Alternative Method for Storage with Frugal Installation

[JustGreg]

I do not know if this should be in the “Cutting Edge

[Jim1911]

Take a look at this thread
Alternative Pup Save Formats A number of us are finding ext3/4 partitions with corresponding 3fs journaling save files more stable than ext2.

[JustGreg]

Thank you for pointing the topic out. I am trying to use what I am familar with for experimenting. Yes, you could use ext3 file system also.

But, I do have a question. I have another experiment in mind. Where do most Pet packages install into in the /usr directory. I think they go into either /usr/shared or /usr/local. But, I am not sure.

Never mind on the question, I just went through the .packages directory. I did not know that had so many pets installed. They are installed through out /usr and /etc. My idea will not work.

I have also just moved the /root/my-applications to the extra partition and created a link to it in root. I did not have to modify the $PATH variable in /etc/profile. An application was found. One less thing to do.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[shinobar]

Nice idea, JustGreg.

One inconvenience is you need to mount the ext2 extra partition to use.
I recommend to make the pupsave on the ext2 partition.
then the partition is auto mounted at boot as /mnt/home.

1. make a large partition with ext2
2. make a folder on the partition and there frugal install
3. make pupsave of 128-512MB size in the folder
4. move /root/my-documents to /mnt/home/my-documents
5. make link to /mnt/home/my-documents at /root/my-documents
6. make a folder /mnt/home/tmp
7. seamonkey defaut download folder set to /mnt/home/tmp, etc.

[shinobar]

As for the large applications, using SFS instead of PET is a basic apploach.

[JustGreg]

Thank you shinobar for the suggestions. I will try them out and see what happens. I have tried the use of sfs (devx.sfs) and it works fine. I know of a wine sfs and open office sfs. I will have to check to see what other ones are available. Puppy 4.3.1 "Boot Configuration" supports up to six.

I did try it and it works well. The suggestions were excellent. I placed the normal install Puppy files in directory /boot. Started it up with Grub4Dos and initialized the system. Deleted my-documents and my-appications directories and create the links. Rebooted , created the pupsave file in /boot and when it started, every thing worked.

Here is my list used for Grub4Dos:

Code: Select all

# This is a sample menu.lst file. You should make some changes to it.
# The old install method of booting via the stage-files has been removed.
# Please install GRLDR boot strap code to MBR with the bootlace.com
# utility under DOS/Win9x or Linux.

#color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
color light-gray/blue yellow/light-gray
# timeout 30

title Puppy Frugal 4.3.1 on USB Hard Drive
find --set-root /USBHD
kernel /boot/vmlinuz pmedia=usbhd pfix=copy acpi=noirq nosmp
initrd /boot/initrd.gz 

title Commandline
commandline

title Reboot
reboot

title Halt for manual reboot or power off with power button
halt

I will have to use this with the next version of Puppy on the hard drive. I did find that the other sfs files need to be / and not in /boot in order for Boot Manager to find them.

[JustGreg]

If you are interested in trying this, then here is the configuration of the files on the USB hard drive.

Here is the directories and files on the device that go with menu.lst

Top directory of device partition /
boot (directory with Puppy system files)
grldr
menu.lst
devx_431.sfs (extra squashed file system to use)
USBHD (marker file of zero bytes)
lost+found (directory created with ext2 file system)
my-documents (directory for Puppy document storage)
my-applications (directory of application storage)

/boot directory files
initrd.gz
pup-431.sfs
pupsave.2fs
vmlinuz

It is fairly simple.

[abushcrafter]

When you first shutdown Puppy select "save to <drive>" instead of "save to file" then the file system is saved not into a pupsave.2fs but on the Linux partition which Puppy is on.

[JustGreg]

Thank you, abushcrafter. I did see that selection, but, did what I normally do. I will have to try it. If it works, then I will post the results.

Yes, abushcrafter, you are right. The save to partition is exactly what I want. My comment at the beginning of this post was correct. This is not cutting edge. As usual, Puppy has what you want, you just may not know it. I feel a bit chagrinned At least, I know how to use links and create them.

[potong]

abushcrafter: wrote

When you first shutdown Puppy select "save to <drive>" instead of "save to file" then the file system is saved not into a pupsave.2fs but on the Linux partition which Puppy is on.

I' d seen this flash up on the screen many times whilst setting up frugal pups and I'd never tried it. So I decided to test it out in VirtualBox.

• 1) Set up a new puppy virtual machine with a 1gb vdi file.
  
  2) Downloaded the latest puppy 4.3.1 iso and attached it to the virtual cd drive
  
  3) Booted puppy in VirtalBox filling in my keyboard, locale, timezone and chose xvesa.
  
  4) Once puppy was up and running, used Gparted to create 3 partions
  
  • /dev/sda1 for a grub installation (flagged as bootable)
    /dev/sda2 for swap
    /dev/sda3 for ext2 file system to hold my puppy files
  5) Ran the Grub boot loader config and installed grub in /dev/sda1
  
  6) Ran the Puppy Universal Installer and saved puppy files to /dev/sda3 in puppy431 directory
  
  7) Edited the menu.lst in /dev/sda1/boot/grub to have an entry:

  Code: Select all

  title Puppy Linux 4.3.1. frugal sda3 ext2
  rootnoverify (hd0,2)
  kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 nosmp
  initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz

  8) Powered off the virtual puppy and did not save the session
  
  9) Disconnected the puppy431.iso from the virtual machine cd drive.
  
  10) Rebooted virtual machine and chose Puppy Linux 4.3.1 from grub menu and input keyboard, locale, timezone and xvesa.
  
  11) Changed the screen saver once puppy was up and powered off the virtual machine.
  
  12) Saved session to /dev/sda3
  
  13) Rebooted virtual machine but puppy wanted keyboard, locale, timezone and xvesa again. Once booted screen saver had not been changed
  It was a though pfix=ram had been added to menu.lst., and on powering down again asked me to save session to file/partition or not.
  
  I noticed that the directories etc, initrd, lib, root and usr had been created alongside the puppy431. But there was no message when saving.
  
  Is this a problem to do with VirtualBox?
  
  I also created full installations and normal frugal installations using a pupsave file in VirtualBox with no problems.
  
  Do I need to reconfigure my grub menu.lst file with additional options?

Potong

[abushcrafter]

Sorry I can't help you. I don't know any thing about VBox.

[potong]

Regardless of VirtualBox, can anyone post a working example of the partition layout and menu.lst configuration for this session save to partition in puppy 4.3.1?

Does anyone know if this works with psubdir parameter?

Can anyone post their notes on how they got this working?

I was thinking of using this in conjunction with a subversion or git server to provide backup and go anywhere use.

thanks

Potong

[shinobar]

this works with psubdir parameter?

maybe no.

forget 'save to partition'.
it works, but it is not flexible.
doesn't support subdirectory, ignores 'pfix=ram' option, cannot use additional sfs files, hard to backup, and etc..

[potong]

Thanks shinobar

Since posting I have found others posts in the forum that have had the same problems I encountered (with no solutions found).

I have posted a bug to:http://code.google.com/p/puppy-developm ... tail?id=69

[Anniekin]

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