Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

benali72 · Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 261

Textual instructions for how to install Puppy Version 4.x to the hard drive as a FULL type install are here.

Anyone may use/alter/copy/distribute them however they like. Please post a reply in this thread if you find anything missing/incorrect in the instructions.

Thank you.

Full url = http://rexxinfo.org/How_to_Install_Puppy/HOW_TO_1.HTM

maggotspawn · Joined: 19 Aug 2008 Posts: 355 Location: Los Angeles, CA.

What's the diff between installing Grub to the MBR as opposed to whatever the default is? I'd like to keep my MBR Grub free. Never done a full install as you can tell.

rjbrewer · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 4355 Location: merriam, kansas

Unless you want to use a cd, floppy, usb or net boot, it's necessary
to have a bootloader on the mbr.
Grub has 2 parts; one on the mbr and the second (with boot-grub-
menu lst) on a Linux partition.

When dual booting with non Linux os (I've only done it with Mac osX),
Grub can be placed on the superblock of the linux partition, and
booted with the other systems bootloader.

maggotspawn · Joined: 19 Aug 2008 Posts: 355 Location: Los Angeles, CA.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Bruce B · Posted: Tue 09 Jun 2009, 22:45 Post subject:

GRUB on the MBR

The other day I compiled a version of cfdisk. Opened it to
see if it looked good, then closed it. That's all.

After I discovered the MBR was knocked out, I put it back.

Repeated the same cfdisk and mbr replacement 2x, same
result, a bad cfdisk.

I think the reason people get in trouble is because they
don't make backups of their MBRs. And keep the backups
on a separate device if possible.

Anytime you repartition the drive, delete the backup, it's
no good. Well, maybe OK if it is a a logical partition, but
best to delete the old MBR back up and make a new one

A save example

dd if=/dev/hda of=hdambr.bin bs=512 count=1

A restore example (note reversing if= and of=)

dd if=hdambr.bin of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

Flash · Posted: Wed 10 Jun 2009, 00:03 Post subject:

rjbrewer · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 4355 Location: merriam, kansas

My 1st partition is only 10mb in size and just contains Grub...
never gets deleted.

After almost 2 yrs. and dozens of of other partition changes,
I've never experienced a mbr problem.

Don't use windows at all though.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

maggotspawn · Joined: 19 Aug 2008 Posts: 355 Location: Los Angeles, CA.

I do use Windows as well. That's why I have been sticking to frugal installs using the Windows bootloader.

pbouf · Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 1

Thanks for the nice HOWTO. Unfortunately Puppy does not detect my hard drive, an SSD with a SATA interface. If I run fdisk -l, it only reports my USB flash drive which I am running Puppy from. All this prevents me from creating partitions with Gparted and reaching my goal of running Puppy fro my hard drive.

Any ideas? Almost every other distro I tested detected my HD out of the box.

Benboom · Joined: 02 Jul 2009 Posts: 31

"Select the Retro Kernel version if installing on an older computer."

How do I know if my computer is an "older" computer? In this case, it's a Fujitsu C2210 from about 2004, certainly old, but not as old as my Amigas or a Mac LC. Sorry, the line just isn't very clear there. I have had quite a bit of trouble with installing Puppy on it but I assumed it was because I wasn't sure what I was doing, not because I had an "older" compter. But maybe it is...