Step by Step: Installing Puppy Linux to Your Hard Drive

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kb9tua
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue 28 Jun 2005, 04:14

puppy hd install

#41 Post by kb9tua »

Here's how I did it. Very simple and from one of the hd install examples.

First I installed SUSE 10.0 and partitioned the hd (one excusively for puppy). I then copied vmlinuz, image.gz and usr_cram.fs into that partition (below the 1024 boot section). Then I opened the grub.conf(/boot/grub/grub.conf) file (operating from SUSE 10.0). Next, I typed in the following between other grub menu choices:

---------------------------------------------
title Puppy Linux
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup1-none-524288 PHOME=hda3
initrd /image.gz
---------------------------------------------

hda3 aka hd0,2 happens to be the partion that I set aside for puppy. I saved the file and re-booted. The grub bootloader came up with my Puppy Linux selection. When I selected it...the dog was running from my hard drive. The SUSE option still works too. Two, count em. Two Linux OS's and no windows to speak of. I also have a home LAN set up. My Linux box and my wife's Winbox going into a router then into a cable modem. I can access files on her Winbox from both puppy and SUSE as well as surf the net. What more could a comp-nerd ask for.

atwin
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri 10 Mar 2006, 13:50

It works... :-)

#42 Post by atwin »

The install procedure works fine...

Thanks

:D

TPittman
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri 21 Apr 2006, 06:31

HardDiskInstall

#43 Post by TPittman »

The links here seem to be mostly broken. Frex,

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/HardDiskInstall

turns up 404 not found.

I bought a dual-boot PC (WinXP+Linux) "everything installed and working." The linux is DOA (more accurately, in a Terri Schiavo coma: appears functional but unable to do anything), and I want to replace it with Puppy (which actually works :-) but I know nothing at all about the three Linux partitions except that one is named "Swapfile". Are there instructions for doing this? I have no basis in knowledge nor experience for knowing which of the many options Puppy offers to select from.

Tom Pittman

muggins
Posts: 6724
Joined: Fri 20 Jan 2006, 10:44
Location: hobart

#44 Post by muggins »

tom,

if your the linux on your hard disk is non-functional, & you're going to wipe it & install puppy, this is easy to do, but you have to know what partitions you've got & what's on them.

linux fdisk is a powerful, & easy to use utility, (when you know how), that will give you such info. here's a link to a guide to using fdisk:

http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Installati ... fdisk.html

all you need to do is boot your puppy cd, open a console window, type "fdisk /dev/hda", then type "p", to show your partition info, then just write down which partition your linux is on ,& where your swap is, then "q" will quit without changing anything.

then you've got to decide if you want an option1 or option2 install. because i'm to lazy to go into the first, i'll only mention the latter install. just select the puppy "install to hard drive" option, select "2", then enter the appropriate partition, then follow the rest of barry's prompts.

one thing to be wary of though, with your windows xp partition, is that whereas puppy has no problems writing to xp on a fat32 partition, doing so to an ntfs installation is fraught with danger.

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

hd boot

#45 Post by smog »

when I installed puppy on to my hard drive and used the grub file below;

title Puppy Linux
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup1-none-524288 PHOME=hda5
initrd /image.gz

puppy boots from the hd if the puppy dvd is not in the drive, BUT if the dvd is in the pc, it still boots from the dvd, not the hard drive.

Any ideas how I can force the hard drive to boot even when the dvd is in the dvd drive?

Thanks

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#46 Post by tempestuous »

Change the Boot Sequence in your bios.

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

hd boot

#47 Post by smog »

tempestuous, you must be sick of me!!

I should have been more detailed in my description.

I have got hd boot first in my bios. What happens is, if I boot the machine with no dvd in I get the grub menu list, select puppy and it boots off the hard drive and uses the .3fs file on the hd, BUT;

if the dvd is in the drive, I boot the machine, it loads grub off the hard drive, I select the same puppy option from grub and it seems to start booting off the hard drive initially but when it starts looking for the setup files and the .3fs file it ignores what's on the hard drive and finds the files on the dvd and switches over to the dvd version!

Any ideas? Cheers

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#48 Post by tempestuous »

OK, so the compressed image and/or pupfile are being loaded from the DVD.
First, let's make sure we're all on the same page:
Do you have Puppy1x or Puppy2 installed to hda5?
"image.gz" is the Puppy1x initial ramdisk, and "PFILE" and "PHOME" are Puppy1x boot parameters.

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

hd install

#49 Post by smog »

OK I might be in for another round of embarrassment!!!

I had 1.9 installed but now have 2.01 on hda5.

I just tweaked the grub conf to:
title Puppy2
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off PFILE=/dev/hda5/pup_201.sfs-none-524288 PHOME=hda5
initrd /initrd.gz

and this boots from the hd when the dvd is not in the drive, but not with the dvd in.

I get from your question that I have probably goofed with this....?

Thanks for your help yet again.

User avatar
Sit Heel Speak
Posts: 2595
Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
Location: downwind

#50 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

Pardon me for kibbitzing here, but, try this:

timeout 5
default 0

title Puppy2 when DVD is not in drive
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off PFILE=/dev/hda5/pup_201.sfs-none-524288 PHOME=hda5
initrd /initrd.gz

title Puppy2 when DVD is in drive - first guess
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off PFILE=/dev/hda6/pup_201.sfs-none-524288 PHOME=hda6
initrd /initrd.gz

title Puppy2 when DVD is in drive - second guess
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off PFILE=/dev/hda4/pup_201.sfs-none-524288 PHOME=hda4
initrd /initrd.gz

title Puppy2 when DVD is in drive - third guess
rootnoverify (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off PFILE=/dev/hdb5/pup_201.sfs-none-524288 PHOME=hdb5
initrd /initrd.gz

We know the first one works. The question in my mind is, if one of the next three works, then why is your DVD being seen as a hard drive?

