I tried a fresh install of Wary Puppy to an older NEC Versa SX Pentium II laptop, but the bios didn't want to recognize and boot Puppy. (Was this because I formatted the partition as an EX2 or EX3 partition, and my old bios didn't recognize anything in it as bootable because of the newer partition format?
The laptop had been running Win98SE, but I wanted to free up more space and make it a dedicated Puppy machine.
Because the bios would not recognize and boot puppy, I reinstalled a minimal version of Win95 from the original restore disk.
But I'm wondering if the bios might work fine with just DOS (even more minimal than Win95) and thereby free up even more space?
So my questions are these:
(1) is there a way to get my bios to boot Puppy although it didn't recognize Puppy as bootable from a fresh install?
(2) is there a way (perhaps from a win-95 boot floppy) to delete all but DOS from the hard drive, and then make it dual-bootable to (a) Puppy or (b) DOS? And if I did this, would I be able to resize my DOS partition (smaller) and leave it as a FAT partition, but define a new (larger) partition as EX2 or EX3, will my old computer and its bios recognize that format?
(3) As I understand it, GRUB is a WInXP program, but I've read that there is also a DOS method of making an older computer dual-bootable. Am I skipping a step that I should be taking in Lucid or Wary Puppy to perhaps create a DOS autoexec file that would boot Puppy?
Bios does not want to recognize Puppy on older laptop
Hi PF-flyer,
in addition to the questions of 8-bit:
Did you try to install frugal or full? Do you know something about the difference?
Personally I prefer frugal, others prefer full.
Maybe it's worth to read here.
I've read the specs about your NEC Versa SX Pentium II laptop. Basically it has 128MB ram. So you should also use a swap partition (maybe 512MB).
I guess, it's not a BIOS problem. If you know, that you want only Wary on your laptop, you don't need Grub.
If you're not sure (I've read, that you also was testing Lupu 5.25), you should use Grub or Grub4dos. The advantage is, that you can install as much Puppies to your HDD as you have space. After testing, you can better decide which one should stay or fits better your hardware or your desire.
BTW, Grub is not a WinXP program.
HTH
Rolf
in addition to the questions of 8-bit:
Did you try to install frugal or full? Do you know something about the difference?
Personally I prefer frugal, others prefer full.
Maybe it's worth to read here.
I've read the specs about your NEC Versa SX Pentium II laptop. Basically it has 128MB ram. So you should also use a swap partition (maybe 512MB).
I guess, it's not a BIOS problem. If you know, that you want only Wary on your laptop, you don't need Grub.
If you're not sure (I've read, that you also was testing Lupu 5.25), you should use Grub or Grub4dos. The advantage is, that you can install as much Puppies to your HDD as you have space. After testing, you can better decide which one should stay or fits better your hardware or your desire.
BTW, Grub is not a WinXP program.
HTH
Rolf
Ich verwende "frugal", und das ist gut so. :wink:
Raspberry Pi without Puppy? No, thanks.
Raspberry Pi without Puppy? No, thanks.
I'll look into these things this weekend
Thanks for your input and questions. Yes, I did activate the boot flag. I have read conflicting things about Grub: We have one dual boot machine in the house that uses Grub to choose Ubuntu Studio for digital recording, or WinXP, and that works fine, but someone else set it up for us (we paid--and I'm trying to do this one myself for the old laptop, but running into glitches).
Lucid worked, but Wary seemed like it might be better configured for an old laptop, and that worked well from the CD, so on that particular machine, I'm leaning that way.
From what I've read, some sources say Puppy has a GRUB editor, but doesn't install GRUB (hence my assumption that if I didn't have a dual-boot XP-Linux machine, I might have to seek GRUB through third parties). I am still learning about all of this.
I assumed that if I did a fresh install and followed the steps the CD asks for, it would boot, and if it was a fresh install with no DOS, 95, 98 or XP partition, I would not need GRUB.
This was why I thought perhaps the BIOS was too old to read EX2 or EX3. The error I get is right after the bios boots up.
I'll try more things this weekend and get back. Thanks again for the input.
