How to do a FULL install of Puppy, to an empty HDD (2010)

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CatDude
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How to do a FULL install of Puppy, to an empty HDD (2010)

#1 Post by CatDude »

  • There is now a Flash Movie of this howto available.
    It takes a while to load, because of it's size.

    NOTE: The usual Username/Password combo for Puppy sites applies
This Howto was done using Puppy 4.00 (Dingo) as the guinea pig.

The purpose of it, is to show how to do a FULL install on an empty HDD,
it does not attempt to explain how to dual boot puppy with another already installed OS.

It also assumes that your PC is able to boot from a CD,
and that you are installing to a normal internal hard drive.

Please note that the partition sizes i used are for example only,
you should make yours to the sizes that you want.

As to the size of the SWAP partition,
it is usually recommended that it is twice the size of your RAM.

So if you have 128M of RAM, create a SWAP partititon of 256M etc,etc

Before we start, make a note of what screen resolution your graphics card/monitor can handle,
you will need this information pretty soon after booting the CD.
  • Also note that because this was done using QEMU, i had to use Xvesa
    therefore i cannot show any screenshots for the Xorg sequences.

    QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
    For more information, visit the QEMU website

    So for the purpose of this howto, just ignore the QEMU window,
    you will not see it yourself, so do not expect to.
I also apologise for the amount of screenshots,
but i could not see any other way of doing it.


Part 1. Booting to the desktop.

OK then, put your Puppy LiveCD into a drive,
and REBOOT the PC.

It should automatically boot from the puppy LiveCD
If it does not, you may need to press F8 or F11 or similar when the PC
first boots, for the boot menu then select the drive that the CD is in.

The first thing you see will be this:
Image-1
Image

Next you will be asked to select the keyboard layout:
Image-2
Image
Use the Up/Down arrows on the keyboard to make your choice then press ENTER/RETURN for OK

Next you will be asked to choose either Xorg or Xvesa, make your choice (try Xorg first, if that fails then use Xvesa):
Image-3
Image
If you need to use Xvesa use the TAB key to make your selection then press ENTER/RETURN for OK

If you chose Xorg, you then need to select a screen resolution:
Select an appropriate resolution (you made a note earlier i hope) then press ENTER/RETURN for OK

Now test it:
Again, use the TAB key to select Test, then press ENTER/RETURN for OK

If it works, thats good, if it did not, then try with Xvesa
now do the linux three finger shuffle (Ctrl + Alt + Backspace)

If you chose Xvesa you will then see this:
Image-4
Image
Select an appropriate resolution and click Change

When the desktop comes back up, along with the Xvesa video wizard click OKAY

You should now be at the desktop like this:
Image-5
Image


Part 2. Partitioning and Formatting the drive.

Now for the main part of this howto.

Right click the desktop to get the menu up,
now go to System > GParted partition manager
Image-6
Image

Next click to highlight where it says unallocated (where it is blue in the picture below)
Then click on New to create a new partition.

Note:
You may already have some partitions created from your previous install,
if so, then for the purpose of this Howto it is probably best to start from scratch.
So select them one at a time (starting with the bottom one) and click Delete.
Eventually you will be left with exactly what you see in the image below, this is the whole drive marked as "unallocated"
Image-7
Image

You will get something similar to this:
Image-8
Image

Make the partition to the size you wish, as you can see below, i left enough space for the SWAP partition.
For Filesystem you can choose either ext2 or ext3.

If you are wondering what the difference is between the Filesystems,
and would like to know more, please check out the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

Image-9
Image
Click on Add

Once again click to highlight unallocated, then New
Image-10
Image

Now create the SWAP partition (be sure to select linux-swap as Filesystem)
Image-11
Image
click on Add

Next click on Apply
Image-12
Image

And again, click on Apply
Image-13
Image

You will now see it Applying pending operations
Image-14
Image

When it has finished, click on Close
Image-15
Image

Now click to highlight /dev/hda1
then RIGHT click and select Manage Flags.
Image-16
Image

Now click to select boot.
Image-17
Image
when its ready click on Close.

