Puppy Linux Windows Users: exe installer programs

[T_Hobbit]

(b) I have never previously had PROBLEM3 with any Puppy I've ever run; this is the only one.
Mind you, Puppy 4.2.1-rc3 is the only other I run from a Flash Drive, and it has always saved normally.

Old computer, right? We are using Puppy 4.3.1, right?
I had this problem booting old laptop with the normal 4.3 and 4.3.1. I solved the problem turning to old kernel versions...

[Sylvander]

1. "Old computer, right?"
Correct.
Compaq Deskpro EN built 1999.

2. "We are using Puppy 4.3.1, right?"
Correct.

3. "I had this problem booting old laptop with the normal 4.3 and 4.3.1"
I had trouble with 4.3-k2.6.30.5, so had to use k2.6.25.16 which worked OK.
I use ttuuxxx's retro version of 4.31.1, and that works well.
Normally the problem I'd see is that the problem Puppy couldn't see my HDD, because it's connected via a PCI to IDE SCSI RAID controller card.

[T_Hobbit]

I'm supposing that... This will not work for you... I'm mean, with the nrmal Puppy4.3.1. Must be with 4.3.1small or 4.3.1 old kernel version's...

[Sylvander]

In which case, all's well.

All I wanted to do was to check that the system/method worked, and apparently it does.

[steve_s]

Original post updated with new exe file.

Also link provided in original post about WakePup2 exe.

Also link provided on cd designed only to boot Puppy 4.3.1 usb flash drive.

[Sylvander]

Woooohooo, SUCCESS!

EVERYTHING worked perfectly first time!
No sign of previous problems.
e.g.
The WakePup2 floppy loaded the Puppy at 1st attempt.
And the Puppy gave me the opportunity to save, just as it aught.
And it DID save when told...
And found and used the contents of the pupsave file at next boot.

And hey...
I notice this version has a SAVE icon on the desktop.
Does that mean this [Flash Drive] version only saves [actually copies?] during a session if & when the user clicks on the icon?

And of course, it is FAST.

Perfect result!

This will give greater choice of installation method to Windows users who fancy giving Puppy a try.

[steve_s]

Woooohooo, SUCCESS!

EVERYTHING worked perfectly first time!
No sign of previous problems.
e.g.
The WakePup2 floppy loaded the Puppy at 1st attempt.
And the Puppy gave me the opportunity to save, just as it aught.
And it DID save when told...
And found and used the contents of the pupsave file at next boot.

And hey...
I notice this version has a SAVE icon on the desktop.
Does that mean this [Flash Drive] version only saves [actually copies?] during a session if & when the user clicks on the icon?

And of course, it is FAST.

Perfect result!

This will give greater choice of installation method to Windows users who fancy giving Puppy a try.

Sweet!

As far as the save file goes: I've noticed that with most of the usb versions I've used. You can manually save or just let it save automatically like normal. Good stuff...

Have you tried that boot cd? You might play with that too and see what you think (if your pc allows it). My big accomplishment with that one was that it is tiny and that I figured out how to change the boot image. Ok, I didn't change it much, but it was a big accomplishment to me. Oh, and it defaults to booting the usb drive, of course.

Anyway, glad you got it to work...let's start spreading the word....

[Sylvander]

1. OK, tried the boot CD [rewritable], and it works much better than I imagined.

It loads the Puppy MUCH FASTER than the WakePup2 floppy does the job.
I'm typing this from the resulting OS environment right now.

I'm going to stop using the floppy and use the CD instead.

2. "let's start spreading the word"
I've already begun doing that at the PC-Guide forums.
Suggested to someone that he give it a go, and use it [as a start] to backup his Windows and data partitions.
Others too are beginning to suggest using Puppy for various tasks.

[steve_s]

I've already begun doing that at the PC-Guide forums.
Suggested to someone that he give it a go, and use it [as a start] to backup his Windows and data partitions.
Others too are beginning to suggest using Puppy for various tasks.

...and that's been the goal all along! Excellent! Well done!

[T_Hobbit]

Congratulations!
Next step: Can I challenge you to make a generic exe independent from the ISO (like I describe before...)?

[steve_s]

I mean... instead of putting the ISO inside the exe, you may create a more flexible exe, that can use any Puppy available.
Can you make an exe that ask the location of the ISO? The rest is the some, but using the ISO you just "locate"...

Unetbootin does this, I have used it with several different pups and puplets with any trouble.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

I hear you, T_Hobbit. I am going to keep investigating 'cause, honestly, this is fun stuff.

But TomRhymer is right: unetbootin takes care of this.

Also, I don't want to give too many options as this can be too confusing to a newly transferred Window's user. Linux has a lot of choices and I'm told that can be too much. I really just wanted to give a basic exe to get 'em going.

But, like I said, I'm not done with this project and would love to expand upon it; I'll keep posting back.

[steve_s]

The latest issue has been finding good, bootable flash drive brands.

The goal is that a standard Window's user can go buy a bootable FAT filesystem flash drive and then run the exe provided at the beginning of this thread and it be good to go.

So, please recommend some good, bootable flash drive brands for everyone.

