Problems trying to run in Virtual PC on a Mac

Booting, installing, newbie
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jstrout
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 04:32

Problems trying to run in Virtual PC on a Mac

#1 Post by jstrout »

I'm a Mac user, with a little (but not much!) Linux experience in the past. I'm now trying to get Puppy working properly under Virtual PC. Here are the problems I've run into so far:

1. All attempts to change the keyboard layout to Dvorak are ineffective. I go to the mouse/keyboard wizard, and select the Dvorak layout, and it claims "You have chosen 'dvorak.map' keyboard map. Note, this information is saved in file /etc/keymap. Puppy has now loaded and is using this layout." But it's lying -- subsequent attempts to type anywhere still use QWERTY, and if I reopen the wizard, the default option is the first one "azerty". Note that if I kill X and look in /etc/keymap, it does indeed say dvorak.map, yet when I start X again, I'm still in QWERTY. I really can't type in QWERTY, so this is a show-stopper -- any ideas?

2. I went through the network setup wizard, which found my live eth0 interface, and told it to use DHCP (which is correct for my LAN) -- but it still couldn't locate google.com or anything else in the Mozilla. Is this the sort of thing that would require a reboot? But of course, once I reboot, everything is back to the defaults, unless I figure out how to set up a hard drive -- see item 3.

3. This virtual machine has a big unused hard disk for which I selected "Linux" when creating the machine. I tried to use the "Install Puppy Hard Drive" tool, but it failed, advising me to inspect fdisklog.txt. Inspecting that doesn't give me much clue... here are the highlights: "Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI, or OSF... Building a new DOS disklabel... Number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1958... Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)... Command (m for help): No partition is defined yet! Command (m for help): Command (m for help): 8: unknown command" (at which point it dumps a list of valid commands, and I presume the script has wandered off into the weeds.

Seems like this should be a simple operation... I have a blank hard drive, which I want to format and install Puppy onto. How do I do that?

Thanks,
-- Joe

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dvw86
Posts: 636
Joined: Thu 05 May 2005, 00:55
Location: Washington State

#2 Post by dvw86 »

Read this and see if it helps any. If you still have questions, feel free to ask.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/DansPuppyPage

jstrout
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 04:32

Re: Linux newbie having multiple problems with Puppy

#3 Post by jstrout »

Thanks, this did help some. One thing you did different from me is select Win98 as your hard drive format, but it doesn't look from your web page that you installed Puppy onto that drive anyway. But perhaps this allows Puppy to save its home file?

(BTW, I can confirm that selecting USB Mouse does not work. I tried that both ways, and only calling it a PS/2 mouse works.)

I tried switching the VPC network setting to Virtual Switch, rebooting, and configuring eth0 for DHCP again. This works! Thank you.

The keyboard thing is really driving me nuts though. Damn Small Linux had no trouble switching to a Dvorak keyboard; why won't it work with Puppy? Has anyone else managed to change the keyboard layout successfully?

jstrout
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 04:32

Re: Linux newbie having multiple problems with Puppy

#4 Post by jstrout »

jstrout wrote:Thanks, this did help some. One thing you did different from me is select Win98 as your hard drive format, but it doesn't look from your web page that you installed Puppy onto that drive anyway. But perhaps this allows Puppy to save its home file?
Just to follow up: I started over, this time making a FAT32 volume by telling VPC that I was going to install Win98, as you suggested. But during the boot process, Puppy still complained that it couldn't find a suitable volume for storing the home file, and that therefore personal settings would not be saved.

Without actually installing Windows, any idea how I can format a hard drive so that Puppy will use it?

Thanks,
- Joe

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dvw86
Posts: 636
Joined: Thu 05 May 2005, 00:55
Location: Washington State

Re: Linux newbie having multiple problems with Puppy

#5 Post by dvw86 »

jstrout wrote: Just to follow up: I started over, this time making a FAT32 volume by telling VPC that I was going to install Win98, as you suggested. But during the boot process, Puppy still complained that it couldn't find a suitable volume for storing the home file, and that therefore personal settings would not be saved.
Are you booting from a burned Puppy CD or the Puppy CD iso file that you downloaded?

Are you sure that you are selecting the virtual hard drive image before you boot Puppy up?

You could also use a USB storage device and share it to VPC. Then when Puppy boots, prompt it to use /dev/sda1 to store the pup001 file
jstrout wrote: Without actually installing Windows, any idea how I can format a hard drive so that Puppy will use it?
If you chose Win98, than it is already formated in a way that puppy will use. Just make sure that VPC is using that drive when booting Puppy.
jstrout wrote: The keyboard thing is really driving me nuts though. Damn Small Linux had no trouble switching to a Dvorak keyboard; why won't it work with Puppy? Has anyone else managed to change the keyboard layout successfully?
Sorry, I've never used a Dvorak keyboard
jstrout wrote: I tried to use the "Install Puppy Hard Drive" tool, but it failed...
There is no need to install it on the virtual hard drive since you can boot off of the CD iso file. Just put the Puppy iso in your Mac's "Documents" folder and drag it to the CD icon in VPC. The pup001 file (all your changes to Puppy) should be saved on the virtual disk, while Puppy is actually being stored in your "Documents" folder.

That being said, you can install Puppy to the virtual hard drive but you will also have to install GRUB on the virtual hard drive as well to boot it.

BTW, Puppy's Trash Can program was written on a Mac running VPC.

jstrout
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 04:32

Re: Linux newbie having multiple problems with Puppy

#6 Post by jstrout »

dvw86 wrote:Are you booting from a burned Puppy CD or the Puppy CD iso file that you downloaded?
The ISO file.
dvw86 wrote:Are you sure that you are selecting the virtual hard drive image before you boot Puppy up?
dvw86 wrote:If you chose Win98, than it is already formated in a way that puppy will use. Just make sure that VPC is using that drive when booting Puppy.
I chose Win98, and VPC's using it, but Puppy still doesn't acknowledge it.
dvw86 wrote:Sorry, I've never used a Dvorak keyboard
Well, it would apply to any non-QWERTY layout as well, such as those used by most people in the world...
dvw86 wrote:There is no need to install it on the virtual hard drive since you can boot off of the CD iso file.
Except that installing it on a hard drive is my goal. I want to set up a set of cheap Linux boxes, and I'll want them booting off their internal hard drives.

But it looks like Puppy isn't the distribution for me -- it simply doesn't work on a number of counts (or if it's possible to make it work, it's apparently too hard for me). :(

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dvw86
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Location: Washington State

Re: Linux newbie having multiple problems with Puppy

#7 Post by dvw86 »

jstrout wrote:
Except that installing it on a hard drive is my goal. I want to set up a set of cheap Linux boxes, and I'll want them booting off their internal hard drives.

But it looks like Puppy isn't the distribution for me -- it simply doesn't work on a number of counts (or if it's possible to make it work, it's apparently too hard for me). :(
I wouldn't compare installing Puppy on a Mac with VPC with installing Puppy on a native X86 computer. Just the fact that the Mac is PPC based and has to emulate everything from the BIOS to the Processor to the USB devices, adds a huge level of complication. If you want a cheap and easy Puppy machine read about my other project using Puppy on Mini-ITX based computers. It was very easy to set up and use Puppy on this computer.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/MiniITX

and here

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=178&highlight=

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