Transferring multisession to new frugal install?

Discuss anything specific to using Puppy on a multi-session disk
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dogle
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Transferring multisession to new frugal install?

#1 Post by dogle »

Last year yordanj94 posed the question
I have multisession DVD with all my personal settings.

Can i transfer that to a frugal instal so not to start over again ?
Well thus far I have not found an adequate solution, but I'd like myself to copy over my 431 multisession to a new frugal (another old machine!), with the benefit of a year's saved sessions.

This one is a dog, because Puppy, being (too?) clever, appears to recognise that a mature multisession has been loaded and does not offer the 'save to file' option at the end of the new installation session.

Is there any way to force the 'save to file' option, or has anyone found a workaround?

sfeeley
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#2 Post by sfeeley »

wouldn't you be able to do this by loading up the dvd, and then remastering it to another?
(I haven't had to remaster myself, so this is more of a helpful guess than firm advice)

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Flash
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#3 Post by Flash »

Dogle, did you browse through the Multisession section? Seems to me I've seen the same or at least a very similar question asked and answered there.

dogle
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#4 Post by dogle »

Thanks, sfeeley, the remaster route has been proposed before, but will not work for this purpose unless all the personal stuff is added by hand! At best it is an inelegant and very troublesome way to do what Puppy offers to do automatically when he thinks a CD is 'first session', and I think there has to be a better way.

Flash, you are correct, this is a longstanding hardy perennial but nobody seems to have published The Answer (save for remastering). I see that your own request for a howto years back was to no avail (but one which I shall be happy to fulfill if only I can nail this one down).

History: Way back in 2006 Dougal kindly suggested it might be possible to edit PUPMODE in /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE. Fine, if you edit PUPMODE 77 to 12 (and also the other appropriate PUPSTATE variables) you can indeed fool Puppy to go into pupsave mode .... but he still fails to pick up the stuff you wanted to grab from the mature multisession CD.

The underlying reason may be reflected in Kleung21's post -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13430
in which he asserts that it is necessary to go back into initrd, expand it, and do your editing there if you want to play with PUPMODE.

I have not (yet) attempted this; again, it seems a very cumbersome way of doing things, quite unsuitable for newbies, there must be a better way of sorting this one

So the question remains - how does Puppy decide when not to offer the 'save to file' option on shutdown (where is the code hiding?) and how may he be trained otherwise, when you want to transfer all that accumulated stuff from a multisession into a new frugal..

Jasper

#5 Post by Jasper »

Hi dogle and all,

This may well be a clueless thought, but what if:

1) you were to load your usual DVD on your usual computer as usual,

2) you eject the DVD and insert another DVD (either blank or an old one for blanking).

3) you burn an ISO of 4.3.1 (multi-session) then save to the new DVD so that upon saving there is only one date folder presumably with all your updated programs and settings.

4) you make a frugal installation on your "other" computer and then boot with "puppy pfix=ram".

5) you insert the "new" DVD and then mass copy all the directories and files from inside the folder with the current date so that (hopefully) everything will be merged and/or added and you then save to the appropriate partition.

For step 5 if you don't have a DVD drive on the "other" computer perhaps an intermediate copy of the date folder could be made to say, a USB stick and if it is not possible to overwrite any active files on the new frugal then perhaps an extra Puppy OS could be used then possibly discarded.

My regards

I have an enquiring mind, but I lack deep knowledge so there is no need to let me down gently if this is rubbish.

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Flash
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#6 Post by Flash »

That sure looks like it ought to work. :)

Jasper

#7 Post by Jasper »

Hi Flash and all,

A major problem might be that if there were insufficient RAM then perhaps it might not be possible to eject the "old" DVD.

My regards

dogle
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#8 Post by dogle »

Thanks, Sir Jasper.
I think perhaps an over-generous swap partition might evade that RAM sufficiency issue, if it were a problem.

The real problem however is that as soon as Puppy detects the date-identified folder produced on saving to multisession, he is convinced that he is running from an optical disc and goes to PUPMODE=77, (illustrated by the save roundel on the desktop) in which he will not offer the option of saving to file on shutdown.

