How to Install Wary Puppy 5.5 as only OS on old WindowsXP?

[heatherirene]

Please, forgive me, I'm super new, never used Linux before yesterday. But, I have an old Dell Inspiron 1000 running Windows XP. My nephew and I want to re-image it with Wary Puppy 5.5. We've already created a bootable CD-ROM (of Wary Puppy 5.5) with the downloadable ISO at puppylinux.org. We've already successfully booted the old Dell w/ the Wary Puppy 5.5 CD via the BIOS of the old Dell. What we want to do next is uninstall Windows XP and install just Wary Puppy 5.5 as the only OS on the old laptop. But, no idea how to do that. And, couldn't find directions for doing this for Wary Puppy 5.5. (Note, we want to get rid of Windows XP totally and just have the Wary Puppy as the OS, not run Wary Puppy installed in Windows and if possible not boot from Wary Puppy CD we made. Is this possible?)

Some background info: There's nothing on the old PC's hard drive that we need to keep. I already made a bootable CD of Windows XP, just in case. (I don't know where I put the og disc for it.) The old Dell Inspiron 1000 has a 30G HDD. And, we've already upgraded the RAM to 1.25G (from its original 256MB). The laptop was purchased in 2002 or 2001. (It's older than my nephew, lol!) We already booted from a CD the Wary Puppy 5.5 and got on the internet and surfed around w/ SeaMonkey browser. Everything seemed to work w/ the Warry Puppy 5.5 (everything we need anyway). The end goal is have only the Warry Puppy 5.5 as the OS and then give the old laptop to my nephew. We're doing this project together.

Also, note, I don't think this old brick of a laptop will run anything for newer PCs; I think it has to be the Wary Puppy version of Puppy Linux.

Ok, sorry for the total newbie question, but totally stuck. Thank you in advance!

[ally]

welcome

boot from the cd

run gparted from the system menu

format the drive with ext3 but create a 3gb 'swap file' at the end of the drive

(using gparted delete the original partition and apply, create new partition with an ext3 format, drag the right hand slider left so it leaves 3gb at the end, using this space create the swap file (select from the format menu), then apply

now you have a fresh disk

run puppy installer from the system menu, follow the instructions for a FRUGAL install

follow the instructions for the bootloader or run grub4dos separately from the system menu

puppy is now installed

reboot and remove the disk whilst it's rebooting

when puppy boots, follow the setup instructions (timezone, keyboard etc.

it will ask to restart x

stop and reboot, it will ask if you want to create a savefile, answer yes

select a file size you think suitable, personally I run 4gb but one would be sufficient (you can increase it later if needed

when it reboots you are ready to go, set up wifi or ethernet etc


although you have chosen wary a newer version may be better suited as it will include a newer browser

tahrpup is a good choise

with a frugal install you can try several and dual boot them

when you get this far and you have had a play come back for more info



ps - all the above sounds complex but just follow the instructions along the way, it will be around 15 minutes if you just plod along

[heatherirene]

Thank you, Ally! I will try all this w/ my nephew next time we have to work on the old laptop.

Sorry, some questions: I think it has to be Wary Puppy version b/c the laptop is so old. Won't a laptop this old not be able to run a newer Linux Kernel?

Where/how do I get gParted and the grub programs you mentioned, please?

I don't think I can take out the CD disc while the laptop is booting; this laptop has to be on and desktop booted for the CD disc drive to open. Otherwise, it just won't open, I think? I know it won't open when it's totally off; I think it won't open while booting. I will try and post back.

Thank you, thank you! My nephew's so excited about this project, he skipped part of watching football! Lol...

[ally]

the beauty of running frugal installs is that you can try many pups, you might be surprised what you can run, once you have one puppy installed adding another will take about 20 seconds, I will explain how later

I occasionally bring out an IBM thinkpad T21 p3 700mhz, puppy runs well, the keyboard is fantastic for long winded writing and have an eeepc 667 that beats my sons i7 with windows for booting and using times

remove the disk on reboot, as it is shutting down and restarting, if you would prefer to turn off then do that

[davids45]

G'day heatherirene and nephew,

Welcome to the Puppy forum (kennels).

