Invading territory...(installing Puppy on NTFS partition)

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Runemaster · #1 Post by **Runemaster** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 02:37

Hey guys, I know puppy has full read/write support for NTFS partitions, but what would really hit MS in the balls is if we had full hd installation support for puppy to be installed on to an NTFS partition........ That would really put Gates's panties in a wad

. What do you guys think.

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raffy · #2 Post by **raffy** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 03:22

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... 4&start=32

in particular kirk's and billstclair's posts.

sunburnt · #3 Post by **sunburnt** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 04:31

If I'm not mistaken, a FULL install can't be done on ANY partition with ANY of the propriatary M$ formats.
Frugal installs work on any partition type, that's why I like building Puppies that way, they work anywhere.

However... a FULL install can be done to a huge image file, & the image file will work on any partition.
And like the frugal install it can be copied to any other drives partition & run just as it is.

I made a just less than 2GB image file on a FAT32 partition to test this out & it works fine.
Also many Puppy versions can be full or frugal installed & run from the one huge image file.
NTFS of course will support files much larger than 2GB, & with huge HDs what's 10 or 20 GB?

raffy · #4 Post by **raffy** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 12:24

Interesting, sunburnt.

BruceB was trying to do that a while back. Can the image be compressed and distributed?

marksouth2000 · #5 Post by **marksouth2000** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 14:47

Runemaster wrote:Hey guys, I know puppy has full read/write support for NTFS partitions, but what would really hit MS in the balls is if we had full hd installation support for puppy to be installed on to an NTFS partition.

NTFS: proprietary, secret, possibly unstable, and not very high performance. Why use it at all? Linux has half a dozen better filesystems, all open, and well tested.

The best way to deal with Microsoft is, don't deal with Microsoft!

billstclair · #6 Post by **billstclair** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 14:51

What Mark said. The only reason I have Puppy installed on my NTFS file system is because I'm forced to use XP for work, but would rather run Puppy on the machine at home. Works well.

sunburnt · #7 Post by **sunburnt** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 22:39

billstclair; I here you & you have my sympathy, as I suggested before...
With todays huge HDs, making a 10GB ext2 partition is no big deal, & lots of Puppies will fit in that!

marksouth2000; I agree completely, & I've suggested that also, the solution's detailed above.

raffy; Yes the image file can be gzipped, the first boot dialogs will setup the SAVE file as usual.

The file system can be in the image file, the kernel & gzip image file must be in the host partition.
So to boot, the kernel & init. fs have to be accessable by the boot loader & can't be in the image file.

In a true FULL HD install with no init. fs file, the kernel needs the mount command, so it gets dicey.
So with a small init fs file with just the mount command, run the kernel & mount the image file.

Puppy2 has a very small initrd.gz file, so it'd probably work just fine as it is.
To setup, make a ext3 image & mount it, then mount the squash file & copy it's guts to the image file.
Fixing the path is needed for the mounting, & the unionfs mounting of the image file.

UNTESTED... DOS can mount image files, so run the kernel with linld.com & the kernel finishes the boot.
However the kernel needing the mount command to mount the image file is still a problem.
If the mount command could be made into a module & compiled into the kernel (has it been done?).

OR... if a boot loader could mount an image file without the kernel, then ALL files can be in the image.
This would still need the mount command compiled into the kernel.

Runemaster · #8 Post by **Runemaster** » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 23:25

Interesting responses, not really what I expected but nun the less very good thoughts put into the posts. Yes I understand that puppy works just fine under the FAT, FAT16, FAT32, ext2/3. But the point I was trying to make was that maybe we could use MS's strategy for taking over the world of software world muhahahahahah lol, but seriously, if we used that strategy of accepting a and supporting a wide variety of hardware, software, formats and filesystems and so forth. and obviously anyone with a brain with an ounce of computer knowledge knows that puppy and other forms of linux are way more stable than Windows would ever be in a million years. see what I'm trying to get at guys?

___________________
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sunburnt · #9 Post by **sunburnt** » Fri 01 Sep 2006, 04:51

Runemaster; The thought on that was as marksouth2000 & I agreed, M$ formats (especially NTFS) SUCK!
The real thrust would be to ignore M$'s propriatary formats as they're not needed, except to M$.

The original post of mine was that your suggestion of a full HD install to a M$ partition isn't possable.

Linux in general needs to move to a common distro, 3 base distros stand out; Debian, Slack, & Red Hat.
And it's been pointed out (and I agree) that Slack & Red Hat are commercial distros & not suited for this.
So if all distro makers begain using Debian for their base distro, all software written would work.
With all Linux efforts being concentrated on one distro, just imagine what the resulting O.S. would be like!

Runemaster · #10 Post by **Runemaster** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 03:47

I realize that you all have stated that NTFS sucks but you know I'm just trying to speed up the process of linux distros taking over the software world. Like I said, the way Microsoft got to where it is today is because of two things.

1. Ease of use(obviously we've got that....almost)

2. Wide support of different types of filesystems, formats, extensions and so forth( which is still a work in progress for us, but we are getting there)

Eventually Microsoft will create its own demise but in the meantime I just feel like speeding it up just a tad, I'm trying to be serious here but not to serious here guys.....

sunburnt · #11 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 04:01

Yep... we're all for that, & Win. can only get worse & Puppy will only better!

Actually... # 2) M$ doesn't have & never will, that's support of file many system formats.
Win. only supports 2 (FAT & NTFS), lets hear it for the Linux developers for all the support!

As I said in one of my posts, Linux doesn't do USB "hot plug mounting", Win. does.
For a desktop O.S. which Puppy is, this is critical, it has to handle USBs much better.
For servers & embedded PCs Linux shines, hot plug mounting isn't critical, hot swapping is.

I can't think of a more glaring hole in Puppy (& other Linuxes) than this... in I my opinion.

Runemaster · #12 Post by **Runemaster** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 04:16

Indeed.....although I don't have a USB drive and I've done eveything thus far from cd and hd, well, come to mention it I did kind of used my PSP as a jump drive, I have a 1gb stick in it, but other than that I haven't had much experience with them.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO I just had an idea for being able to install on an NTFS filesystem.

Think of it this way......ok lets say I'm a hardcore MS user, and spots puppy and I say what the hell, I'll try it out. Ok lets say I play a little and I'm likin it so far and I see the option to install on to my NTFS partition w/o having to create an FAT partition or something like that. And over time I begin to realize that puppy is much more stable and versitile than MS, then I would most likely completely convert to puppy and boot MS out the door.

You see what I'm getting at?
__________________
Knowledge comes from experience.....Strength comes from battleaxes.

#13 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 04:49

Can't it already do that? I know you used to have to download the pupfile in windows and drop it in, but I though that Puppy 2.02 was supposed to work on it's own. I came home very soon after 2.02 came out, so I was still disoriented while all the testing was going on and don't really remember if a conclusion was reached.

Sit Heel Speak · #14 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 04:54

Runemaster wrote:...Ok lets say I play a little and I'm likin it so far and I see the option to install on to my NTFS partition w/o having to create an FAT partition or something like that. And over time I begin to realize that puppy is much more stable and versitile than MS, then I would most likely completely convert to puppy and boot MS out the door.

You see what I'm getting at?

Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken, but, it is my understanding that NTFS is somewhat "crippled by design" in that it does not support symbolic links, one of the key architectural strategies and underpinnings of Linux. Therefore, if the underlying filesystem is NTFS, the only way Linux can be installed is to put everything other than vmlinuz and the initrd.gz into a Linux filesystem which resides within a file--in other words, a squashfile, such as pup_save.3fs.

In this case, a "full" Linux is indeed possible; perhaps the confusion lies in that in Puppy Linux the term "a full installation" has a very specific meaning. From the www.puppyos.com page, click the "How Puppy Works" link, to read all about the architecture and learn the distinction.

Runemaster · #15 Post by **Runemaster** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 05:37

We have already addressed above that NTFS sucks but being able to install on it, rather being a newbie and not knowing how to create a fat partition or boot from cd or usb drive. It would signifigantly increase the number of people on puppy by many folds thus drawing closer the demise of Micrsoft.

_____________
Knowledge comes from experience.....Strength comes from battleaxes.

sunburnt · #16 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 05:38

Sit Heel Speak; That's the discussionn above, & my solutions.
A frugal install is by far the best, but I outline how a FULL install inside an image file is possable.
The FULL image file install offers so little advantage over the frugal install & a number of disadvantages.

RuneMaster; Perhaps a script to frugal install Puppy to NTFS from an ISO file instead of from CD?

Runemaster · #17 Post by **Runemaster** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 05:38

Sit Heel Speak · #18 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 06:17

sunburnt wrote:Sit Heel Speak; That's the discussionn above, & my solutions.
A frugal install is by far the best, but I outline how a FULL install inside an image file is possible...

I see--a huge initrd.gz. Interesting concept. Apps should start very quickly, since everything's in RAM already, uncompressed. Would there be a problem with having to unpack such a large initrd.gz from an NTFS partition?

sunburnt · #19 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 02 Sep 2006, 07:36

Sit Heel Speak; A huge initrd file isn't what I had in mind, but it would work also.
Unpacking it is no problem, that's what 128 Special Puppy (Mean Puppy?) does.

Using the 3 main files + the SAVE file instead, would run on PCs with low memory.
The squash file could be copied to memory & mounted (lots of memory).
Or just mounted right on the NTFS partition (low memory & no swap).

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Invading territory...(installing Puppy on NTFS partition)

Invading territory...(installing Puppy on NTFS partition)

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