[Solved]did I miss something frugal or full intallation?

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jtwdyp
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[Solved]did I miss something frugal or full intallation?

#1 Post by jtwdyp »

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the results. I think I like the full install better anyway. But I was expecting the opportunity to choose...

I've installed Puppy to two thumb drives {so far} from a slacko 5.6 cd. I read something about having to use frugal {along with something else} IF I installed to a fat or ntfs file system But nothing said I couldn't do a frugal install to the ext2 fs I had gparted put on the thumb drive.

But in both cases, once I told the universal installer to install to said ext2 partition, it never offered to do it frugally?

Like I said, I think I like it better this way anyway. But I was thinking of putting a frugal install on a third thumb drive just to see what the difference is. Only I'd still want it on ext2. How would I go about telling the universal installer to do that??
Last edited by jtwdyp on Tue 15 Oct 2013, 04:42, edited 1 time in total.
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rcrsn51
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#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

Read here for a discussion of full versus frugal. On a USB device, your ONLY choice is frugal.

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L18L
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Re: did I miss something selecting frugal or full intallation?

#3 Post by L18L »

Yes there is no offer of frugal
simply making a frugal install (precise5.7.1)
Puppy Universal Installer wrote:ABSOLUTE FINAL SANITY CHECK!
You are about to install Puppy to /dev/sdb2, with boot parameter
pmedia=usbflash. The files vmlinuz, initrd.gz, puppy_precise_5.7.1.sfs, extlinux.conf
(and maybe zdrv_precise_5.7.1.sfs if it exists. puppy_precise_5.7.1.sfs may be inside initrd.gz)
will be written to /dev/sdb2 and Extlinux will be used to make it bootable.

Press ENTER key to continue, CTRL-C to abort:

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jtwdyp
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#4 Post by jtwdyp »

rcrsn51 wrote:Read here for a discussion of full versus frugal. On a USB device, your ONLY choice is frugal.
Actually I'd found, and read that before I even downloaded the iso...

That's not to say I fully understood it.

What confuses me about this is that in that post you said of the frugal install:
You get the effect of a full install while Puppy is running, but all you actually see on your hard drive are the core files and the pupsave.
I did repartition the 8gig key drive with gparted, so that it has 3 partitions now. But I'm seeing a lot more on the partition I installed puppy to than the core files...

Code: Select all

~/tmp 
UnderTree=-> fdisk -l /dev/sdc

Disk /dev/sdc: 7803 MB, 7803174912 bytes, 15240576 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048     2050047     1024000    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sdc2   *     2050048    14335999     6142976   83  Linux
/dev/sdc3        14336000    15239167      451584   82  Linux swap / Solaris
 ~/tmp 
UnderTree=-> df|grep /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc1       999M   22M  977M   3% /drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/red
/dev/sdc2       5.8G  1.1G  4.5G  19% /drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy
 ~/tmp 
UnderTree=-> ls -al /drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy
total 167668
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root      4096 Oct  7 00:17 ./
drwxrwxrwx 10 root root      4096 Oct  5 12:25 ../
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       126 Oct  4 14:36 boot.msg
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root      4096 Oct  6 19:26 dev/
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root      4096 Oct  6 19:26 etc/
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       157 Oct  4 14:36 extlinux.conf
-r--r--r--  1 root root     13312 Oct  4 14:36 extlinux.sys
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      1169 Oct  4 14:36 help2.msg
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      1464 Oct  4 14:36 help.msg
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root      4096 Oct  5 13:08 initrd/
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   1922962 Oct  4 14:37 initrd.gz
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root      4096 Aug 29  2012 install/
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root      4096 Aug  4 23:29 lib/
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      7603 Oct  4 14:36 logo.16
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 166391840 Oct  4 14:38 puppy_slacko_5.6.sfs
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root      4096 Oct  6 16:08 root/
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root      4096 Oct  6 11:59 usr/
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root      4096 Oct  6 19:26 var/
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   3104352 Oct  4 14:36 vmlinuz
drwx------  2 root root      4096 Oct  5 13:08 .wh..wh.orph/
drwx------  2 root root      4096 Oct  5 13:08 .wh..wh.plnk/
 ~/tmp 
UnderTree=-> ls -al /drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy/.wh*
/drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy/.wh..wh.orph:
total 8
drwx------  2 root root 4096 Oct  5 13:08 ./
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Oct  7 00:17 ../

/drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy/.wh..wh.plnk:
total 8
drwx------  2 root root 4096 Oct  5 13:08 ./
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Oct  7 00:17 ../
 ~/tmp 
UnderTree=-> 


So perhaps you can understand why as a beginner, I didn't think that this was a frugal install...
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rcrsn51
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#5 Post by rcrsn51 »

You're right - there are more files on your flash drive than the three core files. The ones named extlinux, help, etc. are used by the boot mechanism.

You do have vmlinuz, initrd.gz and puppy_slacko_5.6.sfs, but you don't have a savefile. This is still a frugal install.

Some Puppies let you do a hybrid setup where instead of using a savefile, you save your sessions back into a filesystem on the flash drive. That's why you have the folders /usr, /var, etc. But there have been reports that this method is prone to corruption.

There are a couple of ways to determine your type of install. Open the file /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE and check the value of PUPMODE. A true full install will have PUPMODE=2. Or look at the file extlinux.conf on the flash drive. Full Puppy installs don't use the initrd.gz

BTW, "/drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy" seems odd. The conventional way to mount a USB device would be off /mnt.

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darkcity
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#6 Post by darkcity »

But in both cases, once I told the universal installer to install to said ext2 partition, it never offered to do it frugally?
Maybe the text in the installer isn't explicit enough about stating whether it is going to be frugal or full. There is trouble with the word 'frugal' as it sounds like a cut-down system rather than a different filing system method.

there's a comparison here http://puppylinux.org/wikka/FrugalOrFullInstallation

This page give you more info about pupmodes
http://puppylinux.com/development/howpuppyworks.html

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jtwdyp
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#7 Post by jtwdyp »

rcrsn51 wrote:You're right - there are more files on your flash drive than the three core files. The ones named extlinux, help, etc. are used by the boot mechanism.

You do have vmlinuz, initrd.gz and puppy_slacko_5.6.sfs, but you don't have a savefile. This is still a frugal install.

Some Puppies let you do a hybrid setup where instead of using a savefile, you save your sessions back into a filesystem on the flash drive. That's why you have the folders /usr, /var, etc. But there have been reports that this method is prone to corruption.
Sounds to me like it must be a hybred...

Though I don't recall being offered a choice about the "hybred setup"... Unless it was built in to the 3 choices in the shutdown save popup... There was a choice to save to the device name of the partition Puppy was installed to. A choice to use the file system to select a location. And a choice to Not save...

I selected the button labeled with the device name...

I'm not so sure I need to worry too much about the possible corruption issue
With any luck at all I'll get it configured the way I want it long enough to try the remaster option... If that results in a cd that boots and/or installs a Puppy with my selected software, bookmarks, scripts, keybindings etc... I'll be able to use that to recreate my live-key any time it gets corrupted.... Right?

I'm not so worried about preserving lots of current personal data because I'm not planning to run Puppy as my primary distro. To me it's a great "take anywhere" rescue/system maintenance tool. AND durned fun to play with too...
There are a couple of ways to determine your type of install. Open the file /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE and check the value of PUPMODE. A true full install will have PUPMODE=2. Or look at the file extlinux.conf on the flash drive. Full Puppy installs don't use the initrd.gz
Yeah, PUPMODE=7
BTW, "/drv-zip/usbZipShuttle/redPuppy" seems odd. The conventional way to mount a USB device would be off /mnt.
True. But except with Puppy I don't always run as root. But using su or sudo every time I want to mount or unmount a removeable device is a PITA. Plus I dislike the gui tools to let my normal user mount such devices so much, that I use /dev/disk/by-id with custom mount points in my /etc/fstab for each of the keydrives I'm likely to use... I also used to have an actual zip drive, so I was already used to navigating to /drv-zip/ with mc when I wanted to access a portable storage device. All my user has to do is to select the dedicated mount point in mc and type "mount <alt>+<enter> <enter>" to mount it... Since the key I put Puppy on was already nicknamed "red" in the collection I named usbZipShuttle, it was a no brainer to add a mount point for the 2nd partition where Puppy was located as "redPuppy"... I think the reason I like Linux is that it's usually possible to do most things my own way even when all the developers do things some other way... Nuff said!
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#8 Post by tallboy »

I could be wrong, but I think I recently read posts here, that said you're not allowed to use ext file systems on a memory stick installed puppy, it is not designed for it.

