How to do a FULL install of Puppy, to an empty HDD (2010)

[CatDude]

Hello edoc

Several Questions:

1. Why Full instead of Frugal? (I have repeatedly been told that Frugal is preferred due to the simplified upgrade method.

Because at the time of writng it, there had been several threads asking how to do it.
So i decided to write this in an attempt to try and make it easier for newbies to understand how it is done.

Has that recommendation been changed? If so, why, please?)

Not as far as i know.

2. Why not save after installing Puppy when you Reboot? Is not saving at that point because it was a Full install or is that also true for a Frugal install?

The reason not to save, is exactly as you suspected,
as this was a Full Install we do not require a pup_save.2fs to be created

What happens to a Frugal install if one does save after the install and prior to the first reboot?

Not sure i understand the question.
Surely one would have already done this, in order to have created a Frugal Install in the first place.
As the title of this thread say's "How to do a FULL install of Puppy, to an empty HDD"
it is expected that there is absolutely nothing on it (pup_save.2fs or otherwise).

CatDude
.

[edoc]

Thanks for your answers, it helps to clarify some details between a Full and a Frugal install.

Have you considered making a similar post illustrating a Frugal install - including one with an ext2 and an ext3 format? (There have been some suggestions that ext3 does not always work OK on all computers with Frugal.)

[CatDude]

Hello edoc

Have you considered making a similar post illustrating a Frugal install - including one with an ext2 and an ext3 format? (There have been some suggestions that ext3 does not always work OK on all computers with Frugal.)

I haven't, but i may do, if you think it would be worthwhile doing so.

When you say

including one with an ext2 and an ext3 format?

do you mean to make two seperate howto's ?

What would be the point of two ?

Surely just the one would suffice.
With an explaination on making the decision as to what format to use.
But how would the target audience (or anybody, for that matter) determine what format to actually use.?
Bearing in mind what you stated above:

(There have been some suggestions that ext3 does not always work OK on all computers with Frugal.)

Or do you mean, one howto.
But showing how to create two partitions (3 including the SWAP)
one formatted as ext2 and another formatted as ext3.
Then doing a Frugal Install to each partition. ?

CatDude
.

[edoc]

Just one with a reference to the difference between ext2 and ext3 (better journaling in ext3 in case there is a partition or other HDD problem that needs to be repaired).

I don't yet know if it is real or not but there have been a number of posts to the Forum over the years suggesting possible instability of ext3 under certain circumstances - I know that I have had problems in the past and ext3 may or may not be the culprit in my current laptop troubles.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
@edoc,
Another advantage to a Frugal install IMO is that at boot, you can add "pfix=ram" to the grub menu to boot to a "clean" install if you muck up your Puppy...That and the ability to load and unload SFS files at will, and the ease of backup, make Frugal a winner for me..Also, by renaming your pupsave files, you can boot to different "Versions" of your Puppy at will, so that is useful for more than backing up...

As for not saving after a Full install, it would be pointless, as the Full install will not recognize it anyhow, so unless you boot from a Frugal or a LiveCD to make use of it, it is a 512mb waste of space...However, if you can spare the space, do it...Then if you boot from the LiveCD for some reason, you will already have a preconfigured pupsave to boot to...
Hope that makes sense...

@CatDude,
Instead of adding a new page to the manual, for now, I will add a link to this thread instead, as I believe it a valuable tutorial..Maybe later I can find a way to incorperate it fully....One thing tho...we need to explain the Qemu window, as that could be confusing to newbies..Easier than cropping it out...LOL
Jay...

[CatDude]

Hello

@ edoc

Just one with a reference to the difference between ext2 and ext3 (better journaling in ext3 in case there is a partition or other HDD problem that needs to be repaired).

Your'e confusing me now , in your previous post you said:

(There have been some suggestions that ext3 does not always work OK on all computers with Frugal.)

Now keeping that quote in mind
i said in my previous post:

But how would the target audience (or anybody, for that matter) determine what format to actually use.?

And the answer to that is ???

With regard to referencing the differences between ext2 and ext3
i do actually do that in this howto (between images 8 and 9)
at the suggestion of Bruce B.

Make the partition to the size you wish, as you can see below, i left enough space for the SWAP partition.
For Filesystem you can choose either ext2 or ext3.

