Hello
I like to have the same puppy at home on my pc and on the road on one of my damn clumsy laptops.
That is no problem since we have the superb grub4dos and I use frugal installs.
But how can I share or sync my settings between my pc's?
Until recently I just synced the whole puppy folder (lupus and slacko since 2012) or at least my save.sfs.
However, I ran into problems with this when using Saluki.
So, my beginners question is, can I use the same save.sfs on different hardware?
Perhaps mostly not at once but may be after a certain procedure like 'detect new hardware'/'first run wizard' or so?
thanks alot!
mobility of puppy?
If both can boot from USB... make a USB install.
Get a big USB stick (32+gb) or a USB hard drive and do a frugal install (full install if you really want to -- but this is a little harder and will only work on a USB HDD). Make your savefile and boot into it, mount the old savefile(s) and copy over what's inside. (I *think* that's how you do that. Although Puppy is habit-forming, I'm still a recreational user
)
...to do a full install with a USB HDD: open the box ("external enclosure" would be the tech term) and get the hard drive out.
You will in all likelihood need a 44pin to 40pin+power adapter (to convert a 2.5" or laptop/notebook drive [same thing, different names] to a 3.5" or desktop drive connection) if you are using IDE/(P)ATA. If you have a SATA drive you don't really need an adapter, the plugs fit almost normally. Just watch those latching cables -- they'll rip the connector off without much trouble if you tug it off without undoing the latch.
Plug the drive into your desktop. (For a laptop, swap the new drive with the internal drive, if you can, and then run from CD. You won't need the adapter with this.) Then install as normal for an internal hard drive.
Interesting note: a CompactFlash (CF for short) card in an IDE adapter will detect as a normal hard drive if you choose that option. Puppy has his moments but they're worth it. I have a full install of 432v3 (the rebuilt one by ttuuuxxx) to a 4gb CF card on an antique Dell Pentium II laptop, and it actually works pretty well.
Precautions with USB hard drive: don't drop it, or your data will spill out irrecoverably when (not if) it breaks -- once that stuff meets air it's gone
Also, don't let it dangle by its cable unless you like to buy stuff altogether too much. This will ruin the cable quickly and it will slowly but surely damage the little board ("controller card") inside the box that goes between the cable and the drive itself.
Precautions with USB flash drive: don't drop anything on it -- dropping a laptop while the drive is connected always results in the drive getting its connector bent in the resulting squish. DON'T bend it back, you'll just rip it up inside the case, and unless you are very good at soldering, your drive is dead permanently, with little-to-no hope of recovery.
...I would know about the flash drive bit. I dropped a netbook with a flash drive on the side 3 times in 3 years. My new laptop (well... new to me
) bumped one into a doorframe. (Fortunately, the doorframe incident only did cosmetic damage to the connector, a couple months later the drive is fine.) Flash drives are mobile but they bruise easily As a further note, the connector can be soldered back on, but the heat involved ensures only a short continuation of its life (particularly given that the tiny board tries to play heat-sink and so the chips get scalded).
...okay so I'm a windbag. Sorry if I gave you too much info, but I hope nevertheless that it's helpful.
Get a big USB stick (32+gb) or a USB hard drive and do a frugal install (full install if you really want to -- but this is a little harder and will only work on a USB HDD). Make your savefile and boot into it, mount the old savefile(s) and copy over what's inside. (I *think* that's how you do that. Although Puppy is habit-forming, I'm still a recreational user
)...to do a full install with a USB HDD: open the box ("external enclosure" would be the tech term) and get the hard drive out.
You will in all likelihood need a 44pin to 40pin+power adapter (to convert a 2.5" or laptop/notebook drive [same thing, different names] to a 3.5" or desktop drive connection) if you are using IDE/(P)ATA. If you have a SATA drive you don't really need an adapter, the plugs fit almost normally. Just watch those latching cables -- they'll rip the connector off without much trouble if you tug it off without undoing the latch.
Plug the drive into your desktop. (For a laptop, swap the new drive with the internal drive, if you can, and then run from CD. You won't need the adapter with this.) Then install as normal for an internal hard drive.
Interesting note: a CompactFlash (CF for short) card in an IDE adapter will detect as a normal hard drive if you choose that option. Puppy has his moments
but they're worth it. I have a full install of 432v3 (the rebuilt one by ttuuuxxx) to a 4gb CF card on an antique Dell Pentium II laptop, and it actually works pretty well.Precautions with USB hard drive: don't drop it, or your data will spill out irrecoverably when (not if) it breaks -- once that stuff meets air it's gone
Also, don't let it dangle by its cable unless you like to buy stuff altogether too much. This will ruin the cable quickly and it will slowly but surely damage the little board ("controller card") inside the box that goes between the cable and the drive itself.Precautions with USB flash drive: don't drop anything on it -- dropping a laptop while the drive is connected always results in the drive getting its connector bent in the resulting squish. DON'T bend it back, you'll just rip it up inside the case, and unless you are very good at soldering, your drive is dead permanently, with little-to-no hope of recovery.
