Puppy Linux Windows Users: exe installer programs

[steve_s]

By the way, in the same venue as Portable Apps and wine:

Snapfiles is the BEST place that I know of for freeware for Windows. I've used it for many, many years in Windows.

I prefer Linux as I don't have to scan, clean and all that crap, but if you are looking for an app that you just got to run in Windows, that the place to start for free stuff. May be a better app there that is free than what you were thinking of in the first place.

But, once again, Puppy comes with more stuff in a small package than anything I've seen. Clearly I'm hugely biased though.

[Sylvander]

1. I'd like to see a good Puppy replacement for Mailwasher.
I use SaveMyModem [smm], but it isn't quite as good as Mailwasher.
e.g. Cannot copy and paste [or click] URL's to easily go to a webpage.
No means to set a rule for hiding [and deleting] emails from a particular sender or domain.

2. Programs I use under WINE, and apparently not available for Puppy:
(a) "Acerose Password Vault" [portable version].
Great for holding URL's, passwords, usernames, etc.

(b) "Space Monger-version-2.1.2-pre3" [portable].
Great for displaying space used by folders/files.

(c) The FREE version of SyncBack [not portable].
Great for backup/restore/sync of Windows partitions [not portable].
Will also backup a Puppy conventional installation once troublesome folder/file items are excluded [why I don't generally use it for that].

[steve_s]

1. I'd like to see a good Puppy replacement for Mailwasher.
I use SaveMyModem [smm], but it isn't quite as good as Mailwasher.
e.g. Cannot copy and paste [or click] URL's to easily go to a webpage.
No means to set a rule for hiding [and deleting] emails from a particular sender or domain.

2. Programs I use under WINE, and apparently not available for Puppy:
(a) "Acerose Password Vault" [portable version].
Great for holding URL's, passwords, usernames, etc.

(b) "Space Monger-version-2.1.2-pre3" [portable].
Great for displaying space used by folders/files.

(c) The FREE version of SyncBack [not portable].
Great for backup/restore/sync of Windows partitions [not portable].
Will also backup a Puppy conventional installation once troublesome folder/file items are excluded [why I don't generally use it for that].

Then, Sylvander, once again you're our research expert, but now for these items.

These aren't the most common programs so I'm glad to see those that do run run well in wine.

I don't know everything about Mailwasher, but was surprised when i was looking at Thunderbird and discovered all the various extensions available. Maybe one of them can help fit the bill for what you want with mailwasher? Just an idea...

[Sylvander]

1. The good thing about Mailwasher and smm is that the user can deal with the email whilst it is still on the server...
[I'm using smm to do this right now]
And they are VERY QUICK.
e.g.
(a) Tick all the spam for deletion.

(b) See which forum threads have had replies, and go to those.
Mailwasher is particularly good because you just [double-click the email to open it, then] click a URL and you're there.

(c) I generally only fetch those remaining emails that would best be fetched for some reason [need to be stored?]

[Shugo974]

Will the installer work on windows 2000 also?

[Sylvander]

Yes it will.

I used it within Win2000Pro and it worked just fine.

[Jelly Bean]

Puppy to flash drive downloads not working. Wondering if the links need to be fixed?

[tubby]

Hi Steve, i have used your exe download to install puppy on a friends computer and there was a small error on booting.
The machine is an HP Pavilion that has pre installed win xp os, now the pre install is on hd0 and windows is on hd1,so there was no boot as the menu list was looking for hd0. It was easy enough to correct the error but maybe a windows convert may not find the problem so easy.
Thanks for the program it is a keeper.

[mikeb]

now the pre install is on hd0 and windows is on hd1,

this may be due to the presense of a recovery partition (where's my windows cd I paid for it!!!!)

mike

[tubby]

Mike you are correct, but it does throw the installation as i posted.

[steve_s]

Mike you are correct, but it does throw the installation as i posted.

Hmmm...I may have to mention something about that in the original post...most windows converts don't even have a grasp of the partitioning concept, and I don't want to scare them away with too many details, but that one may need mentioning....thanks tubby and Mike for clarifying.

Jellybean: did you get that link working? Which one specifically is out of whack? One was a more temporary file, but one of 'em should be good for some time....

[linbie]

Mike you are correct, but it does throw the installation as i posted.

Hmmm...I may have to mention something about that in the original post...most windows converts don't even have a grasp of the partitioning concept, and I don't want to scare them away with too many details, but that one may need mentioning....thanks tubby and Mike for clarifying.

Jellybean: did you get that link working? Which one specifically is out of whack? One was a more temporary file, but one of 'em should be good for some time....

In encountered the same problem - read about my trials and tribulations here.

In the process of solving the issue I learned a lot -

[steve_s]

In encountered the same problem - read about my trials and tribulations here.

In the process of solving the issue I learned a lot -

Good stuff, linbie...just Bruce B's idea of making a pupsave manually to use ext3 is worth the thread; still trying to figure that out. Good stuff.

[mikeb]

Good stuff, linbie...just Bruce B's idea of making a pupsave manually to use ext3 is worth the thread; still trying to figure that out. Good stuff.

If thats what I think you mean puppy will still only mount it as ext2.

I have modified the initrd.gz to mount as ext3 and also reiserfs.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51410
just for testing purposes but been using ext3 on puppy 4.12 for a little while now.

