How to install Puppy as the only OS on hard disk?

[mwelbourne]

Hi.

I have an old laptop and I'm trying to get Puppy to work off the hard drive.

I think I've got Xenial installed but I totally didn't know what all the Grub stuff was about. I don't want any other partitions or operating systems - I just want to switch the laptop on and Puppy starts from the hard drive just like Windows XP did.

Currently I've got a wee 13> prompt. I'm a bit of a noob to all this and I'm pretty chuffed I've got this far but this is way beyond my understanding.

Help

[mwelbourne]

I've gone through it all again ( a few times now) and I thought I had done the Grub4Dos thing correctly.

I choose Puppy Linux - xenialpup 7.5 full install in sda2

And I get:

setting root to (hd0,1)
Filesystem type is ext2fs. partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz fullinstall roo=UUID=bd3e02f2-0aae-4923-8c7c-07d5be9985a5
pmedia=atahd

Error 15: File not found

[mwelbourne]

I think the problem is: when using the Puppy Universal Installer I get to the bit where I choose DIRECTORY rather than CD and it says 'Please find the latest Puppy files - vmlinuz, initrd.gz and puppy_xenial_7.5.sfs - THEN HIGHLIGHT ANY ONE OF THEM and click the OK button.

I can't find vmlinuz or initrd.gz

This area defaults to a folder called initrd and has folder mnt at the top. Click on mnt I get a folder called tmpfs and click on that and puppy_xenial_7.5.sfs is in there. So I click on that and then click Select.

I think this might be the problem??? Should I be able to find vmlinuz and initrd.gz?

[foxpup]

Welcome to Puppy, mwelbourne!

You better choose frugal install. That is the proper way for puppylinux.
And it is quite easy.
You create a map ('xenialpup' for example) on the root of a partition.
You copy all the sfs-files and initrd.gz and vmlinuz from the iso of xenialpup into this map.
That's it!

What partitions do you have? And what filesystem are they?
Do you want to start all over? Or do you have some things to preserve?
You can put the above map 'xenialpup' on any partition, but best is to make a ext3 (or ext4) partition for your Puppies.
1G will work but better is 5G. I have a ext3 partition of 40G that is shared by >10 Puppies.
You can create and format partitions with gParted; it is in every Puppy.
If you have things to keep on your hd, beware that creating new partitions and reformatting will delete everything from the changed partitions.
So backup first.

Last you run grub4dos.
Before running it, put the boot flag on the partition you want as boot partition. For convenience choose the Puppy partition as boot partition.
Let grub4dos write its mbr on your hd and let it create a menu.lst.
Grub4dos will search for Puppy, windows and other distros on your laptop.
Grub4dos will put its loader, grldr, and configuration file, menu.lst, on the boot partition.

Reboot!

Can you boot your laptop from USB or CD with xenialpup? Then you can do all the above from this Puppy.

[ITSMERSH]

Seems you have done a full install.

Full install is very different to a frugal install.

Choose a frugal install, you might want it and "love" it.

As far as I know, there is no puppy_xenial_7.5.sfs when full install is done.

The vmlinuz and initrd.gz are on the CD. Don't know what happens to these files after doing a full install.

I recall lots of people in the earlier past do have problems with grub4dos and that weird wee stuff. I may be wrong, though it seems to me like grub4dos is on its way to get stuffed up...

...am using still the old version.

[foxpup]

I think the problem is: when using the Puppy Universal Installer I get to the bit where I choose DIRECTORY rather than CD and it says 'Please find the latest Puppy files - vmlinuz, initrd.gz and puppy_xenial_7.5.sfs - THEN HIGHLIGHT ANY ONE OF THEM and click the OK button.

I can't find vmlinuz or initrd.gz ...

You do not have to use the Puppy Universal Installer. I never have. It's too complicated.
If you did a full install, I think that even vmlinuz and initrd.gz are unpacked and merged into the full install, just like all xxx.sfs.
The question asked by the PUI is for frugal install.

[mostly_lurking]

I recall lots of people in the earlier past do have problems with grub4dos and that weird wee stuff. I may be wrong, though it seems to me like grub4dos is on its way to get stuffed up...

Seems so. Here are some of the things that came up in recent years (although the first one looks more like a configuration problem than a symptom of Grub4Dos being outdated):

Full installs not booting with Grub4dos generated menu entry
How to fix Grub4DOS Error 13, wee 13>, due to 64-bit Ext4
Does Grub support GPT as well as MBR? (Solved)

[mwelbourne]

Welcome to Puppy, mwelbourne!