Overall still the easiest way, in my opinion, to make a bootable flash drive on your own is to boot with a Puppy Linux livecd, plug in a flash drive, then let Puppy Universal installer totally reformat the flash drive and install Puppy.

Why is that easiest and what is the deal with filesystems (in simplified terms)?

Linux and Window's are built on filesystems. Window's uses a VFAT, FAT or NTFS filesystem. Linux typically uses an ext2, or ext3 filesystem. Puppy, however, can run on FAT filesystems and NTFS if it has to.

Window's cannot see ext2 or ext3, usually (unless it uses certain tools). Linux can read and see all of them, especially Puppy.

You can partition your drive (break it into parts) or format your drive in Window's or Linux, but only Linux can set up Linux filesystems. Puppy can do all that easily.

Why the heck should one care about this?

When a computer system starts/boots it goes from the BIOS (basic input/output system) then finds a bootable device, reads it's filesystem then boots the operating system, or OS, for example Linux and Windows, on that device. This all happens in seconds.

You can, of course, use a device designed to boot for you and some of those are provided here in the beginning of the thread, like WakePup2 floppy and the Puppy boot cd.

When Puppy installs and formats it makes a Linux filesystem and installs Puppy, easy, easy, but the standards Window user doesn't know how to do this.

Window's can't format for Linux and to make a USB device bootable in a FAT fileystem in Windows requires certain tools. Those aren't readily available in Window's, although I will post some soon.

So, right now we are left trying to find good brands that are already bootable. If you have recommendations that have worked for you out of the box, then please help us out by posting ideas.

[TomRhymer]

I've never found a flash drive that was pre-formatted to be bootable. On the other hand, I've never found a flash that couldn't be made bootable by unetbootin or by using GParted.

I've never been too particular about what kind of flash drive to use for puppy. I have a few small MicroSD cards that I use with either a USB or SD adapter to boot from. I did try out your exe installer, it worked fine on a 512 MB card.

As far as file systems go, I usually just use FAT or FAT32 for Puppy. I've used ext2 and ext3, but I haven't seen apprieciable differences in performance.

The main quality differences in flash drives are speed and reliability. Most commercial brands are reliable and have a long life span, although I've had a few problems with a SuperTalent Pico-C. It's a tiny metal drive that heats up quite a bit in use, and after a year and a half, it frequently isn't recognized.

In terms of speed, most newer flash drives read as fast as the USB interface (32MB/s) but write much slower. I tested all of my flash drives with a Windows program called CrystalDiskMark, the best results were with an OCZ Diesel drive that got 32MB/s read and 15MB/s write. It also tests r/w speeds with small files, which are much, much lower on all flash drives. Sandisk drives are very cheap, and have good read speed (28MB/s), but their write speeds are around 8MB/s. The slowest speeds I got was with my PNY and Memorex drive, but those are the oldest drives I have. I think that newer drives from them would probably perform better.

[steve_s]

I've never found a flash drive that was pre-formatted to be bootable...

Good stuff, Tom, thanks!

Keep those suggestions coming, folks!

[steve_s]

Ever get this one?

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

I was getting it on a couple of flash drives when I tried to boot directly to them (booting via a cd or a floppy worked great, though). Let me tell you how I fixed one of them (a Swissbit), and probably how I'll fix the others.

I @#$%ing looked everywhere to find the answer to this. The bios was reading it as another hard drive, and even though I would select it as the main hard drive to boot from, I still got that error message.

Turns out that the mbr (master boot record) for the usb drive was no good. Looked at a variety of ways to fix it, but none worked well and all gave some kind of error message.

So, leave it to the awesome Puppians 'cause they new how to fix it. Here's how:

1. Boot into Puppy 4.3.1. I don't care how you do it; cd boots to usb, cd by itself, WakePup2 to usb, whatever, but the USB flash drive that you want to fix can't be the one that you are using to run Puppy.

2. Puppy 4.3.1 now has this very cool USB tool in the menu: Setup>BootFlash install Puppy to USB.

You already need to have downloaded or have accessible the pup-431.iso file if you want to use this method to install Puppy to a flash drive also.

3. Plug the flash drive in and run the program. Awesome. There are different options to pick from, but I used the ComboFormat boot tool. Then I told it (when it asked) where I had the iso file saved, it installed it to my flash drive, perfect.

Now the BIOS reads my Swissbit as a floppy disk. I have to tell the BIOS to pick the Swissbit as the preferred floppy, that it should boot first, but then I'm golden.

The computer now boots straight to Puppy via the flash drive.

Hours of searching for the right tool and Puppy had it all along; when am I gonna learn? Took maybe five minutes for the program to run.

Oh, it's still a FAT filesystem on the flash drive so Windows can see it no problem. I can either boot from my Swissbit or run Windows (which I had to install just to be able to investigate things on this thread; ugh, I feel so dirty ).

[lostinxlation]

Hi,

I'm trying to install puppy431 to HDD of my thinkpad 240 that doesn't support USB boot and am looking for the way to let it recognize USB CDROM drive to start the installation.

Does your wakepup2 work with USB CDROM drive too ?

