Simple Installer

[ecomoney]

Heres what happens a lot to me

I get called to a malfunctioning windows computer. I install puppy and tell them to boot from the CD to go into it.

Then either one of two things happen

1. They use puppy from then on learn to love it, but it annoys them having to boot from cd.

2. They stay using doze, this annoys them more and they decide to have another look at puppy but they have lost or damaged their cd, they call me to drop another round which I tend to forget to do!!!

May we have a *SIMPLE* way of putting puppy perminantly on the hard disk for with an easy wizard (preferably under the wizard wizard) so that it will install a bootloader for puppy + windows (95% of people still use it) or even just puppy. The cd will not be required after that. This would not mean manually editing files or talking about LILO or GRUB or Partitions or any concepts apart from "starting the computer without a CD". Would save me a bunch in blank cd's too!!!!

Several people who I have installed puppy for have requested this.

[pinscher]

I would have to second this. I have tried probably a dozen times since yesterday to install puppy to my blank hard drive. I think I have tried every option at every turn. And it just doesn't happen.

The wizard idea is good, but right now I would just be happy with a procedure that works.

[GuestToo]

May we have a *SIMPLE* way of putting puppy perminantly on the hard disk for with an easy wizard

yes ... and no

the only simple way is to use Grub (or Lilo, but Grub is easier to work with)

Win 9.x and Win ME and Win XP boot differently, so while linload, gujin, grun4dos, etc etc can be used, it is not really simple

after installing Grub to the mbr, thhere would be a simple menu when booting to choose to boot Puppy or Windows ... and one of them would boot by default after a timeout of 10 or 20 seconds

but Grub (or Lilo or any boot loader) can have problems with some hardware ... there is no guarantee that installing a bootloader for Puppy will work properly on any machine

to install Puppy to a Windows machine is not difficult

assuming you are running Puppy 212 from a cd, and that the Windows partition is /mnt/home (it may not be) and assuming that the cd is mounted on /mnt/hdc (it may not be):

cp /mnt/hdc/vmlinuz /mnt/home
cp /mnt/hdc/initrd.gz /mnt/home
cp /mnt/hdc/pup_212.sfs /mnt/home
cp /mnt/hdc/zdrv_212.sfs /mnt/home

mkdir /mnt/home/boot
mkdir /mnt/home/boot/grub
cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/* /mnt/home/boot/grub/
rm -f /mnt/home/boot/grub/stage2_eltorito

put a menu.lst file in /mnt/home/boot/grub that would look something like this:

default 0
timeout 10
fallback 1

title = Puppy
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /initrd.gz

title = Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

to install Grub, run grub and type:

root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

this can all be done from a script, of course

this will usually work, but there may be problems

Grub may not work properly with the hardware or the bios ... you may need to reinstall the Windows boot mbr

you may need to add certain kernel boot options, depending on the hardware ... for example, noapic nolapic apm=off acpi=off and/or nomce

it would be simpler if there was just one kind of hardware and software to deal with, like a Mac ... but with Windows machines, you are dealing with a variety of hardware and software, so it's not quite so simple

[ecomoney]

Thanks for the tips guestoo, this is the simplest and best explaination I have seen on the forum so far, but I fear it would still be way over the heads of most home users. What would be a great feature of puppy is if it could analyse the hardware and just install a simple bootloader for a standard setup of one large fat32 or ntfs drive to boot either windows or puppy, it was more of a feature request.

As I have said, what generally happens is that windows starts getting used less and less as people use puppy more. Quite a few people I know dont ever want to use windows ever again after a week or so with puppy, or their windoze installations are so virused out as to be unusable.

How could I make their computers (and mine for that matter) just boot a single version of puppy from the hard disk. Note I would still like them to use the "frugal install' (method) where they have their pup_save.sfs/pup001. Would be fine to reformat partions to NTFS or whatever using gparted as the computer would be purely puppy.

P.S. Were also going to start selling puppied computers to raise funds for the cybercafe drop in centre so this would be useful for that too, and the computers there (people leave the cd's out and I get a call to say "the computers have broken"!!!).

[klhrevolutionist]

ecomoney: If "they" wanted to wipe out the windows partition after using & enjoying puppy so much a frugal install script could be made. In fact that would
probably be the best way.. I am not sure as I have only tried a pupfile long time ago. I enjoy the ole' hard drive method.

It is good to see that you all will be offering puppy machines for sale.