If you are wondering what the difference is between the Filesystems,
and would like to know more, please check out the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

But that still doesn't help the reader know what will or will not work on their particular computer.


@ puppyluvr

@CatDude,
Instead of adding a new page to the manual, for now, I will add a link to this thread instead, as I believe it a valuable tutorial..Maybe later I can find a way to incorperate it fully....

Whatever you feel is best mate.

One thing tho...we need to explain the Qemu window, as that could be confusing to newbies..Easier than cropping it out...LOL
Jay...

I have edited the first post, hopefully that will stop any confusion.


CatDude
.

[jstevans]

Hi,

I'm a newbie who would appreciate some assistance.

After deciding to abort my prior install and start over again I seem to be making progress. The universal installer moved along fine until it displayed:

cp: cannot stat 'mnt/sr1/zdrv_*sfs" : No such file or directory
Finished, press ENTER key to continue:

I think, though I'm not sure, that the installer is still looking for a file that, according to Barry's blog, no longer exists. If I'm correct then this file isn't really missing and I should just "click enter ..."

Or, did something go wrong?

Should I just "press ENTER to continue" or is there something I need to do?


Thanks.

[CatDude]

Hello jstevans

Hi,

I'm a newbie who would appreciate some assistance.

After deciding to abort my prior install and start over again I seem to be making progress. The universal installer moved along fine until it displayed:

cp: cannot stat 'mnt/sr1/zdrv_*sfs" : No such file or directory
Finished, press ENTER key to continue:

I think, though I'm not sure, that the installer is still looking for a file that, according to Barry's blog, no longer exists. If I'm correct then this file isn't really missing and I should just "click enter ..."

If you are using either puppy-410 or puppy-411, then you are correct, that file does no longer exist.

Are you using 410 or 411,
the reason i ask is, i have just gone and done a FULL install of 411 (just to see what happens)
and did not recieve anything about not finding the zdrv file.

The only wierd thing, was i had to mount the CD before it let me make the install,
i have never had that happen before.

Anyway i hope you have not been sat there waiting for a reply before hitting Enter,
all i can suggest is, click Enter and see what happens.

CatDude
.

[jstevans]

Thanks for your kind reply. I actually waiting before hitting "Enter." Then again, the installer is running on one of my spare machines so the wait was not an inconvenience and I was happy to be safe rather than sorry.

I am working from the live disk for Puppy 4.11

However, having finally hit "Enter" I find I have an unbootable Puppy Linux rather than what I wanted - a bootable one.

When I rebooted the machine onto which I installed Puppy The screen displays:

GRUB loading stage 1.5
GRUB Loading, please wait ...
Error 15

At which point it's just plain stuck.

When I browse the HD I see the following files, there are no hidden files

extlinux.conf
extlinux.sys
initrd.gz
pup410.sfs
vmlinuz

The extlinux.conf = default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz ide=nodma pmedia=ataflash nosmp

Can you offer any insights as to what error 15 is, why it's happening, and what I might to to remedy it?

I'm trying to resurrect an ancient but beloved Sony 505 laptop, very small, very light, very low powered and only 192MB of RAM - perfect for Puppy but I just cannot get it to run.

I have installed the laptop's HD into one of my desktop machines because the laptop has no CD or floppy and cannot boot from USB or Netboot.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Jay

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Error 15 is a "file not found" error in Grub...
Can you post the menu.lst file from /boot/grub?
And what does your system name your HDD?
(Where Puppy is installed)

pmedia=ataflash

Is your Puppy installed to a Flash Drive???

[jstevans]

The HD is named SDA1 in the desktop to which it is attached. There is no other HD in that machine.

Also, the file list I gave in my last post is complete, there are no other files, hidden or otherwise.

So, there is no menu.lst file nor a /boot folder and thus no /boot/grub folder

As I mentioned, I'm a newbie. But I had begun to think that there ought to be much more than just the files I was seeing.

BTW - this is the third time I've used the Universal Installer to create a "full" install on this HD. I walked through your "How to" very carefully and everything followed as you described it.

But, I think all did not go well - huh? What do I do now?

Jay

[CatDude]

Hello jay

Something is seriously wrong with your install.

