How to install Puppy/Dog distros on a GPT hard drive system

[mikeslr]

rcrsn51 has provided a recipe here: h[url]ttp://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1013650#1013650[/url]

[rcrsn51]

Your URL is missing the first "h".

[Edit] Since Mike hasn't fixed it, the correct link is here.

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[watchdog]

I haven't a GPT partitioned hd at the moment and so I can't experiment. Would grub2 work to boot puppy on GPT partitioned hd? I would use menuentries in grub.cfg or /etc/grub.d/40_custom of the following samples:

Code: Select all

menuentry "Puppy bionic beaver 18.05+22 (sda1/ubbpup)" {
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root xxxyyyzzz
linux /ubbpup/vmlinuz net.ifnames=0 pmedia=atahd psubdir=ubbpup pfix=fsck
initrd /ubbpup/initrd.gz
}
 
menuentry "Puppy bionic beaver 18.05+22 ISO (sda1/ubbpup)" {
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root xxxyyyzzz
loopback loop /upupbb-18.05+22.iso
linux (loop)/vmlinuz net.ifnames=0 pmedia=atahd psubdir=ubbpup pfix=fsck
initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BionicDog64 (sda1/casper)" 
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root xxxyyyzzz
linux /casper/vmlinuz noauto from=/ changes=/casper/
initrd /casper/initrd1.xz
}

Where xxxyyyzzz is the uuid of sda1 or of the partition where puppy is. You can get the right uuid running blkid in console. Grub2 could be the one provided by ubuntu or by a puppy live after installing grub2 by ppm and installing it by:

Code: Select all

mkdir -p /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
grub-install --force --no-floppy --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug --boot-directory=/mnt/sda1/boot /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /mnt/sda1/boot/grub/grub.cfg

Would this work?

[rcrsn51]

The whole point of this project is to put Puppy/Dogs in a GPT environment WITHOUT having to use GRUB2.

But it boots with legacy GRUB (not Grub4Dos) so you can continue to use your favourite menu.lst syntax.

[fredx181]

The whole point of this project is to put Puppy/Dogs in a GPT environment WITHOUT having to use GRUB2.

So do I understand well that grub-legacy and GRUB2 will work in a GPT environment but not grub4dos, syslinux or extlinux ?

Fred

[rcrsn51]

I can only comment on grub4dos. Here is my understanding of the issue:

G4D's "stage1" code is more complicated than Legacy GRUB, so it occupies some of the unused space between the MBR and the start of the first partition.

But that space is now being used by the GPT system. So there is a conflict.

But Legacy GRUB's stage1 only needs the first ~400 bytes of the MBR and a GPT system doesn't use the first 512 byte sector of the drive at all. So there is no conflict.

Also, my system doesn't rely on Legacy GRUB stage1.5. So it doesn't need to be shoe-horned into an area used by the GPT.

Regarding syslinux/extlinux: If you wrote the standard MS-DOS boot record onto the MBR (like mbr.bin) and flagged a partition as bootable, then you might be able to get them to work too.