[ecomoney]

Well I must confess I havnt tried the "full hard disk install" method, what are the advantages? I use the pupfile method because people can back it up to a cd in one shot, and a simple pre-configured installation file can be copied to multiple computers. This seems to be best for the harsh environment that is the community sector in Lincolnshire, where every day is a struggle for survival against the clock It was puppys capability for this that was one of the main reasons we adopted the distro in the beginning.

I think "offered for sale" was not exactly accurate. Actually people have been asking me and the cybercafe if they can buy computers from us, because the cybercafe computers are so much faster than the new ones they have at home!!! Most of them dont know the difference between "windows" and "linux", and dont even realise that the computers arnt running microsoft software and have been sourced from the back of a dumpster!!!

Will be making regular donations to the puppy project as soon as the money starts rolling in

[GuestToo]

yes, i know what you are doing (good work, by the way ...) ... and i know what you want to do

i have mostly used Grub to boot Puppy (and other distros and Windows too) ... other methods can be used, like linload or grub4dos, but Grub is probably as easy as any to install ... of course, anyone with simpler or better methods are welcome to post to this thread

one problem, is that Grub probably won't work properly with every possible kind of hardware ... for example, the mbr might be locked by the bios, and can't be written to without going into the bios first, and disabling the antivirus protection ... using grub4dos wouldn't need to write to the mbr ... but grub4dos would need to be installed differently, depending on if you have Win 9.x or WinXP

and Grub may not work properly with the particular hard drive that the machine has

Puppy can run without swap space, or Puppy can use swap partitions and/or swap files ... swap partitions are better than swap files, but it's usually more difficult to repartition a drive than to make a swap file ... it's usually better to have swap space available than not, especially if the size of the ram is limited

handling all of this from a script can be a challenge, not really simple

personally, i have never installed Puppy from a Puppy installer script, so i don't know how well they work ... and i have never installed Puppy as a full normal install to a dedicated partition (i have a frugal install) ... there are advantages and disadvantages to both installation methods ... one advantage of a normal install, is that unionfs is not needed (unionfs is a little buggy)

another alternative might be to make a system restore CD ... Norton's Ghost could be used to ghost a small fat32 partition, and i think it can fit the image to the size of the drive (i think Ghost stores the individual files of the file system, as opposed to storing a byte-for-byte image of the drive) ... but it is not a free program ... there are free programs, like partimage or savepart, but i think they save byte-for-byte images (well, savepart may not ... http://www.partition-saving.com/ )

it may not be practical to try to install to various kinds of hardware from one system restore CD

i don't think it would be possible to write a program that would be guaranteed to work with any and all hardware

it's not really trivially easy to install an operating system ... though it's usually much easier to install Puppy than Windows (unless you are using a system restore disc ... but a system restore disc can be made for any operating system, for the particular hardware it is installed on)

[GuestToo]

it would be relatively easy to install Puppy as a frugal install from a script ... the script needs to:

1) find and mount if necessary the first partition of the drive

2) find and mount the CD disc

3) copy the 3 or 4 files from the cd to the hard drive

4) optional - check that the files on the hard drive are perfect copies

that's it, Puppy is installed (frugal install)

Puppy can boot from a cd disc or a floppy ... to boot from the hard drive the script would need to install a boot loader ... i think the easiest way to do it would be to install Grub ... the script would:

1) mkdir /boot/grub on the hard drive

2) copy the grub files to /boot/grub

3) make a menu.lst file

4) check that the files on the hard drive are perfect copies

5) run the grub program to install Grub to the mbr (easy to do)

now Puppy is installed, and should be able to boot from the hard drive

sometimes Grub might not work with the particular hardware, in which case, the machine will no longer boot to the hard drive ... it should be easy to reboot Puppy from the CD and restore the mbr to the way it was before trying to install Grub

one possible problem, some older machines might have a boot overlay if the bios can't handle a larger drive ... Grub probably can't be installed to the mbr in that case ... it might be difficult for a script to know when an overlay is installed

to repartition the drive from the install script, perhaps to create a swap partition, that might be more difficult ... for one thing, i think it's good to reboot immediately after repartitioning a drive, it's recommended when repartitioning from DOS anyway

[WhoDo]

May we have a *SIMPLE* way of putting puppy perminantly on the hard disk for with an easy wizard (preferably under the wizard wizard) so that it will install a bootloader for puppy + windows (95% of people still use it) or even just puppy. The cd will not be required after that. This would not mean manually editing files or talking about LILO or GRUB or Partitions or any concepts apart from "starting the computer without a CD". Would save me a bunch in blank cd's too!!!!

