Puppy linux frugal installation, problem booting [Solved]

Booting, installing, newbie
Message
Author
User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Post subject

#31 Post by mikeslr »

Hi Lidia5,

Before doing something radical, let's try something simple. You may have tried it before, but it pays to make certain that everything was done in the correct order.

1. Boot into Tahrpup following theru's suggestion. As soon as Tahrpup begins to boot, press f2 and type puppy pfix=ram.

2. Just above the Taskbar, at the far left you'll see two icons, one with the name sda1, the other with the name sdb1.

3. Left-click the sdb1 icon. A window will open showing the contents of your USB-Stick. You should see both a file named gldr and another named menu.lst.

4. Put your mouse-cursor on the title of the window which opened, Left-Press and drag the window to the top-left of your screen.

5. Left-click the sda1 icon, opening a window to its contents. If necessary, move the two windows so that you can see the gldr and menu.lst files in the sdb1 window, and an empty space in the sda1 window.

6. Place your mouse-cursor on menu.lst in the sdb1, press, then drag it to an empty space in the sda1 window. Release the mouse and a menu will pop up. Select copy.

7. Now do the same with the gldr file. If asked, allow an over-write.

The above is the solution if the problem was that you have the "base" Tahrpup files on your USB-Stick but your SaveFile on the hard-drive. Unless you boot "pfix=ram", every time you boot into Tahrpup it mounts the drives on which its files are located, and grub4dos can't write to a mounted drive.

If your system won't allow you to copy menu.lst from sdb1 to sda1, then there's some more complicated problem.

mikesLr

theru
Posts: 163
Joined: Thu 23 Jul 2015, 16:40
Location: Heers, Belgium

#32 Post by theru »

It's true that grldr is needed for grub4dos to work. Are the files mikeslr mentioned present on sda1 after running grub4dos installer? And are they bigger then 0 bytes?

In gparted when you right-click on sda1 and select manage flags you can toggle the boot flag. Is it on?

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

#33 Post by foxpup »

The above is the solution if the problem was that you have the "base" Tahrpup files on your USB-Stick but your SaveFile on the hard-drive. Unless you boot "pfix=ram", every time you boot into Tahrpup it mounts the drives on which its files are located, and grub4dos can't write to a mounted drive.
@mikeslr: Good thinking! I hope it is that simple. Shouldn't grub4dos also rewrite the boot record on sda1? That too must have failed then.
The solution would then simply be to delete the pupsave from sda1 and rerun grub4dos. Right?

User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Post Subject

#34 Post by mikeslr »

Hi again Lidia5,

What we are trying to preserve is your Lubuntu installation, and especially any files you created or stored within it: photos, documents, music files, etc.

Using gparted to clear any left-over files which may be preventing grub4dos from writing to sda will also delete Lubuntu and any and every file on sda.

And I still don't know some basic information. What exactly did you do to install Lubuntu? If you had to, are you able to do it again?

When grub4dos creates a menu.lst, it always provides a listing for Windows, even if you don't have Windows on your computer. [Don't ask me why; I didn't write the program]. But does your hard-drive also have an installation of Windows in addition to Lubuntu?

If your computer can run Tahrpup, there is no reason to ever do a Full Install of any Puppy. Ever. Puppies were originally created to run from a CD. They evolved to run from a hard-drive or a USB-drive "as if" such drive were a CD. That is why Puppies only need a folder on a drive. 6 or 7 years ago, when computers were sold with less than 256 Mbs of Random Access Memory and a single-core weak-by-today's-standard computer processing unit, it could take a significant amount of time to boot into a Puppy. Someone figured out that it would take less time if Puppy was installed "like" other Linux distros. On a more recent, more powerful computer the difference in boot time is measured in seconds, maybe milliseconds. Tahrpup requires more computer resources than are found on computers which benefited by Full Installs. And Puppies aren't like other distros. They are designed to treat "storage" and Random Access Memory as a Unity, writing and reading from "storage" as and when convenient. Puppies, coming from a CD which couldn't be written to, are designed to "run in RAM". That's one of the reasons for their speed. They only read from storage when necessary and, now, write to storage rarely. A Full install removes Puppies advantages, and add complicating disadvantages not found either in the Frugal Install of a Puppy or a normal install of a distro designed to be a "Full Install."

