regards - Ray

Jim1911
Posts: 2460
Joined: Mon 19 May 2008, 20:39
Location: Texas, USA

#3 Post by Jim1911 »

1) Can I install to a NTFS (preferably) or FAT32 "Logical Drive" in a Windows created extended partition?
Yes, a frugal installation will work on either.
2) If I install GRUB to a floppy does it still need an ext partition somewere?
I don't believe so.
3) If point 1) is NO and/or point 2) is YES is it safe or possible to use Gparted to shrink the NTFS "Logical Drive" then the extended partition to make some unparttioned space to use? How much room would I need for a frugal install -- 2Gb maybe?
Although not needed, it would be nice to have an ext2 or ext3 partition as large as possible. Regardless, you will need a linux swap partition roughly twice the size of your ram.
4) If I can use an existing partiton do I have to set it as bootable with Gparted and will this have any efect on Windows' use of it?
I recommend that you forget about booting from a floppy. You can continue to boot with your CD. You just have to remember to boot from the CD from which you installed the puppy, otherwise you will contaminate your pup_save.2fs which should be saved to the same directory that your frugal installation is on. That directory should be one level from root. A better alternative is to install grub on the HD and dual boot with Windows or investigate the lin "N" win method of installationhttp://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwi ... innwin.htm
Ray MK's advice is excellent, however, backup critical files first. Although not likely, you can lose data when you defrag and repartition. You need to provide more information about your hardware and the pups you use to get more informed suggestions.
Jim

User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Frugal install Qs

#4 Post by mikeslr »

Dear Barkingmad:

I don't see any advantage of using Grub on a Floppy to boot into Puppy if you can boot from a CD, unless your computer can't run Puppy entirely in Ram. If it can, after you've booted you can remove the CD and use your CD-Rom as you like.

Follow Ray MK's advice about defragging. But before you do anything else take a look at the Lin'N'WinNewB PROJECT:

http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwi ... innwin.htm

The advantages of "booting from a CD" is you don't need GRUB at all and you can simply create separate directories on your NTSF or VFat partition/drives to store your Puppies and their Save files. If you create a subdirectory within each puppy directory and --except the version you intend to use-- move your puppy files into their subdirectory, you can choose which version you boot from the CD, since when booting from a CD Puppy will only search one subdirectory down: it then uses the the Puppy files on the hard drive and you can, of course, remove the CD and use your CD-Rom. [Suggestion: as not every Puppy CD can successfully boot every Puppy Version, I keep a small text file in each of the Puppy Directories as to which CD to use].

But if you want to avoid using your CD-Rom entirely to boot into a frugal install of Puppy, the Lin'N'Win method works great. IT DOES NOT WRITE TO OR CHANGE WINDOW'S MBR. It has you add one line to the boot.ini file, which starts before MBR is called, giving you the option to continue to boot into Windows or one of any number Puppies. If, at some future time, you decide you no longer want that option, getting rid of it is as simple as deleting the one line you wrote to the boot.ini file. (There are other files you add to the computer to use the Lin'N'Win method, but they take up only a few kb's of space, are entirely ignored when running Windows, and MOST importantly, have no impact on Window's MBR. Additions to and deletions from boot.ini can be done by opening it as a text file from a Puppy booted from CD. So while Lin'N'Win advises that you backup the boot.ini file before editing-- advice to be followed-- there is really nothing it can do to endanger your Windows OS).

Barkingmad
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:20

#5 Post by Barkingmad »

Thank you all for your help so far.

The PC I am inteding to do this with is a home built machine with a Pentium dual core 3GHz and 2Gb RAM.

I have attached a cropped screenshot from Windows "Disk Managment" to show how things are partitioned at the moment. Disk 0 is an older IDE drive that I had and Disk 1 is my main SATA drive that I would like to use as it's faster. The Windows boot partition is C.

I am intending to use Puppy 4.2 compiled by (I think) user Aragon with the SMP kernal. I have made a live CD of this and it seems to work well.

I wanted to get Puppy onto the hard drive to see how fast I could get this PC to boot as 4.1.1 I installed on a P4 1.8GHz for my Mum boots in about half the time it takes XP on my dual core box and I keep borrowing it when I just need to check an e-mail etc :P
Booting from the CD seems quite slow so I thought Puppy would be even better from HD.

Thanks again for all your ideas -- the Lin 'n' Win scheme looks good and I might well try that.
Attachments
Partitions.png
(28.88 KiB) Downloaded 687 times

Jim1911
Posts: 2460
Joined: Mon 19 May 2008, 20:39
Location: Texas, USA

#6 Post by Jim1911 »

Consider moving your data to the NTFS partition and converting the data partition from fat32 to ext3. This would be much quicker than reducing the size of the NTFS partition and then making a new partition in the free space. You also have a problem to deal with concerning the number of partitions. Although, with the amount of ram you have, you can probably get by without a linux swap partition.

Jim

ICPUG
Posts: 1308
Joined: Mon 25 Jul 2005, 00:09
Location: UK

#7 Post by ICPUG »

Jim1911

This suggestion, to create ext3 partition, is a bit over the top for someone who is wary of messing with MBR and wants to use an existing partition. When we are talking about full installs of Puppy that is great. Starting off as a dual boot with Windows I would walk before beginning to run.