Several people who I have installed puppy for have requested this.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we already have this available in Puppy? It's called the Puppy Universal Installer and it lives under Setup on the menu.

All that is needed is a business card-sized crib sheet to tell people which options to choose.

With Win9x, you should simply choose the COEXIST option and follow the prompts. If they don't want to boot Puppy from a Wakepup floppy, then there is also a Grub installer under Control Panel.

You could give them a little "script" in hard copy at the same time as you give them the LiveCD - print it on a sticker that can be stuck inside or on the cd case.

Just a thought.

[ecomoney]

Have just downloaded and booted the latest 2.12 cd. As a side note I happened to have the a stock 2.12 pup_save.sfs template we use in the root directory of my hard disk (fat32 + 1 small linux ext2 + small swapfile) and it picked it up and upgraded with the only hitch of losing a few icons. I assumed after my experiences with upgrading 2.01 to 2.02 it wouldnt work, but hey presto! (I usually run a few versions behind so I know all the quirks have been ironed out and documented, this is a "production environment")

I tried the unviersal installer, but alas I fear it is not up to the job. Firstly it would not install to the partition that the pup_save.sfs file was on (I had to reboot in RAMDISK to run it on the partition where the pupfile was, and secondly it did not install a boot loader (rebooted without the CD in just to double check this. The terms used in it would confuse an average user, and I want to emphasise that, these people are "users" not programmers. They cant edit files and have usually never seen anything that resembles a "program".

The options to install to a flash disk etc are great and an impressive demonstration of puppy's capabilities (These would be great as "advanced installations..."), but most users just want to use their pc at home or at their office. They dont know if they have a SATA, SCSI or a IDE hard disk. Now I wouldnt mind installing a fairly technical bootloader manually myself when I set people up with pc's (as long as it was roughly the same procedure each time) , but frankly I find all the options with partions, grub etc etc completely baffling to me, and with what is going on at the moment I dont have the time to learn. Eventually I want to train others to set up computers with puppy but the learing curve needs to be shallow.

Im going to back up a bit and re-word the question, and be more precise about the requirements.

As I said, the people around me are users and not programmers. They want to be able to browse the web, write with a word processor, end and receive emails, go on IM, print pictures and posters etc etc. They fall into four main catagories.

1. They are sick of the problems with windows and they want to move over gradually to Linux while keeping their disease-ridden and slow windows installations while they learn for emergencies. Booting with a cd is fine for them in the short term (no bootloader necessary). They like the "cd in...Linux, cd-out windows" simplicity of choice and that I dont have to change anything (stick with what they know until they are sure the alternative is better!). This is puppys real strength that it can do this and users can see the two systems side by side.

2. Their windows installations are either practically unusable, or totally. It is fine by them to wipe off windows (they are usually a hairs breadth from throwing the whole thing in the dumpster). They have files on their hard disk they want to keep if they can (which I can backup to cd or pendrive for them). They are diving in and taking the plunge with Linux. I can repartition and format (whats that?) as much as I like, and turn of bios settings. and going straight in with Puppy Linux. They would prefer not to have to boot from CD.

3. They have been dual booting puppy and windows for a while, seen the benefits for themselves, figured out how to do things under puppy and are comfortable using it. The only thing that annoys them about puppy is having to boot from CD. They are fine about me repartitioning and formatting and bios settings (whats that?) as long as they can keep their stuff and it works the same afterwards (keep their pup_save.sfs file).

4. They are owners of fresh recycled pc's either for their home, their business or their community centre cybercafe. I tell them that they need the cd in to make it work. Theyre amazed at the speed and the value of their new systems, but eventually they play a music cd and their computer wont work the next day. They call me out and say the computers broken and Linux isnt so reliable after all. I would prefer to set this up so it doesnt happen.

So the question I really want to ask is.......How do I just make puppy boot from the hard disk into a frugial install (pup_save.sfs), with no CD or bootmenu, in the quickest and simplest way?

I am familiar with partitioning, reformatting (to whatever format) and swap space (thanks to Gparted in puppy 2.xx) and changing bios settings. If necessary I can install another hard dirve if the bios doesnt work properly with it, its simpler and quicker than understanding what a "boot overlay" is!)

Thank you all for your patience.

[WhoDo]

Now I wouldnt mind installing a fairly technical bootloader manually myself when I set people up with pc's (as long as it was roughly the same procedure each time) , but frankly I find all the options with partions, grub etc etc completely baffling to me, and with what is going on at the moment I dont have the time to learn. Eventually I want to train others to set up computers with puppy but the learing curve needs to be shallow.

