Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Mechsus]

Step by Step: Installing Puppy Linux to Your Hard Drive
A Linux Newbie Guide
©hRH/Mechsus 2005

This tutorial shows you how to install Puppy Linux to a DOS formatted HD. To install Puppy
onto a HD with a pre-existing OS present (i.e. Windows) to achieve a dual boot setup, is
not covered in this how-to. If you follow this sequence, you'll end up with a HD with only
Puppy Linux and MS-DOS installed.

Software You Need:
1. A bootable copy of Puppy Linux 1.0.4 on a CD.
2. Darik's Boot and Nuke(DBN) on a Floppy.
3. MS-DOS 6.22 - usually on 3 floppy discs.

To format your Hard Drive, you could install MS-DOS onto your HD, then run 'format c:'
I prefer totally wiping out the HD using DBN, then installing MS-DOS.

Let's begin.


1. DBN How:
1. Put the DBN floppy in the drive and restart the computer (the BIOS might have to be
adjusted to boot from floppy).

2. DBN will load. At the first prompt ("boot:") type quick then press Enter. DBN will now
start to erase the HD. This will take between 15 and 60 minutes - or longer - depending
on the capacity of your HD. Remove the DBN floppy as soon as the wipe sequence starts.

DBN will go through 100 wipe cycles. You can see the numbers in the far left cell. If you
get bored, you can abort the wipe at any stage and still have a wiped HD - although not
fully wiped. When finished, partition HD & install MS DOS.


2. Partition HD using fdisk, then install MS-DOS:
Boot with MS-DOS Start Up disk. At A:\> prompt, type fdisk. you will now create
a Primary Dos Partition of at least 256 Mb (to install pup001 at Puppy boot).

1. Enter choice 1 > 1 > N ("Do you wish to use maximum...") > type 256 (partition size)
> 2 (set active partition) > 1 (number of partition).

2. Restart, and at A:\> insert MS-DOS Disk 1 > setup > choose Format this drive.
This will format the 256 Mb partition you've just created - not the entire HD.
3. Follow standard, 3 disk, Dos install.


3. Puppy Linux Install:
1. Boot from Puppy CD. At Doggie prompt "boot:" press 3.
2. At Red Text, type hda1 then Enter (for pup001 default).
3. Choose br-latin1-us keyboard, select mouse, etc.
In Puppy desktop, choose a resolution (800 X 600 is good).
4. In Puppy desktop, rvxt > type cfdisk.
5. In cfdisk > Pri/Log > New > Primary > Size = at least 500 Mb >
Beginning > Write > Yes > Quit.

Now in cfdisk, you should see something like this:

hda1----Boot----Primary-----FAT16-----[MS-DOS 6]-----271.44
hda2-------------Primary-----Linux-------------------------501.75
-------------------Pri/Log------Free Space------------------3536.88

6. Now, quit rxvt, and -- REBOOT (with Puppy CD still inside).

7. At Doggie prompt boot: press 3 > press Enter (for pup001).
You should now go directly to Puppy desktop.
8. Start > Setup > Install Puppy hard drive.
9. "Make your choice": type 2.
10. STEP 1: press Enter.
11. STEP 2: type /dev/hda2 then press y.
12. STEP 3: press Enter (to get "vmlinuz" off live-CD). CD will then eject.
13. Remove CD-ROM.
14. STEP 4: press m (or any key) then Enter (for no boot floppy).
15. STEP 5: Computer will now write tables (inode etc.) and copy files and directories.
16. STEP 7: GRUB install; press m then Enter (to install GRUB).

GRUBCONFIG V 1.24
Choose the following:
1. simple - (Try to install GRUB automatically) = OK.
2. standard - (Use the standard Linux console - the safe choice) = OK.
3. SELECT GRUB PARTITION - /dev/hda2 = OK.
4. SELECT GRUB DESTINATION - select MBR = OK.
5. Continue clicking on OK boxes until - GRUB INSTALL SUCCESS.

Final Steps:
1. Now, Reboot, and at GNU GRUB 0.96, choose INSTALL GRUB TO LINUX PARTITION.

2. Post Installation Tweak to Grub Boot File:
When you reboot your computer, you'll be presented with a GRUB boot option
of either booting into MS DOS or Linux. If you want to configure the start
sequence to automatically boot into Linux, you must edit the menu.1st file:

3. How to edit the menu.1st file:

A. In Puppy Desktop > rox > parent directory > boot > grub > menu.1st.
B. Open the menu.1st file.
C. Cut these 3 lines...

title Linux (on /dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=normal

and paste them below this line...

# Other bootable partition config begins


D. Now, you can set the timeout value:

In the line

#timeout 30

CHANGE the 30 into 10, and REMOVE the # at the beginning
of the line. Save & exit.

Now, when you start computer, it will auto-boot into
Puppy in 10 seconds.

Ends.

(Linux/Puppy experts: Improvements and suggestions welcome).