I'm not sure if I did right, but this is what I did. Please let me know if I was doing wrong.

1. Burned puppy431 iso image to CD.
2. Downloaded wakepup2-img-write. Clicked on the downloaded file and it prompted me to write it into floppy disk so that I did.
3. Inserted the floppy disk to a floppy drive connected to target PC(TP240).
4. Inserted ISO CD to a USB CDROM drive connected to target PC(TP240).
5. Power on the target PC.
6. The floppy disk gave me a couple of options. I selected #1, IDE/USB drives(built-in or external CD-ROM, HD and flash).


Then, it sent out messages like

Error: No CD-ROM drives detected at all
Error: Device drive aborts loading


I'd highly appreciate if you could comment on this.

[steve_s]

Hi,

I'm trying to install puppy431 to HDD of my thinkpad 240 that doesn't support USB boot and am looking for the way to let it recognize USB CDROM drive to start the installation.

Does your wakepup2 work with USB CDROM drive too ?

I'm not sure if I did right, but this is what I did. Please let me know if I was doing wrong.

1. Burned puppy431 iso image to CD.
2. Downloaded wakepup2-img-write. Clicked on the downloaded file and it prompted me to write it into floppy disk so that I did.
3. Inserted the floppy disk to a floppy drive connected to target PC(TP240).
4. Inserted ISO CD to a USB CDROM drive connected to target PC(TP240).
5. Power on the target PC.
6. The floppy disk gave me a couple of options. I selected #1, IDE/USB drives(built-in or external CD-ROM, HD and flash).


Then, it sent out messages like

Error: No CD-ROM drives detected at all
Error: Device drive aborts loading


I'd highly appreciate if you could comment on this.

Howdy!

I would put it on a flash drive, run the WakePup floppy, it will see the flash drive and then boot that way. I don't know that WakePup will see a usb cd drive.

What operating system do you have running on there right now? Don't worry; we'll get Puppy going on there for you.

**Edit: that thinkpad doesn't have an internal cd drive? If you hit f12 (to get a boot menu; you gotta do it right away as it is starting up) during boot with Puppy cd on an internal cd drive, then hit C (that's what it was on one of my old thinkpads; just look at the list of options on the boot menu) you should be to boot the original pup-431.iso cd. That procedure (hitting f12) may do it with the usb cd drive also...both need to be tried.

There are other ways to get it installed; Puppy is crazy portable so we'll figure it out. Just tell us how those options went....

[steve_s]

Oh, some very good stuff if one looks around hard enough.

Will now be testing this Installer for Windows Users to boot from Windows to Puppy. Forum member seeker: great stuff!

I had seen master MU's installer here which is similar concept but is for earlier Puppy's.

Another website with information and links on how to do this.

What the heck is the goal?

Well, let's say that you want to get rid of Windows but have no way of booting to anything other than your hard drive. Remember, we have to have something that boots to an operating system (OS; like Windows or Puppy) then the OS runs.

So, if you have no way of booting other than the hard drive, no floppy disk, no cd and no usb, what can be done?

The goal is to change the Windows boot loader to allow to boot to some other medium (like usb), run Puppy from the USB and use Puppy to change your hard drive, repartition it, get rid of Windows if you want, do whatever you could want to do with Puppy now that you can boot it, EVEN if the BIOS wouldn't before let you boot to USB; it wouldn't matter 'cause Windows is booting to Puppy for you!

If you want to investigate this further, check out the links I provided on this post and I'll continue to see if I can put something together for newbie Windows-to-Puppy people so that they can just click then be able to use Windows to boot to Puppy usb.

[Sylvander]

People having trouble gaining access to the file download hosting sites on the 1st post of this thread.

[steve_s]

People having trouble gaining access to the file download hosting sites on the 1st post of this thread.

Thanks, Sylvander! I had no idea it was being mentioned on another thread.

But here is my response, as posted on that thread:

Sorry, folks, but the person that I am using space from has a godaddy account.

As I mentioned on that first post, it does not work from Seamonkey or Opera and asks for a password on both of those browsers. This seems to be a goddady issue and nothing I can do about it.

I posted that exe and subsequent ones to Windows users that are wanting to come over and use Puppy. I know that shafts us that like to use Seamonkey, but I only have the link available. It works in Firefox and in IE, so I figured that covers the target audience, at least for now. I just don't have any other option, besides one of those file-sharing sites and those are so temporary.

UNLESS, OF COURSE, SOMEONE CAN MIRROR THIS FOR ME.

I can upload it to one of the filesharing sites if that is requested by a few people and I am truly sorry for any inconvenience, but I have what I have.

I mentioned that at the beginning of this one, but that can be overlooked sometimes.

I am just trying to get it out there in whatever way I can hoping that someone else can MIRROR it and help out so that we can have other options.

I'VE GOT ANOTHER EXE COMING that will allow a Windows user to just download it, click on it, and it installs directly to a Windows drive as a frugal, changes the Windows boot manager automatically, then it boots either Windows or Puppy as you wish, on the next reboot. I am going to try to upload that one either tonight or tomorrow.