Now that you can boot Tahrpup from a USB-Stick, it will take less than 5 minutes to do a Frugal install to your hard-drive, if we can solve the problem of writing grub4dos and its menu.lst to that drive; and you actually want to have Puppy on your drive. The procedure is simple:

1. Create a folder on the hard-drive with a unique name, e.g. tahr2.
2. Copy tahrpup's files (except the SaveFile) from the USB-Stick into that folder.
3. Run grub4dos.
4, Unplug the USB-stick.
5. Reboot into tahrpup on the hard-drive.
6. Plug in the USB-Stick; and
7. Copy the SaveFile from the USB-stick into the tahr2 folder.
8. Reboot.

mikesLr

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

Re: Post subject

#35 Post by LidiaS »

In general yes, I wouldn't want to lose Lubuntu as well if possible. It's not that I have important files, I have everything at DropBox, it's just other installations of programs that will take some time. I will surely reinstall Lubuntu again if I have to, for the time being. I honestly don't remember which .iso I had used, but I always do it from bootable USBs.
mikeslr wrote: Before doing something radical, let's try something simple. You may have tried it before, but it pays to make certain that everything was done in the correct order.
Unfortunately the two files you mention are not in the sdb1, but in sda1. See attached. Does this say something? And they are not 0 bytes too. The flag 'boot' has always been at sda, yes.
Attachments
capture9007.png
(127.49 KiB) Downloaded 197 times

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

#36 Post by LidiaS »

theru wrote:
LidiaS wrote:Thanks for the explanation. I did everything carefully, with the dd's, then I rebooted and wee messages are still there
You didn't restore the partition table, did you? This would undo all the zeroing/reinstalling of the mbr and is only meant for when the process fails and you end up losing all of your partitions.
No I didn't, I only run the two first dd's. I will try again thanks!

By now I am surely convinced frugal is better. I just wish it works.

Foxpup, thanks for not admitting I am beyond help. And I am really amazed at how everyone is so helpful here. I wish I could be of such help to others. I will still try mikeslr final solution.

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

Re: Post Subject

#37 Post by LidiaS »

mikeslr wrote: 1. Create a folder on the hard-drive with a unique name, e.g. tahr2.
2. Copy tahrpup's files (except the SaveFile) from the USB-Stick into that folder.
3. Run grub4dos.
4, Unplug the USB-stick.
5. Reboot into tahrpup on the hard-drive.
6. Plug in the USB-Stick; and
7. Copy the SaveFile from the USB-stick into the tahr2 folder.
8. Reboot.
Will do this tomorrow. Just a quick question, when you say create a folder on the hard-drive, do you just mean to creat a folder somewhere in /root , having booted my system as always from the USB?

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

#38 Post by foxpup »

Hey LidiaS, I am relieved you did not reformat sda1!
Unfortunately the two files you mention are not in the sdb1, but in sda1. See attached. Does this say something?
No I think it is alright. grldr and menu.lst should not be on the usb. The usb uses another bootloader: isolinux(syslinux).
There are a few menu...lst in sda1. I presume they are all made by puppy. The content you posted came from one of them? I presume the grldr also comes from puppy, but it is not certain to me.

What matters:
You can see that both sda1 and sdb1 are mounted. And the tahrsave-Foldernotknowwhatsdoing is on the hdd (sda1)! It should be on the usb (sdb1). That looks good! It is what mikesLr was thinking of :-)
Moving or deleting the pupsave should do it.
Let's just wait for mike's opinion and instructions.

nb: in sda1 you see the full install, the directory structure bare as it were, of your lubuntu installation. Besides it you see the puppy folder; inside you should find initrd.gz (init), vmlinuz (linuxkernel) and puppy_tahr_6.0.5.sfs (main puppy) and zdrv_tahr_6.0.5.sfs (drivers). These contain the same filestructure (almost) as lubuntu does. On top of that, the puppy structure is layered. Much nicer don't you agree?

ps: I wonder why there are old kernel and old init.