For instance, I have tried copying the date-identifed save folders directly from DVD to hard drive (for want of better ideas, to see what happened). On reboot after removal of the DVD, Puppy declares that he is copying said folders 'from CD' (now absent). The Freememapplet indicates that he is running in RAM; surprisingly enough all those precious printers settings, bookmarks etc. etc. are now available, but all to no purpose, because one has only the 'save to CD' option at shutdown.

Pehaps someone with better knowledge could go 'dd if .........' and fix the whole thing with one line of code, but here I'm way out of my depth.

PUPMODE77 is reminding me now of that old doggerel re the military:
The army is a funny thing, the sergeants swear and shout
It's very easy getting in but, jaysus, getting out!

Jasper

#9 Post by Jasper »

Hi dogle and all,

I actually want to do what is effectively the reverse of your need. With a frugal install of Lupu 5.1 on my hard drive (and a few GB in /mnt/home so outside my pupsave as well as many pupsave additions and alterations) I would like to save everything to a multi-session DVD.

It appears to me (possibly wrongly) that if the save instructions are somewhere within the date folder (which your test seems to suggest) they could be easily changed. Might it be worth searching the date folder for "77"?

It's your thread and your need is greatest, but perhaps someone can help both of us.

My regards

sfeeley
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#10 Post by sfeeley »

For instance, I have tried copying the date-identifed save folders directly from DVD to hard drive (for want of better ideas, to see what happened).
-By any chance when you did this did you rename the file? Would this eliminate the date stamp?
-What if you saved those files off the computer (say on another DVD or thumb drive) ? Then try booting pfix=ram. After that move the save file back into the appropriate spot.

That said, I might be saying essentially the same advice as Sir Jasper. (and I'm basically guessing)
Pehaps someone with better knowledge could go 'dd if .........' and fix the whole thing with one line of code, but here I'm way out of my depth.
Maybe you can put a call for help (linking back to this thread) on another section of the forum, perhaps "regulars"? You might get a few more experienced eyes on your question

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Flash
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#11 Post by Flash »

sfeeley wrote:...Maybe you can put a call for help (linking back to this thread) on another section of the forum, perhaps "regulars"?
No, please don't do that. It would start a new thread somewhere else in the forum, which would only make the discussion harder to follow.

Believe it or not, knowledgeable people frequent the Beginners section of the forum, looking for problems they can help with and discussions they can contribute to. This particular subject (multisession) just happens to be one for which very few experts exist. My advice is, keep posting here and be patient. :)

Jasper

#12 Post by Jasper »

Hi guys,

I was suggesting copying the directories and files within the date folder (not the actual date folder(s) and if more than one folder it might be necessary to copy them in the right order).

Flash, when you replied earlier, I remembered you don't have a hard drive or a swap file and it was that which prompted my concern about sufficient RAM to remove the "old" DVD.

My regards

PS Flash, Sir Jasper is a bit formal for a friendly forum so sometime, no hurry, could you please change my name to Jasper (dropping the Sir)?

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Flash
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#13 Post by Flash »

Ok. I removed the "Sir" but didn't change anything else, so you ought to be able to log in as Jasper.

dogle
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#14 Post by dogle »

Thanks for the suggestions.

In theory it is possible to transfer the contents of the multisession saved folders to the hard drive manually, file-by-file .... if you have unlimited time, the patience of Job, and a much better understanding of system architecture than have I. This is not a practical solution for ordinary mortals/mongrels like me, and the proposed USB stick and remastering routes seem only to add an extra, unnecessary task layer to the same process.