You win - my oldest Puppy computer is from 2003, the rest are from 2005 to 2007.

Wary-5.5 will be OK for starting Linux on your laptop, particularly if it has only a single core CPU. All my computers have dual-cores and run more recent Pups than Wary. Maybe you could set your nephew his second test (or with you as your #2 co-test) to install a newer second Puppy as well as keep Wary once it's running from your hard-drive.

As a first, 'most-basic' step, you could just use the Puppy Universal Installer included on the live-CD to install Puppy. Boot up Wary and look for the Installer in the Setup section of the pop-up Menu when you right-click the mouse, or the desktop icon labelled 'Install'.

As long as XP has left the hard-drive in a good condition*, Puppy's Universal Installer should take you through the steps of copying the Puppy OS files to a new sub-folder/directory on the hard-drive and then it will set up GRUB (it will install it also to the hard-drive and create a menu.lst file) so you can boot up either XP or Puppy from the Grub menu-list that appears during re-booting.

The Universal Installer may ask if you want to wipe the hard-drive before installing Puppy or leave XP and add Puppy to the computer OSs so you can pick either to run.

I began with Puppy leaving XP (or even '98') on my computers. So I would recommend you going this way until you get a bit familiar with Puppy.

If or when you do want to delete XP, then as suggested by ally in an earlier post, use GParted (in the live-CD 'System' Menu (right-click for the Menu, or find the Menu button on the screen-border tool-bar)).

Check through GParted's options then use it to re-format your hard-drive to a Linux format such as ext3. This will delete XP but you then need to run Puppy's Installer from the Live-CD to install Puppy and also Grub so the computer will have an OS to 'boot up' next time (without the Live-CD).

With 1.25GB of RAM**, you may not need a Linux swap partition, but for getting experience with GParted, add a swap partition of say 500MB (= half your RAM) before making the rest of the hard-drive a linux-format partition.

Removing the Puppy Live-CD:
- once Wary is up and running from the Live-CD, press the CD-drive button to pop out the CD. If for any reason, Puppy needs to access the Live-CD again, it will ask you to re-insert the CD. If not, Puppy (still in RAM) will simply close down when you tell him to shut-down the computer.

Have fun.

David S.

*A defrag of the hard-drive could be necessary if you decide to keep your XP, at least for starters. The other concern with keeping XP is how much space XP has left 'free' on the 30GB hard-drive - Puppy will only need a GB or so, but check for free space just in case (e.g. with GParted).
** I have three HP desktops on my home network for my grandkids (various 4-7 year-olds, and even the 2-year-old is now into Peppa Pig ) to play/watch videos/games that all run (Frugal) TahrPups and none has as much RAM as your old laptop, so I think you'll be OK with your 1.25GB.

[Mike Walsh]

Hallo, heatherirene.

Well; welcome to the kennels. (And 'join the club'...)

I have an old Inspiron 1100, from 2002/3. Pentium 4 single-core; 1.5 GB of RAM (I started out with even less than you; mine only came with 128 MB when new!).....and I've upgraded from the original 20 GB HDD to a 64 GB KingSpec solid-state drive. Which has speeded-up boot times nicely!

Your Dell will be quite capable of running newer Pups than Wary.....and you'll run into problems with Wary, anyway. It tends to need an awful lot of dependencies (lib's & stuff; the Linux world's equivalent of Windows .dlls - Dynamic Link Libraries) installed to be able to do much of anything at all.

Mine's currently triple-booting 3 Puppies; Slacko 570, Lucid 5.2.8.7, and Xenialpup 7.0.8.1 (a fairly modern Pup). I've also run Tahrpup 6.0.5, Racy 5.5 (Wary on steroids!), Precise 571, and Upup 'Raring' on there before now. And all run quite happily.

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

One question, if I may? Are you getting a full-size desktop when you boot into Wary from the LiveCD.....or does it look like it's 'squashed-up' into the top left -hand corner? 'Cos if it does, it's the graphics chip (and there is a workaround for it; quite an easy one, but it'll involve upgrading your BIOS. It's extremely straight-forward, though; if you need the file for this, I'm quite happy to supply it.)

(And I will just add a small 'disclaimer' here. One thing you'll notice with Puppy is that, although it's a darn good transition to Linux for XP 'refugees' (lots of 'tooltips' & 'wizards' to help you out!), Pup is also very 'hands-on'. There's very little in the way of automatic updates/upgrades available; if you want to do any of that, it's DIY stuff all the way, I'm afraid...)

Not trying to put you off, but I think it's only fair to you that you're aware of this. On t'other hand, we're always more than happy to help out..!

[As Ally mentioned, and David explained, gParted and Grub4DOS are both 'built-in' to Pup by default. All Pups come with 'em as standard.]

Any questions, fire away.....!


Mike.

[s243a]

One question, if I may? Are you getting a full-size desktop when you boot into Wary from the LiveCD.....or does it look like it's 'squashed-up' into the top left -hand corner? 'Cos if it does,

Which is why the original poster may not want to completely remove windows XP. Sometimes either windows or DOS is required for BIOS updates. Someone I"m sure will correct me if I'm wrong but that is at-least what I heard.

[bigpup]

Won't a laptop this old not be able to run a newer Linux Kernel?

Probably run OK if the Linux kernel is series 3 or older.

Linux kernel 4 is all about new or newest hardware support.

Where/how do I get gParted and the grub programs you mentioned, please?

Boot with the Wary CD.
Gparted is in the menu.
menu>System>Gparted

Grub4dos Bootloader Config in same place in the menu.
menu>System>

I don't think I can take out the CD disc while the laptop is booting;

Just take it out before you shutdown from Using it to run Wary.
In fact, you can take it out anytime after you get Wary booted. Everything on it is in memory and the disc is not needed.
Feature of booting Puppy from a CD.
After bootup, can remove the CD so you can use the CD drive for other things.

Maybe this will help you:
Complete guide on using Gparted.
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
Key feature is right click on a partition or unallocated space to get options.

How to use Grub4dos Config
After Wary is installed on hard drive.
menu->System->Grub4dos Bootloader config
First screen choose where to install it.
Select the internal hard drive. (Probably sda)
Leave all other options unchecked.
Hit Ok.
Hit OK.
Hit OK.
done.

Reboot with the Live Wary CD removed.
(set computer bios to boot from the hard drive)
Should see boot menu.

[bigpup]

One Problem you may have when trying to use Gparted.
The hard drive cannot be mounted.

If you made a save for the Wary CD and put the save on the hard drive, it will be mounted.

So, to not have the hard drive mounted. You will have to boot the Wary CD not using the save.

As the Wary CD boots.
At the Puppy boot screen press the F2 key down until the option screen pops up.
Type

Code: Select all

puppy pfix=ram

press enter to continue boot.

Do not worry about setup.
Just run the programs you need.
Gparted.
Puppy Universal Installer.
Grub4dos Config.

At shutdown of Wary it will ask if you want to make a save.
Say no.

[bigpup]

Basic install steps.

Gparted.
Partition and format hard drive.
Make two partitions.
One large ext3.
One small Linux swap.
Important
Flag the large partition as boot

Puppy Universal Installer.
Install Wary to hard drive.

Grub4dos Config.
Install a boot loader to hard drive to boot what is on it.

