MultiPup CD/DVD/USB Creator

[gcmartin]

Recent issues with booting USB:
Build of USB goes without reported errors from the GUI. But, when trying to boot, I have 2 different USBs, a 2GB (build is 1.6GB to USB) and a 10GB (build is 6.4GB to USB) which boot to "GRUB", text at the top left on the screen at boot time...never reaching the expected menu. Each unit stops requiring a cold boot to boot an alternate media.

The 2GB is a stick with 3 distros built using the recent Slacko64-6074. The other unit was built using a 32bit TahrPUP-602.

2 Questions

• Ideas of what is wrong that the boot process never gets to its Menu?
• Should I change something on the USB stick to correct the problem?

Thanks in advance for recommendations

Update - a circumvention
This may not be a MultiPUP resolution, but it does circumvent the problem: Redo the bootmanager (GRUB4DOS).

• On the USB media, Copy "menu.lst" from /boot/grub/menu.lst to its root (/menu.lst)
• On any PUP, run Menu>System>GRUB4DOS config to configure the bootmanager for that USB media. See below for My example:

Hope this helps.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Interesting..
I was never big on grub4dos, because it has the word DOS in it.
I want to look at using ISO booter.
I haven't had time to contribute much lately, but I am still watching my baby evolve.
I have tested the new USB enabled versions with limited success.
I have always wanted to see this capability as a part of MultiPup.
When we get this to 100% it'll be a real boost to Puppy.
I created it for CD / DVD because that was the prevalent media at the time.
But that is rapidly changing.
In fact the first response after my first post on this thread was our dear Noobie asking for this functionality!!!
The future beckons......

[greengeek]

In fact the first response after my first post on this thread was our dear Noobie asking for this functionality!!!

I'm surprised he didnt ask for it to create the files frugally on NTFS
I miss him (and so many others who have ceased posting the last couple of years...)

[gcmartin]

"Even children get older
And I'm getting older too" ... Fleetwood Mac, Landslide

[gcmartin]

I am sure this issue is already known:
When opening GParted (using Slacko6081) I am getting the following announcement regarding the vfat MultiPUP USB stick

I selected "No".

Further, GParted shows the following about the USB partition.

BUT, ROX has no problem opening it and I can navigate interacting with the partition's contents.

Should we be worried?

[Jasper]

Updated to revision 22 to prevent installation on vfat and fat32 file systems as they don't support symlinks. It will work on ntfs but use with care.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
I originally put an error check in the script to prevent installation to vfat, ntfs, and inside a save file. It needs a return of ext filesystem to continue. Was it removed?

[Jasper]

To almost all,

gcmartin wrote:
I asked you [Jasper] to help the community where I wrote: if you have seen the problem, yourself, and know the causes, then express it to the community as it would have general applicability.

Jasper responds:
Yes, as I had already stated, I saw the problem myself and I knew the cause (again as I had already stated) and the solution (which I had already stated and explained above - not once, but twice).

More essentially:
The "problem" was raised by gcmartin, who had used “vfat

[gcmartin]

You still dont get it. @Puppyluvr shares in the very first post

After you have unpacked MultiPup, click on it
to open the MultiPup GUI...
If you try to run MultiPup from a non ext2/ext3 filesystem, (ie ntfs/fat)
a warning message will alert you and MultiPup will stop..

Thus, we are talking, AGAIN, about the script's operation. Your trash talking distracts from any solution you "think" you are trying to provide us. Look at your behavior and try understanding. And if you want to genuinely be a help, then be a helper with the community in mind when you offer solutions.

Please try refraining from your obvious behavior and certainly following any post I write.

And, so that you are aware, no one is doing anything behind your back.
Observe him as he continues this.

On another note:
Let move on in this thread. Respectfully, I ask, that we step back and allow the maintainers to assess the issue. There, very well, may not be a problem. But, Puppyluvr has already opened the discussion in a prior post.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
This is the code I used, because of symlinking.
It applies to the working directory.

#Check if you are in a Linux filesystem
stat -f -c%T $SCRIPT_DIR> /root/stat
if grep -i !="ext2/ext3" /root/stat
then Xdialog --title "Multipup CD/DVD" --msgbox "You are not in a Linux filesystem." 0 0
exit
else :
fi

[gcmartin]

This is a question to the MultiPUP devs: I was just observing the layout of latest lx PUP series distro ISOs from @PeeBee. It has zdrv, adrv, fdrv, ydrv, ...