BTW, if the partition table shown is for a memstick, I think that a swap partition should be avoided. If you have so little RAM that the swap partition frequently will be activated, you will have read/write operations to it all the time while it is in use. That will definitely shorten the memstick's life span. Besides, swap via USB is relatively slow! :D

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#9 Post by jtwdyp »

tallboy wrote:I could be wrong, but I think I recently read posts here, that said you're not allowed to use ext file systems on a memory stick installed puppy, it is not designed for it.


Wouldn't know about that. But as I recall I told the universal installer I was putting Puppy on a "USB FLASH DRIVE" before it informed me that I might consider ext2 via the gparted button... Though I suppose the section recommending ext2 might be a different module from the one that knew it was limiting the displayed install targets to flash drives... But anyway it was easy to do.
BTW, if the partition table shown is for a memstick, I think that a swap partition should be avoided. If you have so little RAM that the swap partition frequently will be activated, you will have read/write operations to it all the time while it is in use. That will definitely shorten the memstick's life span. Besides, swap via USB is relatively slow! :D


Now THAT sounds like good advice, that I shoulda though of myself... said swap will be history soon.

Thanks for the heads up.
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L18L
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#10 Post by L18L »

tallboy wrote:I could be wrong, but I think I recently read posts here, that said you're not allowed to use ext file systems on a memory stick installed puppy, it is not designed for it.
I am using nothing else than ext2 on my memory sticks :wink:

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Monsie
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did I miss something selecting frugal or full intallation?

#11 Post by Monsie »

L18L wrote:
tallboy wrote:I could be wrong, but I think I recently read posts here, that said you're not allowed to use ext file systems on a memory stick installed puppy, it is not designed for it.
I am using nothing else than ext2 on my memory sticks :wink:
tallboy, I think the concern with the ext file system and memory sticks has to do with ext 3 and ext 4 which include the journaling feature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system Both file systems work fine on a flash drive, but may shorten its life span because a flash drive has a more limited number of writes than the conventional disk drive.

That said, apparently it is possible to disable the journaling feature in ext 4 as explained in this blog here. However, I have not tested this procedure. It should be do-able in Puppy, and it would be interesting to get confirmation and feedback on this... --perhaps in another thread devoted to this particular topic.

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jtwdyp
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Re: did I miss something selecting frugal or full intallation?

#12 Post by jtwdyp »

Monsie wrote:
L18L wrote:
tallboy wrote:I could be wrong, but I think I recently read posts here, that said you're not allowed to use ext file systems on a memory stick installed puppy, it is not designed for it.
I am using nothing else than ext2 on my memory sticks :wink:
Thanks for the confirmation that I didn't mess up...
tallboy, I think the concern with the ext file system and memory sticks has to do with ext 3 and ext 4 which include the journaling feature.


I've heard that concern about any journaling FS on all forms of solid state drives. And that would certainly include putting ext3 or ext4. on a flash drive... :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system Both file systems work fine on a flash drive, but may shorten its life span because a flash drive has a more limited number of writes than the conventional disk drive.

That said, apparently it is possible to disable the journaling feature in ext 4 as explained in this blog here. However, I have not tested this procedure. It should be do-able in Puppy, and it would be interesting to get confirmation and feedback on this... --perhaps in another thread devoted to this particular topic.
I don't see the point... If your going to disable the journal of an ext4... Wouldn't you have just as well used ext2 in the first place. :? Or is there some other real advantage to either ext3 or ext4 over ext2 that doesn't depend on the journal???
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did I miss something selecting frugal or full intallation?