[Mike Walsh]

One question, if I may? Are you getting a full-size desktop when you boot into Wary from the LiveCD.....or does it look like it's 'squashed-up' into the top left -hand corner? 'Cos if it does,

Which is why the original poster may not want to completely remove windows XP. Sometimes either windows or DOS is required for BIOS updates. Someone I"m sure will correct me if I'm wrong but that is at-least what I heard.

Hi, s243a.

No, the OP won't need to do that for a Dell laptop BIOS update. I updated my BIOS, in Puppy, using a bootable ISO BIOS image from www.bay-wolf.com, about 2 years ago; it was a necessary 'upgrade' for my specific graphics chip, following Micko's release notes, in order to get Slacko running on the old girl. (We haven't had Windoze in this house for at least 4 years, now...and it hasn't proved necessary for anything at all.)

http://01micko.com/slacko5.5/notes.html

(Look under 'Known issues' for the explanation about the Intel 'Brookedale' graphics controller. You can't allocate max VRAM on mine until you have the most recent, A32 BIOS image.....)

They have a full range of bootable ISO BIOS images for most of the older Dell laptops from that sort of era.

http://www.bay-wolf.com/flashbios.htm

Dell's are the only machine I've found where you can do this, irrespective of what OS you're running. Since you 'boot' into this thing (and it only does one thing), you're not actually running the OS at that point in time, anyway.

Far, far easier than messing about with Windoze and floppy 'boot' disks; it takes around 2 minutes, tops.....and is totally hassle-free. Which is exactly what you want! (I wouldn't have mentioned this if it wasn't extremely easy to perform; even a complete beginner can do this.)

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

@ heatherirene:- If you follow Ally's & bigpup's instructions, you'll not go far wrong. These guys know what they're talking about, trust me.


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi heatherirene,

Welcome to 'The Kennels'. What you'll find here is that this is a fan-based organization, kind of like a Big Party were we all get together --everybody who's civil is welcome-- to discuss Puppy Linux and have a few beers. [Well, beers are hard to transmit over the internet, so bring your own and some fruit juice for your nephew]. On occasion a computer expert will say something important if we're all getting it wrong. But mostly we pass on information borne from experience or prior discussions.

My estimate is that with thousands of models of computers, with variations in hardware possible even within a model, and hundreds of versions of Puppy, there is over a million possible hardware-software combinations. Consequently, someone who has actual experience with your model of computer is likely to provide the best advice.

Fortunately, in your case, that someone is Mike Walsh who is 'friendly, helpful, courteous, kind' and has a Merit Badge in Practical Computer Stuff.

That said, I have to wonder if the upgrade of his Inspiron's Bios in order to run Slacko 5.7 might not have also colored his experiences with Xenialpup and Tahrpup and some of the other 'newer' Puppy versions. I am almost certain that with the amount of RAM your computer has, you should have no difficulty running Racy and Lupu.

The reason I would want to steer you away from Wary is that one of the main reasons we run computers is to access the internet. Because of the increasingly rich graphic content offered on Webpages and security concerns of content providers, it is increasingly difficult to access many websites without having a more of less up-to-date Web-browser. AFAIK, only special versions of Palemoon can provide that access under Wary and other 'older' Puppies. See this thread for a discussion about it, and its limitations: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 275#950275 Palemoon is a fork of firefox. However, some websites don't recognize it as being 'current'. A workaround is to install the 'User-Agent' addon which spoofs it as being firefox or google-chrome, your choice.

As others have said, because you can run Puppies as Frugal Installs, you're not limited to just one. You can try several and see which works best on your computer for your interests; and keep and run several if you find that to your advantage. But you also might want to consider first updating your Bios. If you can run newer versions of Puppy the usefulness of the Inspiron will be increased, as will the time during which it will remain useful.

mikesLr

[Mike Walsh]

My estimate is that with thousands of models of computers, with variations in hardware possible even within a model, and hundreds of versions of Puppy, there is over a million possible hardware-software combinations. Consequently, someone who has actual experience with your model of computer is likely to provide the best advice.

Fortunately, in your case, that someone is Mike Walsh who is 'friendly, helpful, courteous, kind' and has a Merit Badge in Practical Computer Stuff.

Aw, shucks...

That said, I have to wonder if the upgrade of his Inspiron's Bios in order to run Slacko 5.7 might not have also colored his experiences with Xenialpup and Tahrpup and some of the other 'newer' Puppy versions. I am almost certain that with the amount of RAM your computer has, you should have no difficulty running Racy and Lupu.

Mm.You could well be right, Mike; I hadn't really thought about it.....but since it does allow as much 'shared' VRAM as possible, it's quite likely helped with Xenial (it being a newer, more 'demanding' Pup.)

I know this, though; I installed the original Tahrpup 6.0 CE in November '14, at least 18 months before doing the BIOS upgrade.....and it still ran perfectly with only a single meg of VRAM. Older Pups wouldn't.....so I guess there was some newer or additional support for something in the 3.14.20 kernel which made everything just 'work', OOTB. I'm inclined to think it was graphics support of some kind (maybe the 'nouveau' or 'open-source' drivers had just had an overhaul. Who knows?)

Xenial is slower, as you'd expect.....but it all still works as it should. Even Kdenlive, Openshot and Google Earth, amongst other stuff.....quite astonishing for a P4, even with a gig-and-a-half of RAM.

Lucid just flies, mate; although the newest Chrome that'll work on there is only 26, it 'screams'.....and kinda reminds me why I fell in love with it in the first place.

And as for 570, well; it's just one of the steadiest, most stable Pups I've ever run. Like all the Slackos, it might take more setting up, and more installation of libs'n'stuff to get many things working (I've always suspected Micko's something of a fan of 'minimalism'!).....but once that's all done & dusted, it steadily chugs along at a good lick.....and you just know it'll keep working in the same predictable fashion.

Ya gotta love Pup, really, for the way it gives new life to old gear..!


Mike.

[Fossil]

I agree with what Mike has already said. Merit badge +! Scouts' honor! The Dell is up to the task - especially with that amount of RAM.
Before anything else, can we ask the original poster, heatherirene, if the Dell's screen exhibits a large black rectangle around the viewed desktop?
Before updating my old Dell 1100 to what I believe was a series 32 BIOS, all the desktop images defaulted to 800x600 pixels, leaving a large dark frame-like outer surround. If this is not the case with this particular Dell model perhaps it would be wise to simply focus (for the time being) on getting the Dell up and running with whatever the more recent Puppy is considered suitable. Just try a couple and find your preferences.

[heatherirene]

OMG, so much great advice! Thank you, guys! Especially Mike and Ally. I will try another version of Puppy.

Nephew only has 'bout once/week to work on this project, so he hasn't been back to it yet. I'm sure he'll want to try all this.

One good thing: I don't think Wary Puppy 5.5 is "mounted to the harddrive" as of yet. I haven't done anymore w/ the machine yet. Prolly will w/ nephew this weekend. And, so far, when shutting down w/ the boot disc, I've been clicking "No, don't save session" b/c I read you can't save a session to a CD (only USB). So, does that mean it's not mounted?

I also have a stupid question(s). The bootable disc I made w/ the ISO of Wary Puppy 5.5, is that considered a "Live CD"? Is there a difference b/w a Live-CD and bootable disc?

Thank you, all, again!

[ally]

live just means you do not have to install to use the contents

[bigpup]

when shutting down w/ the boot disc, I've been clicking "No, don't save session" b/c I read you can't save a session to a CD (only USB).

Puppy can.
If you burn the iso image to the disk as a multi-session burn. Do not close the disc.
You can save to the disc at shutdown.
The save will have settings and anything you add.

The size of the save will be limited to the free space that is still on the disc.

Note:
The settings saved are for the computer the save was made on. So they may not work on other computers.