Questions

• Is MultiPUP designed to accomodate all of these and others, currently?
  Does it properly order the assembly such all are included for boot?

Thanks in advance for your comment

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
The layering of files takes place long after MultiPups work is over.
Once the kernel and initrd take over, its all on them.

[smokey01]

MultiPup once again has been upgraded. Recently I tried to use it on Fatdog64-710 and it didn't work so the investigation began. It turned out to be a missing symlink. Because MultiPup6 uses legacy grub it requires libncurses. The grub binary is actually looking for libncurses.so.5 which doesn't exists in Fatdog64-710. The fix was simply make a symlink called libncurses.so.5 and point it at /lib/libncursesw.so.5.9.

Most pups won't have this issue as they have the libncurses.so.5 lib file or symlink. One exception is tahrpup64. It has libncurses.so.5 but it's 64bit not 32bit which legacy grub requires. Tahrpup64 has lib and lib64 directories but lib64 is symlinked to lib. They really need to be separate.

Anyway while we had the hood up we thought we would have a tinker. In MultiPup6-r22 we introduced the ability to create a MultiPup on USB flash drives. In MultiPup6-r24 we have taken this one step further. Now there is a choice of formatting the USB as Fat32 or Ext2. Adding Ext2 provides a few nice benefits over Fat32. First it's a more robust file system. It allows for much faster write speeds. Writing to a save file on a USB with Fat32 is actually quite slow especially if it's USB2. The other benefit is being able to save to a folder instead of a savefile.

We chose Ext2 rather than Ext3/4 because it doesn't do any journaling. Journaling makes the file system more reliable but it does cause a lot more writes to the USB thus reducing it's life, so the theory goes anyway. Apparently it's possible to use to use Ext4 with journaling turned off. This way you get the speed improvements and the ability to use larger files.
This was an interesting read: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/05/ext2-ext3-ext4

The new MultiPup6-r24 can be downloaded here: http://smokey01.com/software/multipup/M ... r24.tar.gz

A quick overview so you don't have to look back through the forum.

It's a tool to create a collection of Puppy Linux distributions. It will give you a choice to make the collection as an ISO so you can burn it to a CD/DVD or create a bootable USB Flash Drive. It automatically creates a menu and provides a choice of pretty graphics behind the menu system.

It's a stand alone tar.gz file and can be extracted anywhere. I suggest you extract it to a location where you have quite a bit of free disk space. The first time you run it, by clicking on the discs icon, a menu entry will be created under menu item Utility. This menu entry is updated each time you run MultiPup. So keep in mind, if you install it to a drive that's not mounted it won't run.

Symlinking is used rather than copying the distro's to save space on the drive. There's no point having two copies of each distro on a flash drive that may have limited space.

If you are on a 64bit computer a message will pop up advising you may need 32bit libs. The GRUB bootloader needs them. 32bit users should not see the message.

If you are a first time user, click on the help button and follow the steps.

If you choose the USB option the exiting partition/s will be destroyed and a new one created. It will then be formated to either Fat32 or Ext2.

Once the USB drive has been reformatted everything will be gone forever. It's very important to select the correct drive when asked. It would be a terrible thing to delete your main hard drive, so be very careful. Flexibility provides Power and Risks.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Will give it a test! Great to see MultiPup continue to grow!

[Puppyt]

Thank you smokey01, for this great tool - it had totally been off my radar before today. I've jumped most of the thread in my attempts to test multiple pupplets on a CL900 tablet. Probably a rare situation - I can't use the BT keyboard or touchscreen to make selections - the only USB port is used for the drive, no usb keyboard possible. I wonder if there's a simple workaround I could include, if you have any ideas?
The other issue is that I didn't think to prepare either intended host hdd or the USB multipup constructed, with a swap partition. Or a swap file. Any plans perhaps to automate that optional extra as a Multipup feature?
And while I'm thinking about it - are other linux distro's able to be included in the generation of a multi-storied set of distros on CD or USB drive? I'm prolly stretching issues however...
I'm taking the opportunity to give feedback while my first attempt at testing MultiPup r24, with Lighthouse 5.0.3 G with a Mariner SFS (multipup sfs inclusion), without swap anything, sits percolating for an hour after the SFS has copied to the RAM. I don't know what is happening now as the screen is blank, but will wait it out before maybe retesting Multipup with a swap and a single pupplet,
Cheers

[smokey01]

@Puppyt, if you only have one usb port why not plug in a small usb port so you have additional ports.

The other issue is that I didn't think to prepare either intended host hdd or the USB multipup constructed, with a swap partition. Or a swap file. Any plans perhaps to automate that optional extra as a Multipup feature?

I'm not sure what you mean?

And while I'm thinking about it - are other linux distro's able to be included in the generation of a multi-storied set of distros on CD or USB drive? I'm prolly stretching issues however...

If you mean like Ubuntu, RedHat etc, no.

I'm taking the opportunity to give feedback while my first attempt at testing MultiPup r24, with Lighthouse 5.0.3 G with a Mariner SFS (multipup sfs inclusion), without swap anything, sits percolating for an hour after the SFS has copied to the RAM. I don't know what is happening now as the screen is blank, but will wait it out before maybe retesting Multipup with a swap and a single pupplet

It shouldn't take that long but Lighthouse with Mariner is quite large.
If you are low on RAM then it will be slower.

How did you include the Mariner sfs with Lighthouse? Did you load the sfs then remaster or some other method?

[Puppyt]

Thanks smokey01 - I've been documenting my travails over on "Puppy Linux on Phone/Tablets: The definitive thread" and I missed your message. Yes, a USB hub was a godsend in this instance.
What I meant by the suggestion of including a swap partition (or file) option in MultiPup was probably over-engineering. In my haste I think I misinterpreted as Multipups' wiping of a target USB as also wiping the partition tables. So in my example (Motion CL900 tablet) I have a hdd with a single NTFS partition with Windows 7, no swap on board. My workaround was to use gparted after MultiPup had had its way with the USB, and manually included a swap partition in a system that didn't have that capacity previously.
I understand the caveat with non-Puppy distros being included in the mix, due to structural differences in their respective arrangements. I just wasn't sure how distro-flexible MultiPup might have been. A bonus is that you include ext2 etc compatibility - much better than what I understand unetbootin requires in its fat32-only support.
I included the Mariner SFS as part of the options in MultiPup (Step 4 from memory). I wasn't able to get that arrangement working properly due to issues with Series5-era Xorg, but when I used Xvesa my brief experiment with LightHouse503 wasn't promising. I suspect now that only the 64-bit versions of LH had touch sensitivity working OOTB, judging from gcmartins comments regarding Puppy on tablets. So not a great test. And, due to shortcomings with various bootoloaders and lack of touch sensitivity or BT keyboard support, the opportunity to actually make selections in my tablet are severely constrained - unless I plug in a usb keyboard, and then MultiPup works really well. I've been having problems with actually booting successfully but I feel that is more related to hardware issues at my end. Cheers

[Max Headroom]

G'day PuppyLuvr & CatDude & Co, I'm a former MultiPup User about 5 years ago, But Actually Wtd 2 Boot from the iso, so when I discovered isobooter I thought I'd found the Holy Grail, But Alas I can't Boot Series 1 Puppies or Series 2 Puppies, which as I Recall Historically the Team on this Thread Conquered, Any Chance I / We can Summons your Scripting Skills & Puppy eXperience 2 Advize the Best Syntax? eg. puppy acpi=off ide=nodma pmedia=cd etc

As Discussed Over here @ http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 019#976019

:)K

[greengeek]

Hi Maxheadroom - i used to have problems booting series 2 pups and stumbled across a menu.lst entry somehwre (maybe in the ttuuxxx 2,14 thread??) that suggested a boot parameter something like:

Code: Select all

root=/dev/ram0

Series 2 puppies had a different init structure and had to build their ram init differently (or something...??)

Sorry I can't be more specific - but i think this is an area of crucial difference between series 2 pups and later. Hopefully some old puppian will still remember what syntax (grub or other...) is needed.

cheers!

[Max Headroom]

Thanx GreenGeek 4 your response, But Alas that wasn't the answer, yet according 2 My iNet Searches that's the Correct Boot Parameter & also I Mounted a Puppy 2.02 CD & opened the isolinux.cfg as Txt & Confirmed that root=/dev/ram0 is Correct, Yet it just won't boot!

I Sure Wish 4 sum Superior Wisdom 4 a way 4ward...

:)K