Lucid worked, but Wary seemed like it might be better configured for an old laptop, and that worked well from the CD, so on that particular machine, I'm leaning that way.
From what I've read, some sources say Puppy has a GRUB editor, but doesn't install GRUB (hence my assumption that if I didn't have a dual-boot XP-Linux machine, I might have to seek GRUB through third parties). I am still learning about all of this.
I assumed that if I did a fresh install and followed the steps the CD asks for, it would boot, and if it was a fresh install with no DOS, 95, 98 or XP partition, I would not need GRUB.
This was why I thought perhaps the BIOS was too old to read EX2 or EX3. The error I get is right after the bios boots up.
I'll try more things this weekend and get back. Thanks again for the input.
Oops - meant to ask about FAT and EX2 or EX3 formatting
In my first post, I had asked if it's possible to leave one (smaller) Win95 or DOS partition in FAT, and to format another (larger, Puppy) partition in EX2 or EX3?
Or if you have one in FAT, do they all have to be in FAT on the same hard drive?
Or if you have one in FAT, do they all have to be in FAT on the same hard drive?
My computer specs
My computer is an NEC Versa SX 300 (Pentium2 @ 300MHz).
It has 64MB ram, but I'm upgrading to 256MB (two 128MB sticks were $9 each, whereas two 256K sticks were $27 each... My purpose is to see if I can avoid trashing the thing and remain cost-effective by running Puppy Linux instead of Win95/98--but at a certain point, hardware upgrades approach the cost of a used Core2Duo laptop....).
It has the original hard drive, which I think is 10GB. I hope to save most docs to USB flash drive.
It also has one USB1 port, and two PCMCIA slots, one of which could be used for card with 2-4 USB2 ports for additional memory on flash drives (we have a variety of these, from 32mb to 8gb around the house). I have tried using a USB flash drive attached to the back of a PC and configuring it for virtual memory, and that seems to have sped up an older Pentium3 desktop, so eventually I'd like to try something like that on the Versa SX with Puppy, if it's not too hard to achieve.
It has 64MB ram, but I'm upgrading to 256MB (two 128MB sticks were $9 each, whereas two 256K sticks were $27 each... My purpose is to see if I can avoid trashing the thing and remain cost-effective by running Puppy Linux instead of Win95/98--but at a certain point, hardware upgrades approach the cost of a used Core2Duo laptop....).
It has the original hard drive, which I think is 10GB. I hope to save most docs to USB flash drive.
It also has one USB1 port, and two PCMCIA slots, one of which could be used for card with 2-4 USB2 ports for additional memory on flash drives (we have a variety of these, from 32mb to 8gb around the house). I have tried using a USB flash drive attached to the back of a PC and configuring it for virtual memory, and that seems to have sped up an older Pentium3 desktop, so eventually I'd like to try something like that on the Versa SX with Puppy, if it's not too hard to achieve.
reply to rhadon - full, not frugal so far
Rhadon: You had asked if I was trying full or frugal install. So far I've tried the full install, not the frugal (I reformatted the whole hard drive as EX2 or EX3 partition and did not leave any Windows). But I've read that some have saved bare elements of Windows install so that they can make use of the Windows font sets. I don't know how to do that, but that's for another day.
You also wrote about my specs: I think I have only 64 memory, not 128 for now, but am getting 2 new 128 memory sticks at $9 each, so I'll have a whopping 256 in a few days ;-D
You wrote, "So you should also use a swap partition (maybe 512MB)."
I wanted to ask: Is it possible to define a swap partition on a USB flash drive (1gb or larger?)?
You also wrote about my specs: I think I have only 64 memory, not 128 for now, but am getting 2 new 128 memory sticks at $9 each, so I'll have a whopping 256 in a few days ;-D
You wrote, "So you should also use a swap partition (maybe 512MB)."
I wanted to ask: Is it possible to define a swap partition on a USB flash drive (1gb or larger?)?
This info may help you:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60302
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60302
Oh my God, I've just learned that frugal is a poor man's install. 
All the time I've never known how poor I am.
@PF-flyer
256MB is a good start.