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

Re: Post Subject

#39 Post by foxpup »

LidiaS wrote:Will do this tomorrow. Just a quick question, when you say create a folder on the hard-drive, do you just mean to creat a folder somewhere in /root , having booted my system as always from the USB?
No, mikesLr means on the partition sda1.
/root is part of the file structure and it will be in xxxx.sfs or xxxx.3fs or in RAM. The first 2 are files on the device/partition you put them on.
A device or a partition is outside of the filestructure. You can access partitions through the filestructure on /mnt/sda1, /mnt/home/, /mnt/sdb1 etc...
In your lubuntu the xxxx.sfs and xxxx.3fs do not exist, and the filestructure is scattered on the partition. It's easier to see what is inside or outside the puppy, than to see what is inside or outside lubuntu.

It needs some 'getting used to' at first.
Last edited by foxpup on Thu 02 Mar 2017, 08:55, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Weii, I guess wrong but that's Great!!

#40 Post by mikeslr »

Hi LIdia5 & All,

Well, I almost got it right. Tahrpup's core=necessary files are on the USB-stick. So the SaveFile must be in one of the folders on sda1 which start with the name tahr.

The easiest solution is to boot into Tahrpup pfix=ram delete those two folder [Right-click a folder and from the popup menu select delete, then quiet or yes to confirm. When deleting a folder quiet won't ask for confirmation as to every file within it].

That will remove whatever is in those folders from sda1. When you reboot into Tahrpup your situation should be:

There's no SaveFile so Tahrpup will display its First Run Dialog. Close that for now. It's more important to first straighten out Grub4dos. Run grub4dos, make sure it will be installed to sdb. Click the "Search only this device" radio button.

Then you might want to see if you can boot into Lubuntu if the USB-Key isn't plugged in. I don't think you can. If you can't reboot into tahrpup or if you don't want to try just run grub4dos, this time selecting sda and again clicking the "Search only this device" radio button.

At some point in time you'll want to create a SaveFile. Make certain that it will be placed on sdb.

You can decide later if you want to have a frugal install of tahrpup on your hard-drive.

The recipe is given here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 627#945627, But maybe I should add something about handling Grub4dos. When you run Grub4dos so that it creates a listing for the "new" tahrpup you have two choices:

Is it going to be called from grub4dos on the hard-drive or grub4dos on the USB-Key? If the hard-drive (sda) then again select "search only this device". But if from the USB-Stick, it's going to find and create listings for both tahrpups. And you don't want the "hard-drive" tahrpup using the "USB-sticks" SaveFile. So you will want to accept Grub4dos' offer to allow you to edit menu.lst. And you'll want to edit the end of the line on the "hard-drive" tahrpup's listing which begins with kernel and ends with pfix=fsck to end with "pfix=fsck;ram" -- without the quotes and no spaces between fsck ; ram.

The first time you boot into the "hard-drive" tahrpup you can edit the USB's menu.lst back to read just "pfix=fsck". After you've created a SaveFile for this tahrpup, the psubdir argument on that line will do its job of restricting where that instance of tahrpup should look for its SaveFiles.

mikesLr

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

#41 Post by foxpup »

Hey LidiaS, I am relieved you did not reformat sda1!
I edited some of my posts and added a warning, to prevent people reformatting to soon.
That wasn't the best advice to give in a beginner's section. Sorry about that.

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

#42 Post by LidiaS »

foxpup wrote:
Hey LidiaS, I am relieved you did not reformat sda1!
I edited some of my posts and added a warning, to prevent people reformatting to soon.
That wasn't the best advice to give in a beginner's section. Sorry about that.
No worries. I should have know what reformatting is in any case :)

Well if I was to reinstall Lubuntu, this was going to happen anyway from the bootable USB as you said, so no big deal.