The false loading messages I reported above indicate to me that the switch to PUPMODE 77 is not thrown by folder content, but by the init script's examination of what filesystems are there - maybe this bit

Code: Select all

[ ! "`echo -n "$PUPSAVE" | grep '/20[0-9][0-9]'`" = "" ] && PUPMODE=77 
superseding the desired entry to PUPMODE 12? (hey, be OK in 89 years?) :-)

To cut a long story a bit shorter, here's an outline of my attempt to follow up the idea to get rid of the date-referenced foldernames.
Cleanup, reformat HD, new 431 frugal with 512MB pupsave.
copy last '2010-12-29 ....' folder from DVD to /mnt/home/puppy431 on the HD
rename said folder ...'/aaa' (i.e dump the date).
unmount DVD, shutdown & see what happens next ... 'saved' ... reboot.
No new (= the old, saved) settings. Not surprised, really. Duff.

Wait .. just one last tunnel attempt ...
Force boot now from new, virgin pup431 CD, force pfix=purge ..
(cleanup messages lingers long at etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE)
(hey it's picked up the old Mozilla salt code there ... could be good).
Desktop appears, Puppy now confused, showing hard drive partitions as thumb drive icons .. and none of those old settings have been saved (CUPS, AbiWord, etc. .. Mozilla bookmarks file is empty).
-but, PUPSTATE now shows PUPMODE=2 (!) Progress?
Remove CD, shutdown ... aha, now screen config is lost, unable to run xorgwizard now, switch off.
Reboot via GRUB . . Oh oh, the 'next boot will be faster' message appears, not good ... and yes, we have no old saved settings, and no trace of that folder which was renamed 'aaa'.
Nice try, no cigar.

Another tunnel collapse. Back to the punishment block, Gefreiter dogle.

Beware, once you hit that 'save to CD' button', you invoke the eternal curse of PUPMODE 77. You are doomed, doomed I tell you, doomed! There is no escape!

Unless ... anyone know how to make a glider?

norsiwel
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pupsaveconfig the gui

#15 Post by norsiwel »

Have you seen this thread http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 20&t=60678

I tried it out in wary5 and it worked great, maybe you could boot into your live session, then install this pet and create a pup save file, then boot a not multisession live cd and do a frugal install, I'm not sure if it would save all your programs and settings but it seems to me that it would.

Good Luck
the only thing that is constant is change

Jasper

#16 Post by Jasper »

Hi guys,

dogle I was thinking Ctrl+A inside the date file, then drag and drop to paste en-block to the new frugal partition.

norsiwel - thanks for joining the thread - I tried to do what dogle needs - I loaded a live DVD with saved date files then installed the pet in Utilities; but when I clicked to try to save to a "normal" save file I got the message:

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Flash
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#17 Post by Flash »

Jasper, mtPaint has a Crop option in the Image drop-down menu that would be useful to you. :)

Open a large image in mtPaint, left-click-and-drag to outline an area, then crop to remove everything outside the outlined area. Save and you're done.

dogle
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#18 Post by dogle »

Update:

Today Barry, in response to a blog comment, very kindly suggested editing the PUPSTATE file to offer PUPMODE=5 in order to bring up the 'save to file' option at shutdown. (Previously I had tried PUPMODE=12, thinking this to be appropriate to a frugal install, without success).

This works, and Puppy appears to prepare a pupsave file as requested.

Attempts to boot the new installation so far have failed. I have been hoping that this was just down to my customary SNAFU with GRUB configuration etc. but, rather worryingly, I am now unable to boot the box from a live CD without the good old 'Kernel panic - not syncin' message appearing, unless I invoke pfix=ram.

This suggest to me that the PUPMODE 5 method may be leading to some sort of deeper filesystem corruption, and so I have been attempting to replicate the problem on a different machine. Unfortunately, today I seem to be landed with a moribund optical drive, and therefore my efforts have so far produced only an exciting new range of cusswords.

If anyone else is up for for trying the PUPMODE=5 route, your feedback would be very welcome.
Last edited by dogle on Sat 22 Jan 2011, 22:26, edited 1 time in total.

Jasper

#19 Post by Jasper »

Hi dogle,

I did previously try using "5" and I also tried changing other lines in PUPSTATE as well, but without success.

However, Barry's comment seems to indicate that with a little more help you are likely to win.

My regards and good luck

dogle
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#20 Post by dogle »

Thanks Jasper, what happened in your case when you tried PUPMODE=5?

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