As for the Road Warrior - that was the last we ever saw of him. He lives now, only in our memories...

[BarryK]

Mechsus,
I read through your howto, very clear, can't see anything that needs changing in it, concise. Summary: great!

Though, I suppose if someone doesn't want a msdos partition, they don't have to do that, maybe if the hd is on the small size.
Because, booting from a live-CD, puppy will create the pup001 file in whatever is there, ext2, ext3, reiserfs, or vfat. A pup001 file in an installed puppy partition is no problem.

I know, installation to hd is a problem if the partition is "in use" with a pup001 in it, but you could boot the live-cd without a pupxxx, just running in ramdisk.
But, yeah, simpler to have the msdos/vfat partition -- and more flexible, to keep the pup001 file out of the way when you want to mess around with the hd installation, like wipe and reinstall.

[Bruce B]

Thanks!

My first experience with Puppy drove me nuts, until I figured out Puppy's personality.

All I wanted was for it to install the pup001 file on C: and it would not do it.

It would however install on other DOS drives. Just not the C drive.

Eventually, I figured out that it didn't install on the C: because it was FAT16. I converted it to FAT32 and it installed on the C: drive.

The version was 0.9.x - after that, I got rid of my FAT16 partitions in place of FAT32 and I've been getting along fine with Puppy and the FAT32 DOS partitions, thinking Puppy won't use the FAT16 the same as it will the FAT32.

Now I'm wondering, so I'll come right out and ask.

Barry, will Puppy use FAT16 as it does FAT32. If the answer is no, would you mind briefly explaining the difference?

[raffy]

And if there were 2 FAT32 partitions, will Puppy behave such that the priority partition for pup001 will be the second partition?

[Bruce B]

Barry - as long as I've got your attention (hopefully). I'd appreciate knowing your opnion about recommending swap files for Puppy.

I make a swap partition for any Linux installation by policy. I have 384 MB RAM, and I still notice that free often reports swap usage after some hours uptime.

My conclusion is more or less: that Puppy uses the swap file even though I have 3x the min RAM requirements, and I'm not running heavy apps as a rule.

I'd be very interested in knowing your opinions on recommending making swap files or partitions for Puppy. I think many Puppy users don't have them.

[Bancobusto]

This may not be c e r t a i n for sure, but in my experience it seems to want to install pup001 on the first available fat32 drive.

At least that's the way that it does it on my machine

[Lobster]

Have placed the info here (but it needs cleaning up and formatting)
volunteers welcome

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HardDiskInstall

also check
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HardDriveInstallBruce

[Bruce B]

MS-DOS version 6.22 FDISK has a hard drive limit of approximately 8.2 GB.

Maybe back in 1994 they thought that's all they would need it to do. I've never tried using it on a larger drive, so I can't say by experience what results a person would have or how it would perform on big drives.

I like having a bootable MS-DOS partition and some DOS software. I use MS-DOS version 7.10 and the downloadable MS FDISK with extra capacity.

If I'm setting up a drive from scratch, usually I'll install DOS. I try to anticipate my partitioning scheme in advance, and often use MS FDISK for entire partitioning process. I use it to make the primary partition, the extended partition and logical drives, which are going to be used by Linux later.

Suppose I was going to set up a big Linux distro on a 20 GB drive and only intended to have one Linux distro, I might partition it with FDISK roughly as follows:

---------------

primary 1 gb
extended the balance of drive
logical drive 526 MB
logical drive the balance of free space

----------------

Linux will see the drive like this:

hda1 1 gb (which I probably formatted as FAT prior to installing Linux)
hda5 (extended partition)
hda6 526 mb unformatted partition
hda7 approximately 18 gb unformatted partition

Many Linux setup programs set the partition types and format them during the installation process. Typically, a distro setup (they vary so much) would want to default install on hda7 and make a swap file on hda6.

You just tell it OKAY or if it doesn't see it your way, define the / and swap partitions.

The point of this post is: to explain how one can use MS-DOS FDISK to successfully create the entire partitioning scheme for Linux if you want.

[Walt H]

In his message signature, Raffy has the following:

[Bruce B]

[Mechsus]

[BarryK]

regarding a pup001 on fat16 partition, i don't see any reason why not.
it is a limitation of the rc.sysinit boot script.
i think the probepart program identifies a fat16 partition as "msdos" and a fat32 as "vfat" ...i think. and the script ignores any msdos partitions.
I can't recall any reason for that limitation, maybe i just assumed all hard drives not yet taken to the rubbish tip would be fat32.

[Lobster]

Based on the mature and stable freedos
http://www.freedos.org/

would it be possible to have a PuppyDOS boot disk for HD installation using this method?

[danleff]

[Lobster]

Not done yet Danleff

A lot of editing always available on the wiki - it is quite a relaxing and satisfying task - but we have quite a lot of pages now

The two most useful buttons are the bold and indent and outdent

- it helps to be able to spot spelling mistakes