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#51 Post by tempestuous »

You have an unhappy mix of Puppy1 & 2 settings ... and possibly files.
Forget about "PFILE" and "PHOME". These are only recognised in Puppy1x. In Puppy2 you need "PMEDIA"
Based on your existing grub.conf, it should be -

title Puppy2
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /initrd.gz

But this is only correct if the Puppy2 installer put vmlinuz and initrd.gz at the top directory of hda5.
I would have guessed that these 2 files would have been put in /boot
If so (?) grub.conf would be -

title Puppy2
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

pup_201.sfs (the compressed filesystem) MUST be at the top directory.

And be careful about what version of "vmlinuz" (the kernel) you have. The name is identical with both Puppy1 and 2, but Puppy1's will be 1.023MB and Puppy2's will be 1.59MB.

Only disable acpi if you have a pre-2000 computer, or it's causing some form of hardware/irq problem.

User avatar
Sit Heel Speak
Posts: 2595
Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
Location: downwind

#52 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

Ah--of course. It is me who was in for the round of embarrassment. PMEDIA=idehd and put a dummy marker file PUPXIDE in the top directory. :oops: :roll:

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

grub

#53 Post by smog »

Yes that's done the trick, thanks again for the help, what would I do without you?!?!

Thanks to all those who have made suggestions.

I had a problem with Windows XP (at work!) last week so I e-mailed Bill Gates to ask for help, oddly enough, I am still waiting for a reply. During that time I have benefitted from instant responses and successful outcomes with Puppy, why do people insist on using Microsoft products???

As an aside, if I remove the PMEDIA=idehd, it still boots from grub using the setup files from the dvd. I do need to use acpi=off to prevent a lockup during boot so booting the dvd from grub with the acpi=off command is actually quite useful, is it safe to do that or should I really be booting straight from the dvd using the bios boot options?

Cheers

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#54 Post by tempestuous »

OK, you need "acpi=off" ... although I would check that your bios has "PnP OS = NO" - this is important for all Linux installations.

Generally if your computer supports ACPI, the operating system should have its ACPI features enabled, otherwise you can get hardware problems like sound not working, USB not working etc. But it's quite safe to disable it.

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

hd install

#55 Post by smog »

my laptop bios has no reference to PnP OS, might it be called something else or should I just put up with no acpi?

Thanks

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#56 Post by tempestuous »

The equivalent bios setting for IBM laptops was called "Quickboot". Or perhaps Samsung assumes you will only ever use Windows, so this bios setting has been removed.

There is a boot option you could try which achieves a similar thing - "pci=biosirq". This may work for you instead of "acpi=off" and it won't disable your entire ACPI subsystem.

smog
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue 13 Jun 2006, 12:52

hd install

#57 Post by smog »

Thanks yet again....!!

The pci=biosirq boot option does work and does give more functionality than acpi=off. You have now resolved a problem that I didn't even ask about.

All that's left now is for you to solve a problem I don't yet know I've got !!!!! There's a challenge........

Cheers

bandoba
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu 12 Oct 2006, 21:21

#58 Post by bandoba »

tempestuous wrote:You have an unhappy mix of Puppy1 & 2 settings ... and possibly files.
Forget about "PFILE" and "PHOME". These are only recognised in Puppy1x. In Puppy2 you need "PMEDIA"
Based on your existing grub.conf, it should be -

title Puppy2
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /initrd.gz
I have one question on this same topic. I am using Toshiba TECRA 8100 which already has 3 partitions.
hda1 - 1GB - partition which has GRUB and puppy system files
hda2 - 6 GB - empty for now
hda3 - 3 GB - ext3 data partition that I want to use as home

my grub.conf has these lines

title Puppy2
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd PHOME=hda3
initrd /initrd.gz

With this Puppy2 boots and works fine. But it doesn't use hda3 as my home. Here are my questions...

1. Does Puppy2 understand and use PHOME variable? On their wiki, it says this is Puppy 1.x specific setting. If not, how do I make it use hda3?
2. What does PMEDIA=idehd tell puppy to do?

More info - Eventually, I am planning to use hda2 for Ubuntu or some other OS and would like to share hda3 among all these different OSes. Can I do this?

TIA.

kalleanka
Posts: 31
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 15:51

#59 Post by kalleanka »

"And be careful about what version of "vmlinuz" (the kernel) you have. The name is identical with both Puppy1 and 2, but Puppy1's will be 1.023MB and Puppy2's will be 1.59MB. "

I always rename wmlinuz to wmlinuzpup in grub and ofcourse the file itself. So now I will use wmlinuzpup2. It works.

budden
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu 25 Aug 2005, 04:46

Install 2.12 to hd w/o working CD

#60 Post by budden »

I'd like to upgrade a Sony Vaio Picturebook (PCG-C1X) from Puppy 1.07 to 2.12. I'm stuck.

- This box has a CDROM with a PCMCI interface. 1.07 will boot from that, but later 1. won't without hiccups and none of the v2 versions do.

- box has a USB port, but won't boot from it.

I have three partitions now:
- /hda2 has 1.07 (its actually SimplePup with XFCE but that's not relevant here).
- /hda3 which is where I want to put 2.12
- /hda4 is a swap cylinder


I've tried these:
- booting 2.12 from CD.
- using 1.07 to install 2.12
- copying /usr/sbin/puppyinstaller into the 1.07 partition and using it to install 2.12

If any of these worked, I'd not be making this post....;-)

Any ideas?
Rex Buddenberg

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