Things should now look something like this.
Image-18
Image
If so, you can now close GParted, we are finished with it.


Part 3. Install Time.

Now we will use the Universal Installer to make a FULL install to hda1,
followed by installing GRUB to the MBR

So again RIGHT click the desktop and go to Setup > Puppy universal installer
Image-19
Image

Select Internal (IDE or SATA) hard drive
Image-20
Image
Then click OK

Next choose which drive to install to (in this case it is hda)
Image-21
Image
Then click OK

Next select the partition to install to (in this case it is hda1)
Image-22
Image

Confirm your choice, by clicking on OK
Image-23
Image

Now tell it where the files are, in this case click on CD
Image-24
Image

Click OK again
Image-25
Image

Next we will choose FULL
Image-26
Image

Now wait, while it copies files to the hard drive
Image-27
Image
Image-28
Image

Now we will install GRUB
Image-29
Image

Select INSTALL
Image-30
Image

Click OK
Image-31
Image

Choose simple and click OK
Image-32
Image

Select standard and click OK
Image-33
Image

Accept the default entry (in this case /dev/hda1) and click OK
Image-34
Image

Scroll down the list, and select MBR and click OK
Image-35
Image

Hopefully you will get confirmation that GRUB was successfully installed
Image-36
Image
Click OK

We are now finished with the Universal Installer, so click on NO
Image-37
Image

Now REBOOT (REMOVE the CD from the drive first)
Image-38
Image

Answer NO when asked if you want to save
Image-39
Image

When it reboots, you should see the GRUB boot screen,
(in this case Linux (on /dev/hda1)) is already selected so just hit ENTER/RETURN
Image-40
Image

You will need to make your choice of Keyboard Layout, and Xorg or Xvesa once again.

When you get to the desktop, that is it done.

Next time you reboot, after selecting the partition to boot via GRUB you should go straight to the desktop.

I hope this will help clarify the procedure, for those new to linux.

CatDude
.
Last edited by CatDude on Thu 09 Dec 2010, 15:36, edited 12 times in total.
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MaZZly
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Joined: Fri 14 Dec 2007, 21:16

#2 Post by MaZZly »

if you want GRUB to automatically boot up puppy:

open console (icon on desktop)

Code: Select all

geany /boot/grub/menu.lst
then it opens up the editor and you should edit the

Code: Select all

#timeout 30
to

Code: Select all

timeout 0
then it waits 0 seconds before booting up the first alternative

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ZAPPDOG
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#3 Post by ZAPPDOG »

Hey catdude
nicely displayed. i wish i had that in my early days of puppy.
This page will be bookmarked for future puppy converts.
DR.Z
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paulh
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menu.lst

#4 Post by paulh »

I found installing Puppy 4.00 to a bare hard drive was easy. Editing the menu.lst file get Puppy to boot to the hard drive was the hard part.

Menu.lst is in the /boot/grub directory. My menu.lst is below, to use as an example. My hard drive has two partitions (hda1 and hda2) plus a swap partition, but only hda1 is bootable.

I made only two changes to the menu.lst that grubconfig generated. I removed the # character at the beginning of the timeout line (line 9) and changed the 30 to 5. This made Puppy automatically boot after 5 seconds. And I put a # character at the beginning of every line referring to booting from hda2 (lines 18-20).


# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Mon May 19 22:08:15 2008
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/hda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.hda.22339'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.hda.22339 of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 5
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Linux (on /dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
# title Linux (on /dev/hda2)
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd0,0)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

bill
Posts: 490
Joined: Wed 28 May 2008, 15:32

Adding ext2 or ext2 or swapfile

#5 Post by bill »

Brilliant CatDude,While trying to understand "Gparted" I always got to the "format" command and digressed into "stark terror" :lol: because "format" can be blessing or the four horsemen of the apocalypse. :cry: This layout gives us "newbies" a window in what to expect ,without that hidden "Gotcha" that we don't expect.In my humble opinion this post should be linked elsewhere to "Understanding Gparted" because some of us wouldn't think of looking under "FULL install" and "Gparted" hasn't any help files.Thanks a million.cheers,bill

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CatDude
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Location: UK

#6 Post by CatDude »

@ ZAPPDOG
nicely displayed. i wish i had that in my early days of puppy.
Thanks, as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words.
So i suppose 40 pictures speaks volumes. :lol:

@ paulh
I found installing Puppy 4.00 to a bare hard drive was easy. Editing the menu.lst file get Puppy to boot to the hard drive was the hard part.
If you installed to hda1, then that is what you would select at the GRUB boot menu.
Sorry if you had trouble with it, but this howto was really just to show how to do a FULL install, and not so much about GRUB.
Normally the installer gets the menu.lst entry right, when doing a FULL install.

@ bill
This layout gives us "newbies" a window in what to expect ,without that hidden "Gotcha" that we don't expect.
That was pretty much the intention, glad that it came across as such.
Thanks a million.cheers,bill
Your very welcome

CatDude
.
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SlackerX
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Joined: Sun 08 Jun 2008, 03:55

#7 Post by SlackerX »

I just downloaded the latest version and the screens I see match what I am seeing except for the screen that asks me where the files are. Everything else is the same, but when I go to restart the machine the grub menu comes up, the hard drive spins for a while but absolutely nothing beyond that. I wish I could give more details to the error, but literally nothing comes on the screen. I did read one post someplace that suggested add acpi=force as an option and I tried that but still no joy.

I have a bunch of P3 500mz machines I would love to get this on, all of the drives have been completely wiped and I am trying to just install puppy as the only o/s on the machine. Like I said it keeps hanging with no error messages or anything else.

Since the screen about where the files are is not showing, would it be possible to copies those files to the correct place first before rebooting? If that is yes, where do they need to be copied to and which files? I have my swap set up as hda1 and my data partition (wanting to let puppy take all of the rest of it) on hda2. This is the only hd in the system.

Thanks is advance. This looks like a really great distro for older machines.

SlackerX
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun 08 Jun 2008, 03:55

Follow Up

#8 Post by SlackerX »

This is a follow up to my post above in case someone else runs across this issue.

It would appear that when the machine was 'doing nothing' it was actually waiting on some kind of prompt. I rebooted it, and when nothing was happening I hit enter, which resulted in more hd activity. Hitting enter two more times let whatever scripts or processes were running continue and at that point the machine loaded the X server just fine. The problem did not occur on subsequent boots.

With regards to the screens I did not get prompted with, I did see those screens on a different machine later as part of the install routine. The only difference I can think of is that the machine that I saw the screens on actually had XP installed on it, so it would appear that those screens are only presented if Puppy senses NTFS, Fat32, or (maybe Fat16) types of partitions. Hopefully this information may help someone.

Thanks for distro though. I suspect I will be using it to bring more machines to life in the future.

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CatDude
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#9 Post by CatDude »

Hello SlackerX

Welcome to kennels mate.

Its good to here that things sorted themselves out

I am a little confused though. (it doesn't take much :lol: )
SlackerX wrote:
I just downloaded the latest version and the screens I see match what I am seeing except for the screen that asks me where the files are.


By this do you mean Image-24 ?
If so, then how exactly did you manage to install Puppy ?
SlackerX wrote:
Everything else is the same, but when I go to restart the machine the grub menu comes up, the hard drive spins for a while but absolutely nothing beyond that. I wish I could give more details to the error, but literally nothing comes on the screen.