I prefer your suggestion to use Lin'N'Win as it is designed for just this need but I am biased - cos I wrote those instructions!

One thing Barkingmad has to be careful off is to make sure you know precisely what disk and partition (in linux speak) the install will be on and make sure the menu.lst is written accordingly.

Lin'N'Win assumes disk 0 partition 0 but this is not the case on this system. It might be worthwhile running a live puppy CD and having a look at the disk drives to get the location of the NTFS partition - which I assume is where Windows is installed. Use this info to modify the Lin'N'Win menu.lst to your system.

Barkingmad
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:20

#8 Post by Barkingmad »

Thank you again
It might be worthwhile running a live puppy CD and having a look at the disk drives to get the location of the NTFS partition
Will Gparted do that?

Will Lin 'N' Win work if linux is not on the same partition as Windows? I've read quickly through the instructions and it looked as though it would. I ask as my Windows partition (C on Disk 1 in my screenshot) hasn't enough free space and I don't woant to completely rearrange the PC at the moment.


It's looking as though Lin 'N' Win is the way to go so I'll re-read the instructions propperly before doing anything

Will

ICPUG
Posts: 1308
Joined: Mon 25 Jul 2005, 00:09
Location: UK

#9 Post by ICPUG »

Will

Yes - GParted will let you see the disk partitions without having to do any partitioning.

Yes - Lin'N'Win will work if Puppy is not on the Windows partition. It just has to be on a NTFS or FAT partition. The only proviso is that the boot loader grldr and menu.lst MUST be on the root folder of the Windows XP partition - but that does not take much space. You will have to adjust menu.lst to point to the right partition where the Puppy files are located.

vg1
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun 02 Dec 2007, 18:56

#10 Post by vg1 »

ICPUG,

that for a default setup as described in your lin'n'win the boot loader grldr and menu.lst must be on the root folder of the Windows XP partition is certainly true. Boot.ini is pointing there, and grldr is looking for menu.lst there. As you probably know this is not necessarily so.
Have not done any tests with grldr location because I didn't need to. But menu.lst can be on any [ntfs/fat?] partition if grldr will look there. I needed my menu.lst to be always readily accessible from puppy for my frequent tests and changes, without having to mount sda1 first. Most of my puppies are on sda3 [fat], none are on sda1 [ntfs]. They are set up the old way, with only the home partition being mounted. I keep menu.lst on sda3 and have edited grldr to look for it there. It works normally.

Of course, your instructions should remain as they are. The above hack is for special circumstances only, certainly not for newbies. I thought you should be aware of this.

vg

Barkingmad
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:20

#11 Post by Barkingmad »

Thanks ICPUG for clearing that up.

Lin 'N' Win is the way to go for me, I think. I'm not sure when I'll have time to try it out but I'll come back to this thread to report how I get on.

Sorry to to have replyed sooner but the forum seemed to be down yesterday when I was going to look in.

Thanks again Will

ICPUG
Posts: 1308
Joined: Mon 25 Jul 2005, 00:09
Location: UK

#12 Post by ICPUG »

Thanks vg1 for the info. I don't know how to edit grldr so I am not likely to change the instructions for booting menu.lst from elsewhere!

As regards where grldr can be placed it should be on the Windows NTFS partition or on a FAT partition. Looking at the Grub4DOS readme it seems even in the latter case it might have to be on the FAT partition AND the NTFS partition. Tinybit, the Grub4DOS developer, was never very interested in sorting out the vagaries of NTFS although Bean moved it forward when wubi was being worked on for Ubuntu.

User avatar
Aitch
Posts: 6518
Joined: Wed 04 Apr 2007, 15:57
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

#13 Post by Aitch »

Hi barkingmad

have a look here, even easier, it's 1/2 done for you

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=44098


http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42867

not sure why 2 threads, but has a help file on the d/l

Aitch :)

Barkingmad
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:20

#14 Post by Barkingmad »

Just a final thanks.

I have got around to to trying this using the Lin 'N' Win method as it gave me the manual control to deal with my rather non-standard drive partitioning -- I couldn't tell if the Windows installer that Aitch kindly pointed out would have coped.

After a couple of false starts it's working fine.

For any other newbies who read this the problems I had were:

1) Typos in the lines I needed to add to GRUB's menue.lst file, it took three attempts to fined them all so perhaps I should have "copy and pasted" the lines from ICEPUG's tutorial site and just edited the drive designations to match my system.

2) My confusion over GRUB's use of drive0 and drive1, despite thinking I'd got it straight in my mind before starting I had to try both before it found the kernel.

Thanks again for setting me on the right way -- I will start new threads for any more questions I have now things are up and running

Will

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#15 Post by mikeb »

As regards where grldr can be placed it should be on the Windows NTFS partition or on a FAT partition. Looking at the Grub4DOS readme it seems even in the latter case it might have to be on the FAT partition AND the NTFS partition. Tinybit, the Grub4DOS developer, was never very interested in sorting out the vagaries of NTFS although Bean moved it forward when wubi was being worked on for Ubuntu.
I have grldr working from fat16, fat32, ntfs, ext2 and ext3 so it seems that there is no restiction there...perhaps its desire to be in the root helps with compatability

mike

Post Reply