It is possible to use a swap partition on a usb stick but I would not recommend.
It's slower, you allways need the stick plugged in and (maybe it's trivial) the stick has a less MTBF (statistical meantime between failure). It's really better to use the hd.
Rolf
@bigpup
apart from my first sentence, it's a good description
All the time I've never known how poor I am.
@PF-flyer
256MB is a good start.
It is possible to use a swap partition on a usb stick but I would not recommend.
It's slower, you allways need the stick plugged in and (maybe it's trivial) the stick has a less MTBF (statistical meantime between failure). It's really better to use the hd.
Rolf
@bigpup
apart from my first sentence, it's a good description
Ich verwende "frugal", und das ist gut so. :wink:
Raspberry Pi without Puppy? No, thanks.
Raspberry Pi without Puppy? No, thanks.
Thanks for the link, BigPup
BigPup: Your link helps me in a variety of ways, not the least being that I had assumed frugal install allowed dual boot, but that full install did not. Thanks!
Q for BigPup RE which install best 4 font-sharing
@ BigPup: Have you ever tried a dual boot install (frugal or full) by which Puppy Linux programs access and share Windows fonts?
I've read about how some Linux users use some kind of dual boot system, and then access Windows fonts from Linux -- but I don't know which kind of install lends itself to this arrangement, or of perhaps more than one install method allows for this.
The reason this is a concern is that I'm a teacher, and out of fairness, I require that for certain writing assignments, all students should use the same font, same size font, same margins, etc., so some are not using an extra large font and margins to be lazy, etc., while others might be too wordy/verbose.
If you have any experience with font sharing, I'd appreciate your thoughts.
I've read about how some Linux users use some kind of dual boot system, and then access Windows fonts from Linux -- but I don't know which kind of install lends itself to this arrangement, or of perhaps more than one install method allows for this.
The reason this is a concern is that I'm a teacher, and out of fairness, I require that for certain writing assignments, all students should use the same font, same size font, same margins, etc., so some are not using an extra large font and margins to be lazy, etc., while others might be too wordy/verbose.
If you have any experience with font sharing, I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Both Full and Frugal types can Symlink to ANY folder containing valid fonts.
Obviously to get a FULL legal set of MS Windows fonts on any machine does require a Windows license for that machine.
However there is a set of Microsoft core fonts that include the most used ones that is freely available - you need to look for them as MS no longer supply them - that anyone can load and point to.
If needed I have them.
I wouldn't call frugal a poor man's install at all. I use it all the time, and because of that I managed to install a fully customised Puppy on to TWO new ECC machines on Saturday in 30 minutes - including the above fonts, loads of stand alone programs under Wine, and multi-boot with Hiren's CD tools from disk.
Obviously to get a FULL legal set of MS Windows fonts on any machine does require a Windows license for that machine.
However there is a set of Microsoft core fonts that include the most used ones that is freely available - you need to look for them as MS no longer supply them - that anyone can load and point to.
If needed I have them.
I wouldn't call frugal a poor man's install at all. I use it all the time, and because of that I managed to install a fully customised Puppy on to TWO new ECC machines on Saturday in 30 minutes - including the above fonts, loads of stand alone programs under Wine, and multi-boot with Hiren's CD tools from disk.
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett
Symn link to fonts
Burn-IT:
Your mention of symn links to fonts made me curious, so I googled symn link fonts puppy, etc., and found this stuff:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=15758
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 88faa574bd
http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 2ca818b737
http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 17c43f9f4c
This last one mentions the program Inkscape, and Barry K says that he included a feature in Puppy 1 (?) which (automatically) looked to see if Windows was installed and gave access to Windows fonts. Hmmmm....
Your mention of symn links to fonts made me curious, so I googled symn link fonts puppy, etc., and found this stuff:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=15758
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 88faa574bd
http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 2ca818b737
http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 17c43f9f4c
This last one mentions the program Inkscape, and Barry K says that he included a feature in Puppy 1 (?) which (automatically) looked to see if Windows was installed and gave access to Windows fonts. Hmmmm....