Why did CD boot change? (SOLVED)

[marada2]

I have Precise puppy which I have burned to a CD. While I am still playing and getting used to puppy I have decided not to install it to the hard drive so am booing directly from the live CD. The problem is puppy no longer seems to boot from the CD the way it did. It normally used to boot directly to the desktop but now before it boots to the desktop I get some screens asking me to configure the keyboard, graphics card etc. I can’t understand this as nothing has changed with puppy as it is on a read only CD. The only thing I can think of is I accidently once selected the advance menu at boot. Has this someone how installed something to the hard drive which changes the way puppy boots? How do I get back to it booting directly to the desktop from the CD?

[Jasper]

Hi Flash,

For the first time ever, I saw a message about the temporary failure of my original post here.

However, it did transpire to be temporary and was subsequently auto-processed.

My regards

[Jasper]

Hi,

Is it a multi-session-live-CD (if you click its drive icon - when the widow opens - if the top left directory shows a date - it is 99% certain it is)?

If it is, are you using a desktop computer with a tower - (I have read other models may have unreliable CD/DVD drives)?

I have also read a DVD is more reliable than a CD - (but I have never known that problem).

If you close the window(s) without any entries - does your desktop appear as expected?

Are there any obvious finger marks or scratches on the CD surface?

My regards

[marada2]

It is not a multisession CD as it is not rewritable. It is just a CD-R. I am using it on a home built PC which already has a hardrive installed. I just wondered if puppy accidently copied any files to this hardrive such as bootloader? I did select advanced bootup by mistake on the menu that says wait 5 seconds to boot. Although I did not install anything. I really can't understand it as nothing could have changed on the CD as it is not a CD-RW and nothing as far as I know was installed, so it is a mystery why startup would have changed.

[bigpup]

Your boot problem could be caused by a bad save file.

Boot with the CD.
At the Puppy boot screen hit F2 key.
Use boot option puppy pfix=ram
This keeps any save files from being used.
Report what happens.

[rjbrewer]

The problem is puppy no longer seems to boot from the CD the way it did. It normally used to boot directly to the desktop but now before it boots to the desktop I get some screens asking me to configure the keyboard, graphics card etc.

Some Puppy derivatives boot directly.
Barrys' Puppies include the configurations.

[Jasper]

Hi,

It is possible to choose to burn a Precise iso to a CD-R as multisession. I do it.

So that whilst it cannot be rewritten and reused from scratch - sessions and/or data can be added to it.

My regards

[marada2]

When I run the puppy pfix=ram from the boot menu it works as it used to work and boots directly into the puppy desktop.

The problem is when I restart the computer and don't select puppy pfix=ram it just goes to the configuation menus:

Select keyboard layout (grey box on blue background)
puppy timezone selector
set hardware clock type
puppy Xorg video wizard

I really don't understand how this could be caused by a bad save file? Why has anything saved to the hard drive when everytime I ran puppy from the CD? Any idea how to cure this problem and have puppy boot off the CD like it used to without having to manually enter the pfix=ram command at bootup?

[Jasper]

Hi,

You originally saved to your hard drive (or at least not to your CD).

Start again and burn your Precise iso to your CD as multi-session then save to your CD on rebooting or power-off after resetting your keyboard etc. and perhaps adding an app or more.

Additionally, you could then copy the large sfs file from your CD to your HD - then your boot time should reduce substantially, but after booting your CD will be entirely in RAM so your HD need not be used and you could even eject your CD and play a music CD.

Puppy is versatile and brilliant and you can install Wine and a fair number of Windows progs will work, but Puppy is not Windows and never will be - so read and explore for a least a couple of weeks.

My regards

[rjbrewer]

Tried Precise live cd and usb on a few different laptops and PCs.
On some it skips configuration on boot; on some it doesn't.
The particular machine makes a difference.

[Ted Dog]

marada2 puppylinux is BY DEFAULT setup to be multisession if you shutdown normally without creating a save file on a USB/HD. It will burn a NEW ring outside a CD/DVD-r disc and by a neat trick no other linux distro has copied, allows a CD-R DVD-R to be used like a CD/DVD-rewrite disc with one big plus that part can NEVER be undone.

You can easily check for a directory (ies can be much more than one) with a long date-time spring as its name in the root directory, That is when the last changes at that time where saved.
If you count the number of directories of that type and add skip=# after pfix=ram,skip=# it will mark those as bad and allow you to 'ROLL-BACK' completely, If it just occurred and you noticed a bad change you can reboot and use skip=2, or skip=1 if no new ring was burned outside the ones you booted from.