Like I said, you can install Grub using the Grub bootloader config script from the Puppy control panel menu. With Grub, just accept all the options as defaults except the one where you want Grub to live - there you choose MBR. That's all there is to it. The boot files for Grub will be stored in the only partition you have, by default.

So the question I really want to ask is.......How do I just make puppy boot from the hard disk into a frugial install (pup_save.sfs), with no CD or bootmenu, in the quickest and simplest way?

I am familiar with partitioning, reformatting (to whatever format) and swap space (thanks to Gparted in puppy 2.xx) and changing bios settings. If necessary I can install another hard dirve if the bios doesnt work properly with it, its simpler and quicker than understanding what a "boot overlay" is!)

Thank you all for your patience.

Ok, so install Grub using the installer script and edit the resulting /boot/grub/menu.lst file to have a timeout of 0 (zero). The system will boot straight into Puppy with no boot menu.

For a frugal install all you need do is to mount the formated partition and copy vmlinuz, initrd.gz, zdrv_212.sfs and pup_212.sfs from the LiveCD to the / of the partition. Then create a /boot directory for Grub before running the Grub config script.

Don't forget to modify the /boot/grub/menu.lst file as follows:

Code: Select all

timeout 0
title PuppyLinux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
initrd /initrd.gz

Of course you will need to change this to suit where you have vmlinuz and initrd.gz stored.

On your first reboot you will be asked to save; choose save to file and your pup_save.3fs file will automatically be created for you, ready for next boot.

I have a bunch of people installing Puppy on old hardware as part of a charity project. Many don't even know Window$, let alone Linux. I give them a step-by-step script to follow for a full normal install and away they go. It's surprising how quickly they catch on! Many eventually discard the script and go for it "without a safety net". People can be almost as smart as you let them!

Hope that helps

[tentmaker_oz]

Check out this topic for more information about dual booting of the same Hard Drive

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=11896

[ecomoney]

Another five hours later...still no further on. How come just about every operating system out there installs itself on the hard disk by default, but the only one (ive found) that can co-exist with windows in a single file cannot?

WhoDo, Ive tried your instructions. Dont you mean "Unversal installer" not "Grub Bootloader Config. Puppy doesnt seem to want to do anything with my FAT32 hard disk unless it is booted into memory, rather than in than using the pup_save.sfs file in the FAT32. Ive got a smallish linux partition on my disk and the "grub bootloader config" seems to put my /boot file there by default. Ive tried copying it over to the fat 32 parition but I just get a helpul "Error 5" when I try to boot. My disk is too full with important stuff to reformat.

I think that one of the main reasons Linux hasnt taken off is because people cannot try it side by side with their existing windows installation, as windows overwrites the MBR. Puppy is the only distro Ive found that will allow this consistantly and reliably, which is (IMHO) its greatest strength. Most people use a computer as part of their job and cant risk wiping everything to try a new operating system that they may or may not be able to understand to a sufficient level to do their job. That is why they stick with windows.

All this editing grub files and configs is making my head seriously spin. Its just too complex....

tentmaker_oz: This information looks more interesting.

I got it working,

I booted with puppylinux (seamonkey) and installed to the hard drive, and created a wakepup bootdisk.
I copied all the files of the wakepup bootdisk to the root of C: drive of a Windows 98 drive. I didn't over write command.com or the dos system files (renamed them first).

I edited the config.sys and autoexec.bat files, disablind everything config.sys
and in autoexec.bat I put this as the line for LINLD.COM

LINLD.COM image=c:\vmlinux initrd=c:\initrd.gz "cl=root=/dev/ram0 rw image=pup_210.sfs"

The only other thing I would like to add is the option to boot into windows.
I tried adding a 4th option in the choices list.

I know I could do this in grub, but using the choice program I should be able to run Windows by putting c:\windows\win.com

Ive created a wakepup floppy in 2.12 and looked at the files and it seems quite straightforward. The theory seems the same whether windows 98 is installed or not.

How would this work...

1. Create a fat32 and systemize it to make it bootable (How to do this in open source only tools I wouldnt know, perhaps freeDOS?)

2. Copy the files from the Wakepup floppy.

3. Edit the Autoexec.bat file to skip all of the menus and just execute "LINLD.COM image=c:\vmlinux initrd=c:\initrd.gz "cl=root=/dev/ram0 rw image=pup_210.sfs".