#13 Post by Monsie »

jtwdyp wrote:
I don't see the point... If your going to disable the journal of an ext4... Wouldn't you have just as well used ext2 in the first place. Confused Or is there some other real advantage to either ext3 or ext4 over ext2 that doesn't depend on the journal???
Yes, since ext4 is an evolution of sorts regarding the extended file system, there must be some advantages... :wink:

A couple of improvements come to mind:
  • ext4 provides support for larger storage volumes,
    ext4 provides better support for large files in terms of mapping larger chunks of contiguous space on the storage media, thus reducing the amount of fragmentation that might occur otherwise.
That said, this discussion might become somewhat moot because we now have the F2FS format. Puppy Linux now provides some support for this new file system which you can find details about in this thread here and also
in Barry Kauler's announcement here, with the release of Slacko 5.6 Support for this file system is still a work in progress ( for instance, not all boot loaders support this file system yet) but likely to become the norm in the near future for those who choose to install an operating system on a flash drive or other storage card.

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#14 Post by mikeb »

ext4 was the stop gap to btrfs.... but that seems to have run off into the sunset.

ext4... improved to support large server farms... anyone here running one?

Only improvement I can think of is dynamically creating inodes through optimising the format of ext2/3 works rather well in that respect.

There is always a desire for things that are shiny and new in this world......

I also feel the fragility of flash sticks is based on their performance when they first appeared... a decent brand is pretty robust now... I can run windows from one and thats a pretty drive heavy enviroment and ssds are based on the same technology and no one seems to suggest non journalling there...but thats just my dubious opinion.

mike

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#15 Post by jtwdyp »

Monsie wrote:
That said, this discussion might become somewhat moot because we now have the F2FS format. Puppy Linux now provides some support for this new file system which you can find details about in this thread here
That seems a lot of work... I think I'll stay with my trusty ext2 (and/or) ext3 when I want journalling...
mikeb wrote:There is always a desire for things that are shiny and new in this world......
Whereas, in my case, Going to the grocery {or most any other kind} store, Looking for some more of my favorite treat. I totally dread seeing the words "New and improved" Because the day that "THAT" heralds an actual improvement to what I liked the way it used to be, really would be something "NEW["... :chuckle:
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#16 Post by tallboy »

jtwdyp, I hope you make it work as intended!
Monsie wrote:tallboy, I think the concern with the ext file system and memory sticks has to do with ext 3 and ext 4 which include the journaling feature.
Monsie, thank you for refreshing my memory! It shows that only two thirds of my brain is gone... :lol:

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#17 Post by jtwdyp »

tallboy wrote:jtwdyp, I hope you make it work as intended!
Well the difference has been explained to me... AND I've learned a little more.

When I used the universal installer from a live session of the the downloaded slacko 5.6 iso to install to a Flash drive: The resulting Puppy had an pop-up {yellow} dialog box at shutdown, asking me where to save. This {yellow} dialog offered 3 choices. One of them was to save directly to the Flash partition that the Puppy was installed to. If I selected that, I wound up with what I believe was what rcrsn51 described earlier in the thread as:
a hybrid setup where instead of using a savefile, you save your sessions back into a filesystem on the flash drive.
once you have saved data, that {yellow} dialog is gone. And BTW it is never offered on a new install from a remastered CD.

But once I've installed to a Flashdrive, using either the downloaded slacko 5.6 iso, OR a remastered slacko 5.6 iso, I can copy the files from another slacko 5.6 Flashdrive to clone it (including any customizations) on to the new one.

That is to say I use mc from a Linux NOT running on either Flashdrive to delete everything except "boot.msg extlinux.conf extlinux.sys help.msg help2.msg logo.16" from the target Flashdrive partition, Then copy everything except those same files, from the source Flashdrive to the target.

In the case of the hybrid, one must copy any directories recursively of course. And mc makes that easy :D

And the clone is complete.

I'm think that probably the above list of files to leave unaltered could be shortened to just "boot.msg extlinux.conf extlinux.sys", But I have not tested that yet... I've no need. I have two working hybrid setups. And 4 with slackosave files. All 6 of these make great preconfigured rescue tools. So if I break, or lose one, it's no big deal.

I have even converted one that was using a slackosave file to a hybrid this way. And I also converted a hybrid system to one that uses a standard slackosave.

So tallboy, I think I have managed to make them work as intended... ;)
For which I'm grateful for all the kind help I received from the Puppy Linux forums, Without which I'd still be on square one.

THANKS!
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