[nic007]

I would just make a small save file to hard disk anyhow at shutdown to save my configuration. Saving it to CD (multi-session) or DVD takes too long and tend to become troublesome after a while, well it was for me anyhow. Maybe my cd drive is not up to scratch.

[marada2]

marada2 puppylinux is BY DEFAULT setup to be multisession if you shutdown normally without creating a save file on a USB/HD. It will burn a NEW ring outside a CD/DVD-r disc and by a neat trick no other linux distro has copied, allows a CD-R DVD-R to be used like a CD/DVD-rewrite disc with one big plus that part can NEVER be undone.

Well when I go to shut puppy down I get a box asking me if I want to save it as a multi session. I am pretty sure I have always ticked no to this, so how could a save file have been created?

You also say that puppy will burn a new ring outside a CD-r disc (does this apply even if the disc has been finalized in my burning program?). If this automatically does this I am not sure this is such a good feature for my needs. How can I disable this from ever happening? The only options I could think of are:

1) Somehow burn random data outside of the iso file so that the whole disc is used up and nothing else can be added.

2) Use a normal CD drive without burn feature, although I don't have one of these. I would also be worried that if it can't burn the file to the CD it would copy it to the hard drive?

3) Alternatively I was reading a forum post where someone used unetbootin to create a usb flash drive which always booted with the pfix=ram command. I could do this and then boot with the usb flash drive and then create a CD from there. This would mean that puppy would always load totally in RAM upon where I could remove the CD from the drive after boot. Again I would be worried that if puppy could not burn the save file to the CD it would copy it to the hard drive mounted in the computer.

Is there an easier way to achieve what I want to do? For me the motivation to use puppy is for total privacy. I am currently configuring puppy with Tor, PGP, truecrypt and a few other privacy tools. When I get puppy the way I want it I will choose to remaster the CD and then I have all my tools. I certainly don't want puppy writing files to a CD ever. My whole reason for using a CD is for maximum privacy.

[L18L]

I have Precise puppy which I have burned to a CD....

make version of precise puppy and installation method public by
posting output of

Code: Select all

cat /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE

please.
Hope that will help helping.

[Jasper]

Hi,

When using L18L's suggestion, just boot
(without using "puppy pfix=ram").

That will show what you did, but what is it you want?

You do say you want to remaster, but how do you want to use the remastered iso?

My regards

Thanks to Ted Dog you could use "ram2sfs" and then use "ISOMaster file editor" to delete the original sfs and insert the newly made sfs and make an updated iso, but if you then burn a new CD from that iso - all your settings and changes will on it (so you could have just saved to a multi-session CD),

[marada2]

first of all thank you everyone for your replies The output of
cat /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE is as follows:

Code: Select all

# cat /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE
PUPMODE=5
PDEV1='sr0'
DEV1FS='iso9660'
PUPSFS='sr0,iso9660,/puppy_precise_5.7.1.sfs'
PUPSAVE=''
PMEDIA='cd'
#ATADRIVES is all internal ide/pata/sata drives, excluding optical, excluding usb...
ATADRIVES='sda '
#ATAOPTICALDRIVES is list of non-usb optical drives...
ATAOPTICALDRIVES='sr0 '
#these directories are unionfs/aufs layers in /initrd...
SAVE_LAYER=''
PUP_LAYER='/pup_ro2'
#The partition that has the precisesave file is mounted here...
PUP_HOME=''
#(in /initrd) ...note, /mnt/home is a link to it.
#this file has extra kernel drivers and firmware...
ZDRV=''
#complete set of modules in the initrd (moved to main f.s.)...
ZDRVINIT='no'
#Partition no. override on boot drive to which session is (or will be) saved...
PSAVEMARK=''
PSUBDIR=''
#

[Ted Dog]

PUPMODE=5

multisession mode !

[marada2]

PUPMODE=5

multisession mode !

So how do I make a CD where it is not multisession mode and loads totally into RAM everytime without having to manually type commands at the boot?

[Ted Dog]

open 'isolinux.cfg'

Add pfix=ram to end of initrd line

rebuild iso.

[Ted Dog]

Also, to save funds in the long run, use cd-rw, or dvd-rw when making changes to these area's. As well it you do not want a forever burned nature of a CD-R, you can use a multisession cd-rw or dvd-rw for such banking setup, and run a blanking function to erase sensitive data, if you are not able to keep CD-RW physically secure.