can't write CDs, use Xorg, or do frugal install (1.07)

[cagliostro]

I got a multisession CD with Puppy 1.07 three weeks ago, and was immediately charmed: a fast boot, even if from CD, and then essential desktop programs like Abiword and Gnumeric able to load in seconds! WOW!

My system details: a white box PC, nearly five years old, 850 Mhz celeron, 320 MB RAM, 160 G hd, 16x DVD Samsung, CD-RW Lite-On. Have Windows ME installed on C: and D:, so have vfat32. Monitor is XF-9s.

1) Can't use Xorg, only Xvesa. Xorg freezes my machine and requires a manual shut-down. In Xvesa I am stuck with 30 Mhz/ 60hz refresh rates which are rock bottom to my monitor. I am told these rates are dangerous and could actually damage the monitor.

2. Can't write to CD. Since this is multisession Puppy, I have no way to save changes. I always boot from the CD burner (CD-RW), as instructed, and Puppy does correctly list both the DVD and CD drives. But any attempt to save to CD, or to end session with a write to CD, talks about writing to "DVD"! Then Puppy says error (naturally, it's a CD, not a DVD), then Puppy says "DVD" is full! I checked the CDs that Puppy rejected and they were fine. There is a place in Puppy to check these drives, make sure the burner CD is identified, but everything here seems fine. It just plain doesn't work.

3. I can't install anything. I got wine by downloading usr_more.sfs, but the people on the forum says this has to be placed in C:\ with usr_cram.fs. In other words I need to do a frugal install. I tried for two weeks. I can load vmlinuz and image.gz, but then they can't find usr_cram.fs (if can't even find that, then no way to load usr_more.sfs). Finally I gave up and posted a message on the forum, but never got any help. Apparently no one can do a frugal install (option 1 install). Too bad, I have been wanting to test wine for a long time, and thought this would be a great chance to do it.

So I can't install anything, can't save anything, can't get on the internet (no modem drivers, despite the fact that the CD I bought had 640MB of empty space), can't get any help on the forum, and am probably damaging my monitor with the low refresh rates.

The thing is I still like Puppy. It's fast and responsive. The basic concept of loading into RAM, of working even on 128 MB RAM machines, is wonderful. Damn Small Linux just doesn't compare--there aren't any programs on it that amount to anything. Sigh.

[gpk]

Welcome to Puppy!!!

I'm no Puppy expert but ...
- refresh rates: I also use Xvesa not Xorg but haven't had a problem with this...
- multisession: when writing back to CD/RW it does call the disc a DVD and produce loads of error messages but (usually!) works. Maybe however it's trying to write to the wrong drive. MIght be worth disabling the DVD in BIOS, or trying 1.0.8 (which I'm currently downloading). Within Puppy there are useful options to write ISO to CD/DVD, hanging off the start menu.
- modem drivers: there are ways of doing this, I've not tried but I'd suggest having a look through the beginners' pages here or searching the forum. I'd also suggest getting a bog standard network card - assuming you have broadband available for connecting to - as Puppy handles ethernet very efficiently.

good luck ...!

[cagliostro]

I managed to remaster the CD following the suggestions of Alienx. I moved the following files from the original multi-session CD into a folder named "isolinux-builds"

boot.msg, image.gz, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, usr_cram.fs, vmlinuz

In other words, move everything from the original CD into the folder except for boot.cat. Now I added the wine file, a puppy download, usr_more.sfs. So both usr_cram.fs and usr_more.sfs are there.

Now create the following shell script and place it in the parent directory of /isolinux-builds. This is, of course, just taken from the remastering script of Alienx. (See "remastering CD without pain" in the solutions part of this forum. I am using just the last few lines of his downloadable scripts.)

Shell script:

mkisofs -J -R -pad -o puppy.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot \
-boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table ./isolinux-builds/
sync
echo "puppy.iso created"

This is all done in an ext3 partition. Click on the shell script and in a second or two the file puppy.iso will appear besides /isolinux-builds. Now the problem--I have no way to access the CD burner from Puppy. So I booted up PCLinuxOS (I just put Kanotix 2005.04 on hda6, and PCLinuxOS on hda8 after reading a number of reviews. I tried SimplyMEPIS, but Kanotix seems better. When Ubuntu 6.04 comes out in April, I will finally try installing Ubuntu. But anyway, back to PCLinuxOS...) Click on puppy.iso, and K3b will start and burn a CD from the iso. This remasters the multi-session CD for puppy, but now with usr_more.sfs included, it also has wine.

I'm not sure how this works. Will adding the extra file mean the ram disk is over full? I try booting the disk, holding breath . . .

The new CD boots perfectly. It says loading usr_cram.fs. Then loading isolinux.bin etc. to live-CD. Then loading usr_more.sfs to live-CD. Yes! Looks successful.

But then the next screen has some sort of message. I can just catch the name usr_more.sfs, but everything flashes by so fast I have no time to read. Was this a warning about the ram disk full? What did it say? I try rebooting the CD over and over again, about six times, but can never manage to read anything, or find a way to freeze the screen. What is it saying about usr_more.sfs? I don't know.

Anyway, Puppy boots up fine. When I go into /usr/bin I find lots of wine files. I try clicking on them and soon find that the wine setup file is missing. Was it simply missing from usr_more.sfs, so that this is a separate download? Or did the ram disk get full, and lots of the wine files got left out? Was that what this message that whizzed by was trying to tell me?

Anyway it is possible to remaster the multi-session disk.