You better choose frugal install. That is the proper way for puppylinux.
And it is quite easy.
You create a map ('xenialpup' for example) on the root of a partition.
You copy all the sfs-files and initrd.gz and vmlinuz from the iso of xenialpup into this map.
That's it!

What partitions do you have? And what filesystem are they?
Do you want to start all over? Or do you have some things to preserve?
You can put the above map 'xenialpup' on any partition, but best is to make a ext3 (or ext4) partition for your Puppies.
1G will work but better is 5G. I have a ext3 partition of 40G that is shared by >10 Puppies.
You can create and format partitions with gParted; it is in every Puppy.
If you have things to keep on your hd, beware that creating new partitions and reformatting will delete everything from the changed partitions.
So backup first.

Last you run grub4dos.
Before running it, put the boot flag on the partition you want as boot partition. For convenience choose the Puppy partition as boot partition.
Let grub4dos write its mbr on your hd and let it create a menu.lst.
Grub4dos will search for Puppy, windows and other distros on your laptop.
Grub4dos will put its loader, grldr, and configuration file, menu.lst, on the boot partition.

Reboot!

Can you boot your laptop from USB or CD with xenialpup? Then you can do all the above from this Puppy.

Right. So I don't know what a root of a partition is, or what a map is how to put one in a root. And how would I copy files from the ISO?

The partitions are from when I had a go a Lubuntu - there is a linux-swap area of 1.21GB that has a padlock and the rest of the disk is ext4 and I've flagged it as a boot partition as per the instructions

Quite happy to start over. I've already tried Elive (no better than XP, it couldn't play Youtube video smoothly) and then I gave Lubuntu a go but ran into pae problems (whatever they are).

Basically, I'm hoping that I can switch the laptop on and it just starts Puppy from the hard drive, it would be nice to remove the Grub step, but it's not really a problem if that has to stay.

I've read the stuff about the frugal install but still don't understand the point/why it's better. I just wanted an os on this old laptop that would give it acceptable internet so I can give it to a friend who needs to apply for jobs online. Not trying to have loads of puppies

Thanks for helping

[mwelbourne]

The vmlinuz and initrd.gz are on the CD. Don't know what happens to these files after doing a full install.

I've got the ISO on a USB. I've got no idea how to browse the files on the USB though. Going into File gives me a list of folders starting with 'Choices'. Nothing in the list seems to be the USB drive

[mwelbourne]

I've just reformatted the big 36GB partition to be ext3 and I'll give the frugal installation a try

[ITSMERSH]

How are you booting Xenial Puppy, if there's only the .iso on the usb flash drive?

[mwelbourne]

Ah, same problem using Universal Installer, it asks for CD or DIRECTORY before it asks about Frugal.

I have copied the ISO to a CD but I don't think the DVD drive works any more. It's making lots of noise and it says 'Sorry, Puppy is not on the CD. Please mount the CD \ using one of the mount programs (see File Managers menu) \ then click OK button...

Mount the CD?? File Manager?? Hmmm

[ITSMERSH]

Are you able to boot puppy on that machine?

How are you online now?

[mwelbourne]

How are you booting Xenial Puppy, if there's only the .iso on the usb flash drive?

Yes, I've got the ISO on a USB stick. That's all I've got. I'm booting from the USB stick.

As the burned CD isn't working would it be an idea to make a second USB stick and see if I can browse to that?

[ITSMERSH]

Ok, so you have Xenial Puppy running from the USB flash drive.

There should be some drive icons on the desktop.

E.g. sda1, sda2, sdb1 etc.pp.

Is there any drive icons?

Edit:

Pity, instead of staying online to go through the installation step by step, he's stepping out of the forum...

[mwelbourne]

Sorry about that, I was actually using a different laptop and it locked up. Had to wait for it to reboot - my password for this forum had been auto generated so I couldn't log back in until it had rebooted.

Anyway, back online now.

Yes, I can see those icons in the bottom left, there is one for the CD drive too and it shows the ISO, so the CD drive does work

[ITSMERSH]

Ok, the last one of the drive icons (not the cd icon) should be the usb flash drive. If you click on it, you can browse it.

Are you ready to go through the installation to internal hd step by step?

I got some time for this.

[mwelbourne]

OK, yes please.

[ITSMERSH]

Is the 36GB partition still formatted to ext3?

If yes, did you set the boot flag to it in gparted?

If not, run gparted (unmount the 36GB partition first). Select the 36GB partition in gparted, go to the menu partition and click Manage Flags. Tick the boot checkbox to on and exit gparted.

Return to here if done.

[mwelbourne]

Yes, the 36GB ext3 partition flag is boot