...I would know about the flash drive bit. I dropped a netbook with a flash drive on the side 3 times in 3 years. My new laptop (well... new to me
) bumped one into a doorframe. (Fortunately, the doorframe incident only did cosmetic damage to the connector, a couple months later the drive is fine.) Flash drives are mobile but they bruise easily As a further note, the connector can be soldered back on, but the heat involved ensures only a short continuation of its life (particularly given that the tiny board tries to play heat-sink and so the chips get scalded)....okay so I'm a windbag. Sorry if I gave you too much info, but I hope nevertheless that it's helpful.
Yeah,
you gave lots of information
Best was, ehm, that part about puppy, hihi.
Ok, you gave me the hint. Each time I move to new hardware the first must is to make a clean frugal install with a fresh save?
Tehn do a reboot and 'overwrite' the fresh save with my old one?
You see, I always thought that puppy does of course a lot of hardware detection but mostly uses some genereic approach if that is possible. However, I thought that all that is saved in sfs, too, along my settings of desktop etc....
So, overwriting seems not to be a good idea.
you gave lots of information
Best was, ehm, that part about puppy, hihi.
Ok, you gave me the hint. Each time I move to new hardware the first must is to make a clean frugal install with a fresh save?
Tehn do a reboot and 'overwrite' the fresh save with my old one?
You see, I always thought that puppy does of course a lot of hardware detection but mostly uses some genereic approach if that is possible. However, I thought that all that is saved in sfs, too, along my settings of desktop etc....
So, overwriting seems not to be a good idea.
Sorry, I get carried away rather easily 
Make one savefile on one drive. Swap the drive between computers. Best for this is an external drive, thus the recommendation for USB flash drive or USB hard drive. Biggest advantage to hard drive is capacity, but flash drives are much smaller and harder to break (a flash drive can be dropped many times with no problem, as long as the connector is not damaged).
You don't need to constantly overwrite the savefile. You don't want to do that! However...
Each time you swap your drive to a different computer, X will probably crash. (This is expected and even desirable -- your display hardware is changing each time, and multiple display profile support doesn't exist.) At the # prompt, type xorgwizard and press [ENTER]. After running the wizard, if you see # again, type xwin and press [ENTER] and you should be at your desktop.
Make one savefile on one drive. Swap the drive between computers. Best for this is an external drive, thus the recommendation for USB flash drive or USB hard drive. Biggest advantage to hard drive is capacity, but flash drives are much smaller and harder to break (a flash drive can be dropped many times with no problem, as long as the connector is not damaged).
You don't need to constantly overwrite the savefile. You don't want to do that! However...
Each time you swap your drive to a different computer, X will probably crash. (This is expected and even desirable -- your display hardware is changing each time, and multiple display profile support doesn't exist.) At the # prompt, type xorgwizard and press [ENTER]. After running the wizard, if you see # again, type xwin and press [ENTER] and you should be at your desktop.
If you want to use Puppy on different computers by having it installed to a USB drive, CD/DVD, memory card, etc...
The best thing to do is get Puppy setup the way you want it, install any programs, and then make a remaster of Puppy from this install.
Now put the remaster on whatever you wish and use it.
With a remaster you have Puppy the way you want it,
When a save file is made, it does have settings and config information that is specific to the computer it was made on. Does not carry over from one computer to another very well.
The first boot on a new computer:
Use boot option puppy pfix=ram
This starts with no save file used.
will give you setting options for that computer.
Make setting choices and reboot.
Make save file for that computer.
So the save file will be specific to a certain computer.
You can make multiple save files.
You can make one for each computer.
When you boot there will be an option to select the save file to use.
Just give each save file an identifying name.
Note:
When you have multiple save files to choose at boot, there will also be an option to boot not using any save file.
The best thing to do is get Puppy setup the way you want it, install any programs, and then make a remaster of Puppy from this install.
Now put the remaster on whatever you wish and use it.
With a remaster you have Puppy the way you want it,
When a save file is made, it does have settings and config information that is specific to the computer it was made on. Does not carry over from one computer to another very well.
The first boot on a new computer:
Use boot option puppy pfix=ram
This starts with no save file used.
will give you setting options for that computer.
Make setting choices and reboot.
Make save file for that computer.
So the save file will be specific to a certain computer.
You can make multiple save files.
You can make one for each computer.
When you boot there will be an option to select the save file to use.
Just give each save file an identifying name.
Note:
When you have multiple save files to choose at boot, there will also be an option to boot not using any save file.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)