(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi guys,

I normaly load Puppy from a CD / DVD multisession drive.
So, in puppy-214 and puppy-215ce I found pup_214.sfs and zdrv_214.sfs on my / directory.
If I want add any new program or stuff, I add the new_214.sfs to that directory and reboot, saving the CD/DVD multisession.
Or remaster the iso with ISOmaster, adding the new_214.sfs to the iso.
All work fine.
All is SO EASY that way.

But when puppy-2.16; puppy-2.17.1; puppy-3.01; and even the new puppy-4 came to the scenario, the files pup_xxx.sfs and zdrv_xxx.sfs doest not appears on the / directory any more.
So finish with the easy form to add programs in the .sfs way to CD/DVD multisession.

I beg for the future new version 3.03ce have this facilities for the .sfs files.
Please don't forget this.

pdrito.

Ok, I've never used a multi-session disk, but I'd assume froim what I've read I think putting the file in the usual /mnt/home would lead to the file actually ending up in a dated sub directory, which would be slow to find (we'd have to mod the startup scripts to search 1 dir deep surely?) It strikes me that we could create a directory 'sfs' on the root of the disk, and create a nice symlink to it somewhere convenient like /

While this would make it reasonably simple to add sfs it's got me thinking. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to write a BASH script that works out where sfs files should be based on PUPMODE and PSUBDIR (should be enough surely?). If the script is being run from the live CD without a save file then we could simply ask the user how they intend to save.

What I'm picturing is universal sfs installer. No matter how your puppy is installed it'll move a sfs file to the right place, and offer you the chance to reboot. If it's called with a file specified as an argument then it just does it, else it calls up a file open dialogue asking the user what file to install.

I haven't looked into how sfs loading is handled, all I know is that when a new sfs is added a prompt is shown at the next boot. It would be my guess that it should be reasonably easy to suppress this to streamline the experiance.


I'm willing to write this, it should be within my abilities. Do people think that it's worthwhile, or is the present system simple enough? Remember that Lobster's frontt end 'scruffy' will make installing the majority of sfs files a breaze anyway. Then again, looking at his sample code, he seems to be relying on /mnt/home, so perhaps my proprosed script might actually be of use there too?

Comments anyone? Does anyone have a better answer to the multisession issue that we're actually supposed to be talking about?

Everitt wrote:... Comments anyone? Does anyone have a better answer to the multisession issue that we're actually supposed to be talking about?

I'm no expert but I have some comments that I like to think might be helpful. I put them here, under Random thoughts on a Multisession DVD filesystem for Puppy Linux

Hi Everitt

I must confess to having never used multisession puppy's (cd writers, and particularly dvd writers are hard to come by in these parts). How I think I understand it, puppy's ability to just add .sfs files in the same folder as the pup_save hase been very useful and very simple (Im a big fan of the KISS principle).

Since lobster has been working on the universal .sfs loader I would assume you will need to co-ordinate this with him?

@Flash
Where does your /mnt/home link point? Does putting a sfs file there work? If it does then there really isn't a problem here, but if, as th OP seems to suggest, there is something different happening then some form of unification is needed.

@ecomoney
I tried one just now. First boot was fine, but as soon as I saved a session my laptop refused to boot from it.
I agree, if it does turn out that we need something doing then I'll have to follow Lobster's lead. Hopefully though it'll turn out that /mnt/home works.

Everitt wrote:@Flash
Where does your /mnt/home link point?

I'm in 2.17 at the moment, and it's /initrd/mnt/dev_ro1 (determined by right-clicking /mnt/home in ROX then choosing Show Target from the menyu.)

Does putting a sfs file there work?

I don't know. I've never tried it. Years ago (or so it seems) I tried remastering Puppy to add OpenOffice, but I was running multisession Puppy without a hard disk drive and it turned out that 1GB of RAM was not enough to do that. I finally gave up. All I wanted to do was check out the new (at the time) OO database for a project. After all that trouble, whn I installed OO in Windows and looked into it, it turned out I couldn't figure out how to use base.