(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

So I've got an old Dell laptop and am considering my options with what to do with it. My ideal situation would be to remove the harddrive, turn that into an external harddrive and then run puppy linux off of a USB drive.

My question to you is this: is that possible? If I remove the harddrive from my laptop, will I still be able to use the computer running puppy linux off of a USB and if so are there any specifics I should be aware of before proceeding?

Puppy does that wonderfully. The only consideration, is that you can boot from usb on ur particular laptop. Most machines newer than about 8 years can do this, and many older too.

If your machine won't boot from usb, there are still options, boot from CD/DVD and run multisession, saving your puppy back to the CD each time, or boot from CD, and save to usb.

Puppy has so many options for installation, that's one of the reasons that it is so great.

Have fun.

Paul

p310don is right on. All you need to do is be able to boot from USB.

BTW, have you picked your Puppy yet?

No problem

If your Dell has a built in card reader, you may want to get an SDHC card and leave it in, to run Puppy. No, dongle hanging out that way.

starhawk wrote:p310don is right on. All you need to do is be able to boot from USB.

BTW, have you picked your Puppy yet?

Thanks for all your help.

When ya'll say "picked my puppy" what do you mean? Are there different versions and if so, which one do y'all suggest?

I have copies of at least 25 distinct versions archived on my hard drive. Not an exact count, mind you...

If you post the specs of your laptop, as well as what you want to be able to do with it (the more specific the better) then I'll help you find a good Puppy to take home with you

If you don't know the specs, that's OK, just post the model number instead, so that I can look up the specs online.

Be advised that without a swap partition or file somewhere Puppy can find it at boot, Puppy requires at least 256 MB of RAM, and preferably 512 MB, to do useful work such as surf the internet.

p310don wrote: If your machine won't boot from usb, there are still options, boot from CD/DVD and run multisession, saving your puppy back to the CD each time, or boot from CD, and save to usb.

... Or do what I do frugal puppy to a usb drive (4GB total, 3GB formatted to ext3, and 1GB swap) and remaster a cd with isolinux.cfg edited to include the pmedia=usbflash cheatcode. Being that I also have the pup_421.sfs file on the cd too, I can boot the cd without my flash drive by entering the puppy pmedia=cd cheatcode. I even use it on a computer that will boot from usb, as its not my computer and a lot easier than messing with BIOS every time.

PupGeek wrote:

... Or do what I do frugal puppy to a usb drive (4GB total, 3GB formatted to ext3, and 1GB swap)

If you're referring to USB flash drives, don't swap partitions wear them out rather quickly?

jus boot from usb drives or cd

@JWeism1 you should look at this. You don't need a HDD or a CD or a USB or anything. Your choice.

And, if you use Lighthouse, you can have your laptop hibernate and awake on or off LAN.

And, that Puppy document shows anyone, how you can

• boot a single PUP if you choose.
• boot a menu of all of your PUPs if you choose.

Very easy to do.

Hope this helps.

thought I'd chime in here found a little utility that helps pc's with no usb boot option to boot from usb, it works very well.


http://www.plop.at/

jweism1

Have you picked your puppy yet?

This thread highlights the versatility of puppy, but, perhaps it also highlights the overwhelmingness of options available to the new user. So many options when starting new can be daunting.

if you have the download quota, I would recommend trying a few different versions for your laptop.

My recommendations would be the latest lupu available here:

http://diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy500/lupu-525.iso

That has all the latest and greatest.

Because your machine is a laptop, forum member Jemimah has created fluppy, made with laptops and netbooks in mind. It is available here:

http://www.smokey01.com/jemimah/fluppy13/Fluppy-013.iso

This is based on an older version of puppy, but updated with HEAPS of up to date stuff and cool little programs.

Thirdly I'd recommend trying Barry's Wary offering available here.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... .32.28.iso

This has an older kernel which offers some more compatibility with older pc's, perhaps as yours.

All three of these versions will boot from cd, from where you can run in any of the options mentioned in earlier posts in this thread.

Hope that helps

Paul

Dewbie wrote:PupGeek wrote:

... Or do what I do frugal puppy to a usb drive (4GB total, 3GB formatted to ext3, and 1GB swap)

If you're referring to USB flash drives, don't swap partitions wear them out rather quickly?

I've heard that too, but I've been using mine for a good couple years now. Its a Transcend 4 GB flash drive, available at CompUsa, if anyone is interested. I probably do not use the swap very much, as I only use it on a computer at work and usually only for surfing and such. I am, however, always saving and removing stuff to and from it. I think earlier flash drives were much more susceptible to premature wear, much like the early cd and dvd players, and later, burners.

gcmartin wrote: you should look at this.

I looked at that and followed its instructions trying to boot Puppy Studio (based on Lupu 5.2) but the PDEV1=rootfs parameter does not help. The init script still searches the local drives for puppy files and errors out on me. I extracted the initrd and I saw no reference to any PDEV1 arguments within the script. This puppy uses a kernel compiled for realtime support. Does rootfs support have to be compiled in the kernel for this to work properly?

PupGeek wrote:

gcmartin wrote: you should look at this.

I looked at that and followed its instructions trying to boot Puppy Studio (based on Lupu 5.2) but the PDEV1=rootfs parameter does not help. ...

Please post on that thread. Someone will help you there.

As I understand, its workings, using it you do 3 things:

1. nistall the PET
2. start the mknetboot.sh script in a terminal
3. Finally click Menu>Network>Netboot server

When this is done, you can go to any PC on your LAN which you've told to check the LAN first (in its boot order) and that PC will boot from your server. And you can have many PCs on your LAN start and run simultaneously from this server.

There is a document posted in that thread which is a "Howto" written so that anyone can follow.

Post there for any issues that arise for help or understanding.
Hope this helps

Ok, this is my first post... so be nice with me
I decided to install puppy in an no so old intel 478 computer with cheap MOBO and 0.5 GB RAM, using an Compact Flash to ATA/IDE Adapter directly plugged into the 40 pin port IDE-1.
My reasons to do it are that this machine will have some on and cycles a day, and this will destroy traditional HHDD.
Functions for this computer are only communication, social nets, etc.
Can you advice me the best settings to minimize flash writings ?

Thanxs

IIRC, when you run the Puppy Universal Installer from the Setup menu, your configuration is one of the choices.

it is only possible to completely remove hard disk support if you remove the modules, but then you would not be able to access your sfs files.
the way around this is to use a huge initramfs and skip the switch root.

yim wrote:thought I'd chime in here found a little utility that helps pc's with no usb boot option to boot from usb, it works very well.


http://www.plop.at/

sorry to disturb this discussion, but what exactly is this?

--- EDIT ---
ok just found it's Introduction page
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html