For a "production environment" where there is a production line of pc's coming in to be recycled it might be possible to automate this process in a boot floppy with an appropriate batch file.

Its seems a shame to have to resort to a legacy Micro$oft program like DOS just to get puppy to boot without the CD, but out here people want results and thats all that counts.

[GuestToo]

How come just about every operating system out there installs itself on the hard disk by default

yes, they do

but you want a simple installer. That is a totally different thing.

have you ever installed Win XP on a hard drive? It's much easier than installing Win 9.x ... it took me over an hour, the last time i installed Win XP ... and after it was installed, it was barely usable ... one of the first things you need to do is install a firewall (yes, there is one built in), install security updates, applications, etc etc

I find Linux easier to install than Windows. Have you ever installed Debian to a hard drive? It is not simple, not the way want it to be. Installing Mandrake or Mandriva is more simple ... but I don't think it is nearly as simple as you have in mind.

Yes, installing Windows from a system restore cd or partition is simple and easy ... you can do the same thing with Puppy or any Linux distro, or BSD. But a system restore cd will only work on the machine it was made for, or an almost exact duplicate ... basically, a system restore cd is an image of the hard drive after the operating system was installed on it ... that is, the operating system was installed first, then the image was made.

Even easier, just buy the computer with the operating system installed, and with a system restore disc to reinstall the system ... this is easy and simple, but this is not installing the Windows operating system to the hard drive ... installing Windows is much more difficult than installing Puppy.

I can write a simple script that will work to install Puppy on many different machines, but a simple script will not work in every case ... there are too many different machines, each with different hardware.

[Pizzasgood]

installing Windows is much more difficult than installing Puppy.

It took my roommate weeks to get XP installed because it didn't recognize his HD (Puppy did, of course), and he didn't have much time to work with it.

Also, it does ask similar questions, such as which partition to use, whether to format, etc.

[ecomoney]

All it needed was four more hours and its cracked. I used the secretary's machine with the hard disk temporarily replaced.

Its 4:30am so excuse if Im a little vague. After grub refused to load on a fat32 partition I formatted the almost the whole drive (3.2 gig) to Linux ext2 with a 200mb swap file at the end using gparted. I used the pdisk drive partition manager into cfdisk to make the linux partion bootable. I then used the universal installer to install the files from the cd to the hard disk with the ATA fixed disk option (does this just copy the pup2.xx.sfs file or am I missing something?). I then used the control panel>grub bootloader config to install grub (I installed it to the linux partition and the Master Boot Record (mbr), just to be sure. I had created the "/boot" folder in the root of the linux partition just to be sure.

The pup_2.02 file was already in the root directory (from the universal installer), so I copied initrd.gz and vmlinuz off the cd into the /boot directory. After editing the menu.lst file using whodo's instructions as a guide it looked like this.

Code: Select all

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Tue Dec 12 03:09:07 2006
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/hda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.hda.2355'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.hda.2355 of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 0
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (on /dev/hda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
  initrd /boot/initrd.gz 
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd0,0)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title -     For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title -     For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

Im assuming unecessary bits can be removed.

I tried it and it booted wahey!!!

Just as an experiment I "upgraded" the files from a 2.12 disk I had handy (Ive tried a 2.02 to 2.12 upgrade before and it seems to be compatible). This worked and Im booting from it now.

Now for the whole Windows vs Linux thing, Ive recently read that linux is great because it gives you more choices. Windows doesnt give you as many choices and because of that it is easier to set up. I have installed many OS's from DOS6.2 to windows XP sp2 (not for at least two years though!). Ive also installed Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu/Edubuntu, Mandrake and Mepis and all have gone smoothly. It has given me choices and Ive installed them. I know about partitions and formatting thats fine. The installer has handled the rest. This is something quite different.....

Last time I installedx Windoze it tookm me 4 1/2 hours with all of the software/updates/antivirus etc, ok its taken me longer than that to LEARN HOW to install puppy, but not that much longer. I wont be going back for any amount of money. I do think this should be " complexity should be encapsulated" (to use a programming term). Its simply not something that can be figured out in five minutes by the average tinkerer like myself.

My aim with this (as well as keeping our current clients happy) is to setup a guide and some template pup_saves for computer recyclers. I think with the right knowledge and preparation it should be possible to get the time to recycle a computer using puppy (with a standard cd drive plus 1 hard disk, i.e. 95% of computers out there) in under ten minutes. This should make it profitable to deal with these computers which around these parts it quite frankly is not with windows. I intend to do another video of this and post it to the web, something less boring!

