However, sometimes I encounter laptops that do not boot from any of the sticks I have prepared - I had one today (Acer) which kept telling me that my stick was not bootable and asking for me to install a bootable USB floppy - even though I had selected USB-HDD as my boot choice.
I am keen to hear what other Puppians do to prepare their usb sticks for maximum boot compatibility. What is your favourite method, and/or your most reliable puppy to boot from?
cheers!
EDIT : March 2017
See below for some specific / useful variants:
My personal favourite:
After trying various suggestions in this thread and others I have settled on a method which seems to give me the best boot compatibility across all of my hardware (none of which is UEFI capable - see other links at end of this post for UEFI).
My reason for needing a solid reliable method is that I like to carry a bootable usb stick with me so I can install and configure my favourite customised Puppy on friends machines. I prefer to work with an 8GB or 16GB stick which also contains a swap partition - as that helps me during the remaster/reconfigure phase of the installation.
This process is a combination of methods suggested in various threads by Linuxcbon and Rcrsn51 along with some comments from myself. I will post it here so I never lose it again:
Code: Select all
How to make a bootable usb stick that has maximum compatibility and load Puppy to it:
Combo of Linuxcbon's instructions and rcrsn51's instructions,
with some steps/comments added by greengeek:
@L means steps suggested by Linuxcbon
@R means steps suggested by Rcrsn51
@G means additions by Greengeek
@G Note: I find that my hardware significantly prefers the use of syslinux 3.73 for this process.
@G: newer versions of syslinux cause boot failures on some of my PCs.
@L: If stick is not new - mount stick and backup important data from the USB stick to another place.
@G: Unmount and remove stick after copying data off.
@L: PLUG THE USB STICK IN.
@G: Type: "dmesg" to identify what device number the system sees the stick as (eg sdc sdd etc)
@L: From a linux distribution, for example the USB stick is recognized as /dev/sdc
@G: Use gparted to set up stick as follows:
@G: From "Device" menu select "create partition table" (deletes all data)
@G: Calculate your partition sizes as follows, depending on how big your stick is:
@G: Create Partition 1 = FAT32 (4GB or less).
@G: Create Partition 2 = EXT2 (Set size to however much of your stick is left after allocating space for partition 1 and 3).
@G: Create Partition 3 = LinuxSwap (up to 6GB if poss to allow maximum space for remastering etc).
@G: Set boot flag and lba flag on partition 1
@L: INSTALL THE MBR TO THE USB STICK:
@L: Stick should still be unmounted during this process.
@G: (- Add possible command here to identify what is or is not mounted)
@G: Take care to ensure you are writing to the correct device ! ! !
@L: In a terminal type the following:
dd bs=440 count=1 conv=notrunc if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdc
@G: (Note that a partition number is not specified!)
***
@G: INSTALL THE BOOTLOADER:
@R: 1) Determine the device name of your flash drive partition. It should be something like sdb1. But making a mistake with the device name can cause bad things to happen. Buyer beware.
@R: 2) Plug in the flash drive but don't mount it. In a terminal type the following:
syslinux /dev/sdxy
where sdxy is the flash drive partition (including number). This installs the syslinux bootloader.
@G: Note: I only use syslinux 3.73 for this process as it is by far the most compatible with older hardware in my experience.
@R: 3) Mount the flash drive and make a file named syslinux.cfg containing the following line:
default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash
@G: (Note that you should also be able to see a file called ldlinux.sys which was created in that partition in the previous step)
***
@R: Load CD and mount it.
@G: (Or use some other media that contains the Puppy files you wish to boot from)
@R: Copy the 3 puppy files to the same partition as the syslinux.cfg
@G: The usb stick should now be bootable.rcrsn51 tutorial:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=54566
Linuxcbon tutorial:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=96187
L18L manual method:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 455#894455
Festus method:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 436#894436
Watchdog comment re UEFI setup
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 692#946692
Sylvander highlighted isobooter from rcrsn51:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67235
.
.
Hello,
)