And how did you get to install GRUB,
did you do it via the menu and not the Puppy universal installer ?
SlackerX wrote:
With regards to the screens I did not get prompted with, I did see those screens on a different machine later as part of the install routine. The only difference I can think of is that the machine that I saw the screens on actually had XP installed on it, so it would appear that those screens are only presented if Puppy senses NTFS, Fat32, or (maybe Fat16) types of partitions. Hopefully this information may help someone.


I dont think thats the case, as this howto shows, there is/was no sign of either an NTFS, Fat32 or Fat16 partition,
yet i still got the screen asking where the files are.

CatDude
.
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nic2109
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#10 Post by nic2109 »

Firstly - great post. You could put this in the wiki too, and mention it on www.puppylinux.org.

May I suggest one little tweak?

A bit of guidance on whether to format your partition as EXT2 or EXT3 would be useful. You know; why you might choose which - pros and cons. Needn't be much but it would forestall a potential "OMG! What does that mean?" moment.
[color=darkblue][b][size=150]Nick[/size][/b][/color]

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CatDude
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#11 Post by CatDude »

Hello nic2109

Thankyou for your input,
please take a look at it now and let me know if this will do.

I have added a quote from one of Sit Heel Speak's posts, with a link to the post its self.

CatDude
.
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nic2109
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#12 Post by nic2109 »

CatDude wrote:Hello nic2109

Thankyou for your input,
please take a look at it now and let me know if this will do.

I have added a quote from one of Sit Heel Speak's posts, with a link to the post its self.

CatDude
.
That's good,. It might be worth adding that fsck runs each time you boot up.

I wonder why anyone ever chooses ext2? I guess there's a performance downside; but whether any desktop/;laptop user would ever actually notice is doubtful. It's different story for servers of course; though the irony there is that you'd be more likely to want journaling for them!
[color=darkblue][b][size=150]Nick[/size][/b][/color]

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CatDude
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#13 Post by CatDude »

Hello nic2109
nic2109 wrote: It might be worth adding that fsck runs each time you boot up.
Is this really true in the case of a FULL install. (Anybody care to clarify this ?)

From what i have managed to glean off the forum,
it may be true of a FRUGAL install (though not necessarily so with Dingo).

If you could provide a link or two, where it actually states that it does,
i could then do as you ask, its just that i do not want to say something if it is not so.

I am all for helping people make an informed choice etc,
i just dont want to disinform anybody along the way.

Hope you understand.

CatDude
.
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nic2109
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#14 Post by nic2109 »

CatDude wrote:Hello nic2109
nic2109 wrote: It might be worth adding that fsck runs each time you boot up.
Is this really true in the case of a FULL install. (Anybody care to clarify this ?)

From what i have managed to glean off the forum,
it may be true of a FRUGAL install (though not necessarily so with Dingo).


CatDude
.
Ooops - I think you're correct. I'm fairly sure that is a feature of Frugal, but I'm not so sure either about an HD install. I agree that it's best not to say anything in that case.
[color=darkblue][b][size=150]Nick[/size][/b][/color]

paulh
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#15 Post by paulh »

CatDude wrote: If you installed to hda1, then that is what you would select at the GRUB boot menu.
Sorry if you had trouble with it, but this howto was really just to show how to do a FULL install, and not so much about GRUB.
Normally the installer gets the menu.lst entry right, when doing a FULL install.
The full install is not successful if the box won't boot to hda1. In my case, the CD drive was broken. I tried an unorthodox installation method -- from a flash drive booted from a floppy. Installation went fine except there was no entry for hda1 on the GRUB boot menu. I finally had to borrow a CD drive just for the installation. That got menu.lst to the point where I could edit it. I stuck my menu.lst in for the benefit of others with hardware limitations.

The Sir Heel Speak piece on drive format is helpful.

texas.chef94
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Installing to HD

#16 Post by texas.chef94 »

People like you are a credit to linux and the learning curve. If you can remember back when all of this seemed scary well thats where I am at.and personally I am not fond of booting from the CD and that is just me. Not ready either to overcome being scared and following your learning tool. By the way it is absolutely the best I have ever encountered and I have made a few videos on HACCP before retiring. So given my being scared and seeking an alternative to installation is it possible to install to USB storage device and if so how?