I am about to follow Mikslr directions!

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

Re: Weii, I guess wrong but that's Great!!

#43 Post by LidiaS »

mikeslr wrote:So the SaveFile must be in one of the folders on sda1 which start with the name tahr.

The easiest solution is to boot into Tahrpup pfix=ram delete those two folder [Right-click a folder and from the popup menu select delete, then quiet or yes to confirm. When deleting a folder quiet won't ask for confirmation as to every file within it].
Problem arose from the very beginning: I normally deleted the folder `tahr.605frugal', and then when I tried to delete my save folder, namely `tahrsave-Foldernotknowwhatsdoing', there were 24 errors. Then a message for a missing directory. Then I rebooted from the USB, I read the letters appearing on the screen, and when it looked for puppy save files, it found the tahrsave folder (it wrote its name), then it loaded and now I am only seeing triangles with a question mark inside them instead of folders etc. I took a screenshot only to realize that it doesn't connect to the internet so I can't send it!

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

boot:puppy pfix=ram

#44 Post by foxpup »

LidiaS wrote:
mikeslr wrote:So the SaveFile must be in one of the folders on sda1 which start with the name tahr.

The easiest solution is to boot into Tahrpup pfix=ram delete those two folder [Right-click a folder and from the popup menu select delete, then quiet or yes to confirm. When deleting a folder quiet won't ask for confirmation as to every file within it].
Problem arose from the very beginning: I normally deleted the folder `tahr.605frugal', and then when I tried to delete my save folder, namely `tahrsave-Foldernotknowwhatsdoing', there were 24 errors. Then a message for a missing directory. Then I rebooted from the USB, I read the letters appearing on the screen, and when it looked for puppy save files, it found the tahrsave folder (it wrote its name), then it loaded and now I am only seeing triangles with a question mark inside them instead of folders etc. I took a screenshot only to realize that it doesn't connect to the internet so I can't send it!
Is this what is happening now?
Did you boot from usb? Did you type "puppy pfix=ram" (without the quotes) when it asks for boot parameters? On the bottom of the screen it says to use F2 and F3 keys and there is a command line "boot:" You have to be quick before the boot continues. Don't forget the magic word 'puppy'.
(Your keyboard could be wrong if you have an azerty keyboard. Find the correct letters.)

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

Re: boot:puppy pfix=ram

#45 Post by LidiaS »

foxpup wrote: Is this what is happening now?
Did you boot from usb? Did you type "puppy pfix=ram" (without the quotes) when it asks for boot parameters? On the bottom of the screen it says to use F2 and F3 keys and there is a command line "boot:" You have to be quick before the boot continues. Don't forget the magic word 'puppy'.
(Your keyboard could be wrong if you have an azerty keyboard. Find the correct letters.)
Yes, that is exactly what\s happening now. Red signs with questionmarks everywhere.

I booted from USB, then quickly press F2. Then I enter puppy pfix=ram. Then it enters!

I did everything again, the save thing is still there, still not erased (with 23 errors)

foxpup
Posts: 1132
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2016, 21:08

#46 Post by foxpup »

It should not look for any pupsave when it enters with pfix=ram.

Can you try to rename the pupsave? to make it unrecognisable. Rightclick on it.
If not, create a new map tahrsave-something besides it and reboot from usb. Because puppy will find more than 1 pupsave, it will ask which one to use, but first choice (0) will be 'none', that is pfix=ram. Choose 0.

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

#47 Post by LidiaS »

foxpup wrote:It should not look for any pupsave when it enters with pfix=ram.

Can you try to rename the pupsave? to make it unrecognisable. Rightclick on it.
If not, create a new map tahrsave-something besides it and reboot from usb. Because puppy will find more than 1 pupsave, it will ask which one to use, but first choice (0) will be 'none', that is pfix=ram. Choose 0.
Really? in pfix=ram it shouldn't look for pupsave? That's really not the case for me, unless I am doing something wrong! I will try again, as well with the new save and see how it goes. Hmm.