First of all you get this:

cp: cannot stat 'mnt/sr1/zdrv_*sfs" : No such file or directory
Finished, press ENTER key to continue:

Which in itself is pretty bizarre.

Then you say:

When I rebooted the machine onto which I installed Puppy The screen displays:

GRUB loading stage 1.5
GRUB Loading, please wait ...
Error 15

At which point it's just plain stuck.

When I browse the HD I see the following files, there are no hidden files

extlinux.conf
extlinux.sys
initrd.gz
pup410.sfs
vmlinuz

The extlinux.conf = default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz ide=nodma pmedia=ataflash nosmp

Which begs the question, where are the GRUB files ?
As to the files you mention,
i recall seeing simailar when i tried to make a FULL install to a external USB HDD (i never did get it to boot).

I suggest you start a new thread in the beginners section,
and explain EVERYTHING that you did, what partitions you created etc.
Give as much detail as you can, and with luck someone may be able to help you.

Sorry that i can't help you, but it has me baffled.

CatDude
.

[bambuko]

there is already another thread on this subject ... created by jstevans

you are probably right CatDude about it being USB connected HDD (that's how I did my install on my ancient notebook)
Had similar problems, and the only thing it eventually required was to manually edit menu.lst to account for the confusion created by installing Puppy to HD while the drive was connected to desktop using usb enclosure for laptop HD

Chris

[CatDude]

Hello bambuko

Had similar problems, and the only thing it eventually required was to manually edit menu.lst to account for the confusion created by installing Puppy to HD while the drive was connected to desktop using usb enclosure for laptop HD

But the files he reports seeing are all wrong for a normal FULL install,
and what do you make of this:

cp: cannot stat 'mnt/sr1/zdrv_*sfs" : No such file or directory
Finished, press ENTER key to continue:

Surely the Puppy-411 installer shouldn't be looking for the zdrv file.

It beats me

CatDude
.

[jstevans]

Hi guys,

Thanks again for the input.

Yes, there was another thread but I abandoned it after doing a completely new install to this hard drive - the problem I reported there did NOT occur in this second install, the one being discussed in this thread. Sorry for any confusion.

The drive I am formatting is NOT connected via USB. It is connected to an IDE connector - the drive being formatted is a 2.5 inch laptop drive so I made the connection via an adapter. However, other than that completely passive adapter , this is a plain old standard HD connection to a desktop PC.

I think I'll format the drive and start again from scratch and see what happens.

One last question for the moment - in a proper full install is there should there be a /boot AND a /boot/GRUB folder? I'm trying to figure out how I identify a successful install.

Thanks,

J

[bambuko]

Hello bambuko

Had similar problems, and the only thing it eventually required was to manually edit menu.lst to account for the confusion created by installing Puppy to HD while the drive was connected to desktop using usb enclosure for laptop HD

But the files he reports seeing are all wrong for a normal FULL install,

I said so, in this other thread on the same subject (although whether I was right when I suggested possibly that it was frugal, is another story... )

and what do you make of this:

cp: cannot stat 'mnt/sr1/zdrv_*sfs" : No such file or directory
Finished, press ENTER key to continue:

Surely the Puppy-411 installer shouldn't be looking for the zdrv file...

mine was 4.0 so things might have changed since then?...
anyway, all this is OT to your thread and we shouldn't be hijacking it as you say it deserves it's own thread (makes it easier when somebody else is searching for a solution to the same problem)
Chris

[gychang]

This Howto was done using Puppy 4.00 (Dingo) as the guinea pig.

I hope this will help clarify the procedure, for those new to linux.

CatDude
.

thank you this is great for a newbie like me.

gychang

[CatDude]

Hello gychang

Welcome to kennels mate.

thank you this is great for a newbie like me.

gychang

Glad that you found this howto useful.

CatDude
.

[Andrew]

Thanks very much for this great guide, CatDude!

Just loaded Puppy 4.0 onto my 7 year old Thinkpad and it works like a charm. Streaming an internet radio station over it right now... Sweet! Thanks again for your help!

[CatDude]

Hello Andrew

Welcome to the kennels

Thanks very much for this great guide, CatDude!

Just loaded Puppy 4.0 onto my 7 year old Thinkpad and it works like a charm. Streaming an internet radio station over it right now... Sweet! Thanks again for your help!

You are very welcome mate.

CatDude
.