As for recovery partitions I believe I suggested an option should pop up or at least a warning to the user that this may be the case and perhaps give the opportunity to alter the menu.lst if they now there is such a partition.(or even have 2 entries with a try this if the other will not boot sort of thing)

mike

[finix]

This idea (at least in my head) started from this thread, so props to T_Hobbit and zandarian for the specifics on how to get the pen drive booting.

Thanks to forum member "seeker" for putting together the assembler for the PuppyInstaller idea. Great job!

I just thought Windows users want to be able to double click something and it gets installed. Horribly simple.

So using stuff from those threads and other sources I did a few exe files. Please see the attached picture for an idea about one of them. All that one does is take the stuff that is needed and puts it onto a designated location, in this case, a flash drive.

All these need to be tested! They have worked really well on a vfat (fat32) usb flash drive (for the flash drive exe) and on NTFS WinXP for the Windows Puppy 431 Installer. Please take them, test them and give feedback.

PLEASE MIRROR so that we can get these tested, make sure it is solid, then share it with everyone!

______________________________________________

Window's Users
What to do with these? The goal is that a standard Window's user would just download this, run it, install, then give Puppy a try.

**Updated: 12/04/09
Want to install Puppy to your Windows XP computer just with one program?
Download: click here. (This link works in Internet Explorer and Firefox. For information on downloading with other browsers check zandarian's post near the end of the thread, currently page 6)
This exe installer program takes Puppy 4.3.1 and does a frugal install (just makes a single folder on the drive and puts the needed files there), modifies the Windows bootloader (just adds one line of text to it) and makes a WinXP install able to boot Puppy Linux 4.3.1. Download it, install it, reboot into Puppy, give Puppy a try. If you like it, keep it; doesn't do anything to your Windows install or change any of it's files, so Windows stays the same. If you don't want Puppy, in Windows just go to add/remove programs and uninstall it. Just that simple.

MIRROR (Alternative download) 1: click here. Thanks scabz!

**Updated: 11/26/09
Want to put Puppy on a Flash drive via a Window's install program?
download: click here Please observe same limitations on available browsers as with the aforementioned WinXP installer download.

MIRROR (Alternative download) 1: click here. Thanks scabz!

Need to Boot USB from a floppy? Try this:
Here is the link for WakePup2 boot floppy exe file. This will install WakePup2 to a ready to go floppy disk. Please look further in this thread for more details if necessary.

MIRROR (Alternative download) 1: click here. Thanks scabz!

Need to Boot USB from a cd? Try this:
Download this iso file; it is very small 4-5MB (same browser restrictions on this download site as the usb exe download). Then burn the iso image to a cd and use it to boot from. Don't have a cd burning program in Window's? Might try this free one (I do ). The only purpose of this cd is to boot a Puppy Linux 4.3.1 usb flash drive.

MIRROR (Alternative download) 1: click here. Thanks scabz!

Want to do some other iso than Puppy 4.3.1?
Well, for right now,UNetbootin has a good look and may work great. It is designed to allow you to take any iso and put it on your usb; it is the next best thing to having Puppy do it for you, it seems. For right now UNetbootin may be a great source for installing other isos (thanks to forum member TomRhymer suggestion).

Please tell me what you think.

thx a lot

[finix]

thx, very useful

[2byte]

Is anyone still working on these exe installers?

This tweaked my interest so I tracked down seeker's files and looked at the basic code. As tubby reported above the code defaults to using (hd0,0) and relies on the user to manually change this if needed. However it occurs to me that boot.ini might be parsed for the correct partition. My XP, on (hd0,0), boot.ini looks like this

Code: Select all

 [boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn 

So why not get the disk and partition info from this and adjust things? Wouldn't it be disk(0) and partition(1) that need checking?

[DaveWBX]

What us time served windows types need, is some comprehensive cross reference between what we want to do (and know how to on w'doze) to get the same (or as close as) result in Puppy.

For example, installing a program, and creating a shortcut that works etc. Manually. There are many truly good bits of software out there, that do not and never will have a .pup or .pet installer.

We need to know from first principles how to do it the old school way. Sadly, the helps (local or net based) have long ago lost that info.

I know how to import a project source tree, configure, make, make install etc on other linux's too. But where to get the needed development files and tools in Puppy? There seem to be no .pup's or .pets with all that stuff.

Puppy is nice and easy to use, with what's there, or already "Pup'ed" and ready for it, but it's just soooooooooooo time consuming and frustrating to get anything else working.

I've just spent most of this Saturday, getting Puppy onto a hard drive, and trying to get a Java app to run, unsuccessfully so far (the .jar is not associated with the JRE is my best guess) Where as, in parallel with that, I've reloaded Vista onto two machines for friends, and done both service packs (not without issues) on each, and all the updates etc. They work, I still can't get my wanted app to run on Puppy!..

Going up the pub now!

Cheers.

Dave.

[nooby]

Dave, use this search and try to find the threads where develoeprs of pets describe how they do it and looks at the puppy wikka too

http://www.wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html

[DaveWBX]

Thanks Nooby.

That search works much better than the php forums own, thanfully. Some help learnt already.

I have to wonder (as it's my work too, in a way) if anyone collates the results of the searches, as for example, it seems "how to create a shortcut" (or similar) is a very common question. OK, it's been answered many many times or so it seems, but that sort of implies that the help system could be much better, or something else done to reduce new users need to ask that (and similar) questions. Perhaps time served Pup keepers are too close to the system to appreciate it?

Thanks again anyway. I now have a shortcut, but the app still doesnt work!.. Oh well.

Dave.
(G0WBX)