Replaced HD with CF-to-IDE, got it running first try

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peppyy
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Replaced HD with CF-to-IDE, got it running first try

#1 Post by peppyy »

Solid State here we come. I can't believe how easy it was to get this 600e to boot to an old compact flash card in a cheap ebay mini ide adapter.

Put it in place of the existing hard drive.
Booted to the live 1.0.5 cd
Formated it to linux type 82
Installed Puppy type 2 to hard drive
Installed Grub to MBR
Remove cd
Shutdown
Boot to Puppy on solid state HD :)

Not hearing the drive starting all the time is great. I can't really tell if it is any faster but this is an old 256mb card out of my Nikon camera so it ain't no 80x

Having too much fun now lol.
Puppy Linux...
It just works!

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BlackAdder
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#2 Post by BlackAdder »

peppy, there is a long thread on the topic of compact flash used as an IDE device here.
Barry has incorporated support for the PSLEEP=999 boot parameter in 1.0.5 and later releases.
That can defer write-back to the CF until shut-down, minimising writes and potentially extending the life of the device. But Marv's mods are not in Puppy...yet!?

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pakt
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Re: Replaced HD with CF-to-IDE, got it running first try

#3 Post by pakt »

peppyy wrote:Solid State here we come. I can't believe how easy it was to get this 600e to boot to an old compact flash card in a cheap ebay mini ide adapter.
peppyy, nice going! I was thinking of doing the same thing with my old Dell Latitude D300XT (300MHz PII).

Could you give us a clue to which cheap ebay mini ide adapter you bought? Maybe I can get one there too... :)

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peppyy
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#4 Post by peppyy »

Pakt

http://tinyurl.com/9p2ds

I got it from Hong Kong in 7 days. It has a jumper for master if removed it becomes slave. Came packed in between 2 pieces of styrofoam in a paper envelope via airmail.

BlackAdder
I have been watching the HD led for activity and seldom see it light Planning in installing fvwm95 today and running the nonitors to see how it is doing.n I would also be interested in a drive space monitor. Haven't gotten that far yet though.

Lovin it right now.
Puppy Linux...
It just works!

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pakt
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#5 Post by pakt »

Many thanks, Peppyy. I just placed an order with them :D

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Marv
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CF installations

#6 Post by Marv »

I love CF installations. Quiet, reliable, and portable. See the link above in BlackAdders post. I prefer a 'USB' style installation, both because it only writes back to the pupxxx file on shutdown, and it is really simple to upgrade and move about.

Removing the zeroization on writeback ( Barry has done it for 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 alpha) increases the writeback speed so much that I really haven't been using any of the patches I worked on back around 1.0.3 or so.

The first time around, the 'install to usb' from a live CD seems to install just fine to hda1 for me so long as syslinux is not 3.08. I use 128 Mb pup files (on 384 Mb ram machines) and then edit syslinux.cfg to point to hda1 and usually can reduce the value of PSLEEP to 1.

Having done that once or twice, I now usually run syslinux on hda1, edit syslinux.cfg and just copy image.gz, usr_cram.fs, vmlinuz from the live CD and my current working pupxxx to hda1 and boot.

Since the size of the pupxxx file is really system memory, not CF card size limited, I now partition the CF card and use the second partition for sourcecode or data storage where write frequency is acceptably low.

Writing this from 1.0.7 alpha on an intel 815 system using the same pup004 that I created at work using the faster pipe to install Opera 8.51, then moved to an old IBM i1400 laptop and then here. One live CD, one pupxxx file, three radically different machines, and fewer than 5 files to keep track of. That's Puppy! :D
Pups currently in kennel :D Older LxPupSc and X-slacko-4.4 for my users; LxPupSc, LxPupSc64 and upupEF for me. All good pups indeed, and all running savefiles for look'n'feel only. Browsers, etc. solely from SFS.

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Marv
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syslinux versions

#7 Post by Marv »

The syslinux in pup 1.0.7.alpha is version 3.11 (Thanks Barry) and works perfectly on my CF cards in IDE adapters. Just type syslinux /dev/hda1 in a console, then copy the pup files to hda1. Should boot and run.
Pups currently in kennel :D Older LxPupSc and X-slacko-4.4 for my users; LxPupSc, LxPupSc64 and upupEF for me. All good pups indeed, and all running savefiles for look'n'feel only. Browsers, etc. solely from SFS.

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pakt
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#8 Post by pakt »

Thanks for your info, Marv. It will come in handy when my CF adapter arrives.

I'm really looking forward to dumping the noisey hard disk in my Dell D300XT laptop :)

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peppyy
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#9 Post by peppyy »

Oops double post. it is just too fast for me now lol.
Last edited by peppyy on Sun 11 Dec 2005, 22:23, edited 1 time in total.
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#10 Post by peppyy »

It really is so quiet. I am sitting a few feet away from an asus terminator t2 I built last year and the variable speed fan drives me crazy now.

I don't know what the hard drive was drawing for power but it was a lot more than this setup I am guessing with all the spin-ups I am using 1/3 less now. When I do my next install on a 1 gig 80x I think I will heed the advise anfd add another partition for storage. Will have to look into the newest Pup then too but that will have to wait till after the holicay bills are all paid.

I was thinking about a little mod on the laptop. Since I now have all that room where the hard drive used to be I thought it would be nice to have a usb storage device in there for the home file. That would eliminate the need for a larger CF card and still allow for your Pup to change machines easily. The best part is that it would be internal so it wouldnt get disturbed.

Ahhhhhh Dreams .
Puppy Linux...
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pakt
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#11 Post by pakt »

peppyy wrote: I was thinking about a little mod on the laptop. Since I now have all that room where the hard drive used to be I thought it would be nice to have a usb storage device in there for the home file. That would eliminate the need for a larger CF card and still allow for your Pup to change machines easily. The best part is that it would be internal so it wouldnt get disturbed.
Reminds me of my original "diskless" experiment. I didn't have a CF-to-IDE adapter, so I set up my Dell D300XT (128MB RAM) like this:

- Used Puppy 1.0.6 with a 512MB SanDisk Cruzer flash stick to make a Puppy USB drive (Option 2)
- Added marker file PUPXUSB to flash drive
- Burned WakePup 1.1c to CD
- Removed the hard disk from the laptop
- Plugged in the USB drive (slow USB 1.1 port)
- Booted the WakePup CD, chose to boot from USB (pup100 on flash drive)
- Pro: Puppy running in RAM on nearly silent machine. Very nice!
- Con: Took a while to load Puppy from USB at USB 1.1 speed, but it worked.
:)

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