LidiaS
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun 26 Feb 2017, 17:11

#48 Post by LidiaS »

Things are going better, I think! pfix=ram had never worked, until the point I did what foxpup told me, i.e. had two tahrpup save folders, it asked me and I said 0. So everything happened like the first time I ever tried to put puppy linux! I had to do the xorgwizard thing first (I'm just saying everything in case they are relevant) and then booted to puppy, no question marks this time. It asked me to configure stuff, but I set it aside and I and went for grub4dos, which I now installed on sdb.

I then rebooted. Without the stick, again the wee messages :(

With the stick, grup4dos finally appeared! It had both puppy and (l)ubuntu. I happily tried lubuntu, but it couldn't do anything :( now I am back to puppy, I erased all previous saves, but I am not sure what to do to be able to access Lubuntu! I think I will install grup4dos also at sda. But I am afraid all the old things will happen again. I will not save for the time being.

jd7654
Posts: 296
Joined: Mon 06 Apr 2015, 16:10

#49 Post by jd7654 »

Ever tried rescue disks?

I used them many times to get into unbootable OSes. One good one is Super Grub2 Disk. Very tiny download ISO file that you can write to USB.(or use E2B) You don't have to modify/change anything, it just looks for and boots any OS it can find. Then you can repair OS from within itself. There are other great ones to repair MBR/GPT and partition table if needed.

Just my $0.02.
PMJI.

User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Post Subject

#50 Post by mikeslr »

Hi Lidia5,

Did you ever install grub4dos to your USB-Key? The screenshot you posted shows it still using syslinux. If you did install grub4dos --it would have over-written syslinux as bootloader and a gldr file and menu.lst would appear on at the top=root of the key. The syslinux files would still be there, but would be ignored.

One possibility is that something didn't get deleted so tarhpup is still finding and using a now corrupted SaveFile. With all the core files on sdb, you should be able to boot into THAT tahrpup without "loading" any SaveFile.

All my computers use grub4dos + menu.lst. Last night I tried to interrupt the written listings by typing puppy pfix=ram or pressing F12 then typing puppy pfix=ram. My efforts were ignored. I recall being able to interrupt the work flow when booting from a CD. Maybe F12 isn't the right key? Whatever, the instructions written into a listing work.

If you installed grub4dos to the USB-stick, can you edit the menu.lst on your flash-drive and add these listings:

title Puppy tahr 6.0.5 NO SAVE
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /puppy_tahr_6.0.5.sfs
kernel /vmlinuz pfix=fsck,ram
initrd /initrd.gz

title Puppy tahr 6.0.5 NO SAVE 2nd try
root=(hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz pfix=fsck,ram
initrd /initrd.gz

The pfix=ram arguments should eliminate any problems involved with trying to do it by typing into a terminal.

The first listing tells Grub4dos to look for puppy_tahr_6.0.5.sfs (which is on your sdb) and set root where ever it finds that file. But while I knew about the find --set-root argument, I think I've only used it once before.

When I manually edit menu.lst to boot from a flash-drive I've always used the root=(hd0,0) argument. Having told the computer to boot from the flash drive, grub4dos should see the drive and partition it is on as (hd0,0) -- drive 0, partition 0.

One or the other listing should work. Then go back and make sure the tahr folders on sda and all their contents have been deleted. Tahrpup's core files are READ_ONLY. Without a SaveFile, booting into Tahrpup will present the same system and display as the first time you booted into it.

Before shutting down/rebooting, run grub4dos and install it to sdb. Let it search both the hard drive and the flash-drive. Looking back, I left that out of the "recipe" so grub4dos may be trying to follow commands that are no longer valid.

I'm far less familiar with syslinux as bootloader. However, if it is still the bootloader on your USB-Key, I think you should be able to edit the syslinux.cfg file which appears in your screenshot to include the above listings.

Perhaps someone with more experience with syslinux can provide some guidance.

mikesLr
Last edited by mikeslr on Thu 02 Mar 2017, 16:37, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply