Dual booting grub2 Linux with frugal Puppy?

[greengeek]

Can I always trust that wen it sad sdb and 20GB then that is the external drive?

Gparted is pretty trustworthy. But still, always double check that the info matches what you expect.

For example - that Gparted pic shows that you are using 3Gb of the drive. Does that match what you expect? Are you happy to risk that 3Gb of data? Do you have a backup of that data?

Just be careful with the label of sda number. It can change depending on what other drive is available, and where it is connected. For example, if you added another usb stick in one port, and the external drive adapter in another port, then the numbering might change from what you saw on the previous boot (I think..)

Always double check and trust yourself more than any program


Backup, backup, backup. And backup again.

[nooby]

crazy idea. Can one not tell the internal hd to not be writeable
during the use of gparted? That way it would be protected?

Drastic measure? One could shut down and take it out physically
and only boot from a usb and use gparted on the other usb and
that way only risk the puppy frugal install on the first usb?

I should set up a computer for Linux installs that don't have
a internal HD that can get corrupted?

[Tman]

The title of this thread is "Dual booting grub2 linux with frugal Puppy?"

From this I assumed that the "grub2 Linux" is a full-install.

nooby,

From what I gather you have NOT been doing full installs of the Mint/Ubuntu or whatever else that uses grub2...you have been running the LiveCD iso images from your hard-drives.

What I tried to tell you earlier is that you've already been mutibooting with grub4dos. No other bootloaders are installed in the bootsectors of your hard-drive, from the info I've gathered from you.

This is becuase you've been running LiveCD images and not full-installs. Different bootloaders get installed only when you do a full-linux install.

It may appear to you that other bootloaders like grub2 have been installed, but those are actually bootloaders on the CD images themselves...they are NOT located in the bootsectors of your partitions...thus not really installed in your hard-drives. They only exist in the ISO files.

My method that I was trying to show is for full Linux installs:
- the grub4dos menu entries will be different for full installs, compared to getting grub4dos to run the LiveCD iso files.

In short; the setup is totally different for frugal pups + Mint full-install, compared to frugal pups + "frugal"? Mint

[Tman]

nooby,

In your situation, what you may want to do is this:

===========

1) format your USB hard-drive into 3 parts:

a) partition1 => ext3 or ext4 ( ext4 is faster, but I find ext3 to be more reliable )
--- this is for all of your ISO images and you frugal pup folders ...size is up to you

b) parttion2 => swap ....3GB should be plenty **skip this step if you already have a swap partition on the main hard-drive

c) partition3 => ext3 or ext4
--- this is where your persistent saves for Ubuntu and Mint would go

2) copy all of your frugal pups and iso images to partition1 on the USB drive

3) make a backup copy of your menu.lst file from the main hard-drive and name it "menu-backup.lst" to make this tutorial easier.

4) reboot the computer with a puppy LiveCD and reinstall grub4dos into the mbr of your main hard-drive...don't install grub4dos into your USB drive.

Grub4dos should autodetect your frugal pups...
5) for everything else, copy any other menu entries you need from menu-backup.lst into menu.lst

6) remove the puppycd and reboot your computer

===========

** the reason you don't install grub4dos to your USB hard-drive is becuase when the computer starts up, it searches the MBR of your main drive first by default. You can alter this by changing the bios settings, but I don't know what your bios menu looks like and cannot walk you through it step-by-step
-

[nooby]

Tman what to you think of the suggestion that rcrsn51 gives me?
link
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 260#618260

[Tman]

Tman what to you think of the suggestion that rcrsn51 gives me?
link
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 260#618260

His suggestion is sound advice, but it was meant for your main internal hard-drive. My suggestion is what you can do for your external USB hard-drive.

If you want to follow his suggestion:

- backup the stuff you want to keep in the internal drive => over to the USB hard-drive
- Run gparted in a Puppy-LiveCD.
- Re-partition and format everything the way rcrsn51 suggests
* a small but crucial step, after the drives are formatted is to click on manage flags (right-click on the partition) and checkmark the "boot" flag
- reinstall grub4dos into the MBR of your internal hard-drive.

[nooby]

I have set up a HP Pavillion 2GB RAM
and it has no internal HD so nothing can go wrong
I use a 2GB Flash memory to boot into Lupu puppy 528
and I have set up an external USB 20GB HD that I can
install any kind of linux on I hope.

I only have to learn the Gparted thing how to do what rcrsn51 suggested.
So please help me get started and then hopefully I can manage on my own.

I write from that computer now using dillo