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CatDude
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Re: Installing to HD

#17 Post by CatDude »

Hello texas.chef94

First of all i want to say thakyou for such kind words regarding this howto, they are very much appreciated.

Secondly, i have never tried installing to any USB devices so i cannot help you in that respect.

Probably the best thing to do, would be to start a new thread in the Beginners Help section.
At least it would get more responses than you will get by just asking here.

Sorry i cant be of more help,
maybe i ought to look into this USB install business myself and make another howto.

CatDude
.
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nic2109
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Re: Installing to HD

#18 Post by nic2109 »

texas.chef94 wrote: So given my being scared and seeking an alternative to installation is it possible to install to USB storage device and if so how?
I assume that you mean a flash memory device and not a USB disk drive.

If so; to encourage you - it's almost exactly the same. You have to format the whole drive, so I'm not sure what would happen regarding the need for some swap space. This is only important if your RAM is well below 256 Mb, so might not bother you.

I'd say just give it a try - plug in your USB drive and launch the wizard; it will find it (probably as sdb1) so follow the excellent instructions.

If, however, you are thinking of using a USB disk drive then that may be different so needs a bit of research. I see no reason why it shouldn't work. I sometimes leave mine attached and the boot sequence tries it as an HDD but complains (correctly) that there is no boot sector and moves on to the next option. As they are generally much higher capacity it's not something to just try and see what happens - unless you have one you are willing to experiment with. I just wouldn't try it if there's anything on it you want to keep!
[color=darkblue][b][size=150]Nick[/size][/b][/color]

paulh
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Re: Installing to HD

#19 Post by paulh »

texas.chef94 wrote:So given my being scared and seeking an alternative to installation is it possible to install to USB storage device and if so how?
It is possible to install to a USB flash drive. I have done it with Puppy 4.00. After you put a FAT formatted USB device in a USB port, you have to mount it. (Apparantly the flash drive can be formatted in ext2 or ext3, but I haven't tried that.) There is a "Mount" icon on the desktop. Then start the Puppy Universal Installer. Its first screen asks what type of medium to install to. One of the choices is "USB Flash Drive". Choose that and just follow the default choices. I found that section 4.2.1 in the Puppy Linux 3.01 manual was helpful. The manual's URL is http://www.puppy-linux.info/en/manual/main.html

There are a couple of questions that you need to answer for yourself, however:

1. Is your flash drive U3 compatible? If so, it will probably have U3 or U3 smart written somewhere on the case. My flash drive was a U3, and the extra partition gave me fits. If yours is a U3 type, you should either wipe out the U3 software and partition or change to a non-U3 type for the installation. I wound up using a compact flash card formatted in FAT32 that was plugged into a reader in a USB port.

2. Can your box boot from a USB flash drive? You have to check the BIOS for that answer. On the computer's startup screen, there is usually a sentence like "Press F1 to enter setup." Enter setup and look for the boot options. Usually there is a boot order, with either floppy disk or CD first and hard drive last. Most likely you will not need to make any changes to the boot order and would simply hit whatever key is required to exit without saving changes.

If your box is like mine and can't boot from a flash drive, then you would have to boot from a floppy. Here is the URL to download Wakepup. It worked for me. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=7979

Here is another file that may be helpful. http://www.puppylinux.com/flash-puppy.htm

This part of the thread probably ought to move over to the Beginner's Forum. There are several similar threads there.

texas.chef94
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Location: Wortham, Texas

Installing to HD

#20 Post by texas.chef94 »

What the heck Cat Dude yoi described it so clearly, but just for grins at image 8 lets assume XP home was on C drive and there was some 30 gig free. How much for XP how much for puppy and add ons and how would it change your moves at image 8 Thanks as I said previously what a learning curve

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