I will be practicing and refining the process as I go along and writing it up properly. Thank you for your help and clues along the way everyone

[ecomoney]

Ive studied the installation and theres still an issue with the bootloader. Setting a timeout=o in menu.lst of grub would seem to make it wait indefinetely. Is there a way of making it accept the default (only) choice in less than one second?

Also, the setup here is for 2.xx series puppy. What would I need to change to make it work with puppy 1.09ce (as used at the cybercafe...Im getting so annoyed with people stealing the disks!!!)

[WhoDo]

Ive studied the installation and theres still an issue with the bootloader. Setting a timeout=o in menu.lst of grub would seem to make it wait indefinetely. Is there a way of making it accept the default (only) choice in less than one second?

Yes. Remove the # from that line in menu.lst which serves to make the line a comment only - not active.

Also, the setup here is for 2.xx series puppy. What would I need to change to make it work with puppy 1.09ce (as used at the cybercafe...Im getting so annoyed with people stealing the disks!!!)

I believe that in Puppy 1.x you replace initrd.gz with image.gz - otherwise they are essentially the same for a frugal install. Others more familiar with 1.x will correct me if I'm wrong

Cheers

[WhoDo]

Now for the whole Windows vs Linux thing, Ive recently read that linux is great because it gives you more choices. Windows doesnt give you as many choices and because of that it is easier to set up. I have installed many OS's from DOS6.2 to windows XP sp2 (not for at least two years though!). Ive also installed Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu/Edubuntu, Mandrake and Mepis and all have gone smoothly. It has given me choices and Ive installed them. I know about partitions and formatting thats fine. The installer has handled the rest. This is something quite different.....

Last time I installedx Windoze it tookm me 4 1/2 hours with all of the software/updates/antivirus etc, ok its taken me longer than that to LEARN HOW to install puppy, but not that much longer. I wont be going back for any amount of money. I do think this should be " complexity should be encapsulated" (to use a programming term). Its simply not something that can be figured out in five minutes by the average tinkerer like myself.

The difference is that with Windows you don't have a choice to COEXIST with another operating system. In Puppy you do. If you use Puppy the way you have used Windows, Ubuntu, Mepis, Mandrake, etc - a NORMAL install to take over a partition that already exists, or to create a new partition - the only difference is that you use Gparted separately from the Universal Installer. Once in the PUI you just have to answer questions, like Windows et al, and you get all the choices you need, including the Grub configuration installer called automagically. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes!

My aim with this (as well as keeping our current clients happy) is to setup a guide and some template pup_saves for computer recyclers. I think with the right knowledge and preparation it should be possible to get the time to recycle a computer using puppy (with a standard cd drive plus 1 hard disk, i.e. 95% of computers out there) in under ten minutes. This should make it profitable to deal with these computers which around these parts it quite frankly is not with windows. I intend to do another video of this and post it to the web, something less boring!

I will be practicing and refining the process as I go along and writing it up properly. Thank you for your help and clues along the way everyone

What you're planning - setting up a Puppy install that can be used on old recycled PC's - is what I do every week, 2 days a week, as part of a Work for the Dole project. We take donated PC's and recycle them for donation to charity groups, community organisations, refuges, refugees, unemployed, etc.

Time is not an issue in my group, so using a script we not only install Puppy to the hard drives but also install a number of refinements such as Icewm-Ultra, wallpapers, set double click in Rox, etc to make the machines as usable to Windows users as possible. That way we reduce their learning curve to almost nil.

Good luck with your project. Getting rid of the Windows partition and forcing your users to go "cold turkey" on Linux using Puppy is the only way to go IMHO.

[GuestToo]

to boot Puppy 1.x, you would put something like this in Grub's menu.lst:

timeout 0

title = Puppy
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup001-none-262144 PHOME=hda1
initrd /image.gz

timeout 0 should make it boot immediately with no pause ... this assumes you are booting a frugal install with the Puppy files on hda1 ... this assumes the save file is called pup001 and it is about 256 megs (make it any size you like) ... this assumes that vmlinuz and image.gz are in / ... PHOME is not necessary, it forces the location of the pup001 save file ... none means no password, do not encrypt the save file

if you leave out the PFILE parameter, Puppy might use hda1 for the file system instead of a save file ... i'm not sure, i have never used Puppy that way

you can add a section to menu.lst if you want to boot Windows too ... kernel boot options can be added, like noapic nolapic nomce apm=off acpi=off apm=on acpi=on etc etc etc, depending on the hardware