Want to replace WinXP with Puppy, need help (Solved)

Booting, installing, newbie
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chrisperry
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Joined: Fri 02 Sep 2005, 18:52
Location: Georgetown, Ky

Want to replace WinXP with Puppy, need help (Solved)

#1 Post by chrisperry »

I currently have winxp on a machine and want to completely get rid of itand use puppy.

should i fdisk and reformat or just delete everything on c:
or does puppy have a special feature to do this?

amd k62 550
the hd is 10gig
128meg ram
networked to a win xp with cable internet access

thanks
chris

Bruce B

#2 Post by Bruce B »

very good decision!

I love to delete XP, you can:

Wipe the drive with Darik's Boot and Nuke, then, start like it's a new drive, fdisk it and prepare your partitions.

If you are running on FAT 32 and want to install Puppy on FAT32 you could do a format on the drive and start pretty clean.

There must be hundreds of ways to get rid of XP.

If it were me, I'd boot and nuke the drive, then party all night and celebrate my good decision and commitment to freedom. Next day I'd think about what to do.

I've started with nuked disks and used nothing but System Rescue CD to prepare the drive and FTP from the Internet the software needed to start building a complete system.

It is all so fun. Your's is the greatest post. Starting from scratch and doing it right! Imagining a new life without any more XP experiences!

raffy
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cfdisk

#3 Post by raffy »

and cfdisk while in Puppy console, too - just delete the old partition and create new ones.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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rarsa
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#4 Post by rarsa »

Don't forget to do all this booting from puppy with option 3.

Here are the steps:

1. Boot with the puppy liveCD
2. On the boot options enter '3' and press enter.
3. When prompted for a partition for the pup file just press enter, that guarantees that you won't be using the HDD while trying to format
4. Follow the standard boot procedure (responding to the questions about your harware)
5. Open an rxvt console
6. Execute cfdisk and delete the old partition, create the new partition
7. Write your changes and quit
8. Still in the console execute mkfs.ext2 <partition> where <partition> is the partition you want to format. e.g. mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda1
9. Now install Puppy according to the HDD installation instructions

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chrisperry
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Location: Georgetown, Ky

#5 Post by chrisperry »

i followed the instructions but i get a blank screen with a blinking curser when i reboot without the cd

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chrisperry
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Just a blinking cursor when installing to HDD

#6 Post by chrisperry »

i followed the instructions a few times and when i reboot i get a blank screen with a blinking cursor

rarsa wrote:Don't forget to do all this booting from puppy with option 3.

Here are the steps:

1. Boot with the puppy liveCD
2. On the boot options enter '3' and press enter.
3. When prompted for a partition for the pup file just press enter, that guarantees that you won't be using the HDD while trying to format
4. Follow the standard boot procedure (responding to the questions about your harware)
5. Open an rxvt console
6. Execute cfdisk and delete the old partition, create the new partition
7. Write your changes and quit
8. Still in the console execute mkfs.ext2 <partition> where <partition> is the partition you want to format. e.g. mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda1
9. Now install Puppy according to the HDD installation instructions

raffy
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Location: Manila

Step 9

#7 Post by raffy »

Step 9 = Setup - Install Puppy Hard Drive and choose option 2. See the link below for details.

(You can actually skip step 8.)
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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Mechsus
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#8 Post by Mechsus »

chrisperry wrote:I currently have winxp on a machine and want to completely get rid of itand use puppy.
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/HardDiskInstall
Bruce B wrote:If it were me, I'd boot and nuke the drive, then party all night and celebrate my good decision and commitment to freedom.
You love XP as much as the rest of us... :wink:

Bruce B

Re: Just a blinking cursor when installing to HDD

#9 Post by Bruce B »

chrisperry wrote:i followed the instructions a few times and when i reboot i get a blank screen with a blinking cursor

rarsa wrote:Don't forget to do all this booting from puppy with option 3.

Here are the steps:

1. Boot with the puppy liveCD
2. On the boot options enter '3' and press enter.
3. When prompted for a partition for the pup file just press enter, that guarantees that you won't be using the HDD while trying to format
4. Follow the standard boot procedure (responding to the questions about your harware)
5. Open an rxvt console
6. Execute cfdisk and delete the old partition, create the new partition
7. Write your changes and quit
8. Still in the console execute mkfs.ext2 <partition> where <partition> is the partition you want to format. e.g. mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda1
9. Now install Puppy according to the HDD installation instructions
Respectfully, I think rasa's step by step presumes something I would not presume. The presumption appears to be that Puppy's GRUB install script will install GRUB correctly.

The ratio of my success using Puppy's GRUB install has been low enough that rarely use it. Otherwise installing an Option 2 has been very successful.

Also, there is no reason for making a filesystem, prior to an Option 2 install. The reason why is Puppy will make the ext2 filesystem arbitrarily. Just use fdisk or cfdisk to make the Linux partition type 83.

Another thing, with 128 mb RAM, I'd recommend a swap partition.

Sorry, please understand I don't mean to be critical, but the computer is not booting and something didn't go right. My guess is: If he can still boot with the CD-ROM, the GRUB setup failed.

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chrisperry
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update

#10 Post by chrisperry »

i installed win 98
i booted with puppy
used cfdisk make a partition hda5 as logical linux
tried to install to hda5
everyting worked until i chose boot to linux in grub menu
got this error

root (hd0,4)
filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type0x83
kernal /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 ro vga=normal
error 13: invalad or unsupported executable format

press any key

press a key goes back to grub menu and starts over
chris

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Ian
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Location: Queensland

#11 Post by Ian »

As I said on your other post, try installing Grub by hand.

Bruce B

Re: update

#12 Post by Bruce B »

chrisperry wrote: root (hd0,4)
filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type0x83
kernal /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 ro vga=normal
error 13: invalad or unsupported executable format
Chris, here's how I understand it. When you make the option 2 install, Puppy takes the CD-ROM and copies vmlinux from it to /tmp.

It creates the file system using routines and files in memory. At some point it copies vmlinux to /boot

This might sound nuts, as it should, but I wonder if something goes wrong in the copy from /tmp to /boot

I've had some limited success, under similar conditions manually copying vmlinux to /boot - believe it or not!

----------

I don't want to send you down a wrong path, but frankly I'd try booting puppy from CD-ROM disc, mounting the disk and copying vmlinux to hda5/boot

BTW - what I more typically get is a bad CRC message about vmlinux, followed by a refusal to boot. That's why I wonder if something sometimes goes wrong when copying from /tmp to /boot

Guest

#13 Post by Guest »

Here's an interesting article that may be some help.

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chrisperry
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Joined: Fri 02 Sep 2005, 18:52
Location: Georgetown, Ky

update

#14 Post by chrisperry »

Finally got it to work, thanks to everyone for their help.

i got it configured so puppy loads automatically after i boot.
chris

Bruce B

Re: update

#15 Post by Bruce B »

chrisperry wrote:Finally got it to work, thanks to everyone for their help.

i got it configured so puppy loads automatically after i boot.
chris
That's super.

Now please contribute to the knowledge base and tell us with some specificty what you did to make it work.

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chrisperry
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Joined: Fri 02 Sep 2005, 18:52
Location: Georgetown, Ky

Installed puppy to compaq computer to use as primary os

#16 Post by chrisperry »

Success after many hours and many posts to forum.
Compaq must be special,
in order to boot withgrub i had to install win 98
when i did this it made a partition for restore, i used cfdisk to make the partition linux #83 on hda2
then i installed puppy to hd, on hda2
used grub, i copied vmlinuz to boot manually to make sure it was working,
i then edited menu.lst to make puppy boot 1st after 10seconds
:lol:

thanks again for everyone that helped. if i can help anyone just let me know.
chris

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