I can boot ,but install fails

Booting, installing, newbie
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Kuoi
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon 08 Apr 2019, 15:42

I can boot ,but install fails

#1 Post by Kuoi »

Hello ,

I can boot puppy linux ,but when i want to "install" it on an other usb to use this as my ONLY boot device and to store my settings "savefile" or safefolder" does not work;

I can't make a partition on the usb to get it booting AND use a partition as persistent.

I can only boot from original ,but i can't select the last partition on this usb to get safefile or -folder on it.

And if i select my other usb ,i end up with only 1 partition ,so then this usb won't boot.

You need 2 usb's to get puppy working as persistent ?

I have a lot experience with booting and linux as a distro hopper ,but never had this before.
I had lubuntu on a usb ,and this was working as persistent ,so i want puppy linux working from 1 usb

What am i doing wrong ? When i click "reboot" puppy asks to safe the session ,so i do ,but then i can't select the partition on the usb stick .

I'm very confused !

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mikeslr
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Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

#2 Post by mikeslr »

Hi Kuoi,

Welcome to the kennels. :)

How (exactly -- be specific) did you format the USB-stick?

What file format is it? Fat32, Linux Ext2,3,4 or something else?

What boot mechanism is being used? grub2, grub4dos, or something else?

Which Puppy (specifically -- name and version number)? At last count there were 5000 +/- variations.

And it may help to know the specifics of your computer, Brand, model.

As bigpup often says, we only know what you tell us.

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Burn_IT
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Location: Tamworth UK

#3 Post by Burn_IT »

Can I also remind you that not all usb sticks are bootable. That option has to have been burned into the firmware of the stick.
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

jafadmin
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Joined: Thu 19 Mar 2009, 15:10

#4 Post by jafadmin »

Burn_IT wrote:Can I also remind you that not all usb sticks are bootable. That option has to have been burned into the firmware of the stick.
While I see rare instances of this on the webbers, in reality I have never encountered a USB flash drive that won't boot. Just wipe the first 128 meg of the USB drive with dd using zeros, then use gparted to create a new partition table and create a single ext2 partition and mark it as bootable.

I have created hundreds of bootable USB thumbdrives on dozens of different brands over the past couple decades. I have never encountered this.

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Mike Walsh
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Location: King's Lynn, UK.

#5 Post by Mike Walsh »

@ Kuoi:-

There's a slight confusion of terms here. Puppy is indeed 'persistent', but.....this isn't implemented in quite the same way as the 'buntu 'flavours'.

Puppy uses what is known as a 'save-file' or 'save-folder' to store its configuration changes. Many smaller .pets ( a '.pet' is the standard Puppy package format, short for Puppy Extended Tarball), can be saved within your save-file/folder, since they don't take up very much space. Larger progs/apps can be 'loaded/unloaded' on-the-fly, as and when they're actually needed. These are in the format of an SFS.....a Squash File System package. These should contain everything needed for the prog/app to run.

This is the way Puppy works.

----------------------------------

Please take note of Mikeslr's response. The stick's 'format' is very important; if you're attempting to use ext4, as with 'the flavours', this can create problems for Puppy. Puppy more commonly uses ext3.

Hardware specs also come in useful, RAM amount especially. This can determine whether or not you should (or shouldn't) use the less-common 'full install'. In Puppy's case, the 'full install' was developed for old hardware with very limited resources. For normal use, with average hardware specs, the 'frugal' install is highly recommended. It doesn't refer to the contents of the install; a 'full' install is not 'better' than a 'frugal'; far from it. Most Puppy material is designed to work better with the frugal install, which merely refers to the amount of space it occupies (not that Puppies are exactly 'big' to start with!)

Over to you.....


Mike. :wink:

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Burn_IT
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Joined: Sat 12 Aug 2006, 19:25
Location: Tamworth UK

#6 Post by Burn_IT »

I have created hundreds of bootable USB thumbdrives on dozens of different brands over the past couple decades. I have never encountered this.
Well obviously not enough. Since I have encountered three in the last few weeks, and I did a study of dozens of drives when I was still working.
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

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