How to install 2.12 on blank hard drive?

[pinscher]

Hi All,

I have searched but can't find the answer to this one.

I want to install onto a 20 gb hard drive in a p4 1.6ghz with 768 Mb ram.

I do not have any dos or windows disks.

What I do have is the Puppy 2.12 disk and the GParted Live 0.3-1 disk.

I assumed this would work: I used GParted to erase all partitions and left the hard drive as free space. But then the only option for installing puppy from the live cd was to install it as a superfloppy. Puppy wanted to format it as an ext3. I did that but it was impossible to boot from the hard drive.

Many posts refer to using your old partitions or coexisting with windows, which I don't want to do.

The question is, considering puppy will be the only os on that drive, how should I partition it with GParted (which can do all the common partitioning types). I will not need to "interact" with windows. Also, isn't a swap recommended?

Thanks!

steve

[Sage]

No need for the the GPartEd CD. Start up your Puppy CD with pfix=ram. Use GPartEd from within Puppy (for some reason I don't understand, it works better!), or I prefer cfdisk at the CLI. [Might want to physically remove 256/512Mb to use somewhere else - that much not generally needed for Puppy?]. Create as many Linux partitions as you think you might need and a swap partition of 256Mb.
At the prompt - be sure to format both, ext2 for the main Linux partition; this is the step that most folks miss, and is different from the series-1 Puppy.
Reboot and use the wizard to install Puppy. Watch to see if the swap is recognised and deployed during start up - it can be switched on <swapon /dev/hda*> if not and a command to that effect edited into the /etc/rc.local.
All this is described in greater detail here. If you're not too sure what to do just run a Search.

[pinscher]

Sage, Thank you for your response! I will try that tonight and let you know how it goes.

[laptopnewbee]

[quote"Sage"]At the prompt - be sure to format both, ext2 for the main Linux partition; this is the step that most folks miss, and is different from the series-1 Puppy. [/quote]
i have been told that ext3 is better than ext2, and have been using ext3 for all linux partitions other than swap.

with 786 megs of ram i don't see the point of the reboot after formating other than to see if the swap works.

if there are no puppy save files on any hdd i don't see why one would use the pfix=ram bootup, wouldn't the puppy cd boot that way the first time anyway?

[pinscher]

Well I tried your suggestions, but only get black screen when I reboot. Thanks for your help anyway. Puppy runs fine from the CD, I just don't have a cd burner so thought it would be handy to run it from the hard drive.

[Sage]

Don't give up yet!
If Xorg won't work use XVesa. There are start up codes, too.
Believe me - this thing does work. I prefer full HD installation for lots of reason and haven't had a failure recently.

[pinscher]

Xorg didn't work for me at all, so I had already switched to using XVesa. I can't even run the CD Live with Xorg. I probably won't give up, just need to take a break! I really like puppy on the CD, and I hope to get it going on my hard drive soon.

Taking a look at GuestToo's post:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13551

It sounds like maybe it is just my particular hardware. I don't know. But certainly I can run the live cd no problem. I've tried both options Normal and Coexist and I've tried putting grub in all the wrong places. I made sure I had ext2, and I've tried ext3 so for now I'm....taking a break!

[Sage]

That's the way it is!
Your kit is way over specified. Never did like P4 or any Intel stuff. Perhaps you've got some older junk lying around?

[alienjeff]

I'm curious whether your computer is a desktop or laptop and what brand. Sometimes this info helps.

My own 2.12 install to a blank hard drive on my laptop was from the opposite end of the technological timeline (Gateway Solo 5150, 233 MHz/288M RAM), though some info may be helpful. Without going through all the bloody details, the following is what I ended up having to use in Grub's menu.lst file for Puppy to work:

Code: Select all

#Linux bootable partition config begins
title Frugal Puppy 2.12 (on /dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 ro vga=normal PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Though my install is frugal vs full, the point of this post is that for certain machines the boot commands can end up being a far cry from "the norm." Had it not been for this forum and especially Cricket on the Puppy IRC channel coming up with the last "key to the lock," I'd probably still be pulling my hair out by the roots. heh.

Hang in there! You'll unlock the secret.