How to Dualboot Win98/Puppy?

[freykatt]

Hi all, having read as many how-to's as I can find, I am still having problems trying to complete install of puppy to HD. Mostly due to not understanding "terminology in Linux I suppose. "Puppy 1.0.6". Can someone point me to some more info related to Win98/puppy? BTW. = 233mhz,160mb,20gig as "C" =(10gig) and "E" =(10gig) and "D" (slave - 2gig). "E" is empty except for a "recycle bin". Thanks

[aahhaaa]

Hi- and welcome to here!

Can I recommend something to you? explore Puppy a while before jumping to a HD install; that's winthink...

there is a new doc site and wiki where you can find specific info, even tutorials:

Go HERE: http://puppylinux.org/docs/
come back to the forum if you have probs with specific steps, or just to get acquainted

[freykatt]

Thanks Aaahaaaa, I checked the site you referred to but was unable to find much at all, too many links that would not open , too many "grayed out, etc. At first this site looked like a winner, but instead turns out to be a dead end for me. I shall move on and thanks anyway.

[Flash]

In my experience you're unlikely to find a Linux forum where the people are more patient with and helpful to beginners than this one, and being rude and impatient won't help you wherever you go.

[aahhaaa]

You can help some of the people all of the time, or help all of the people some of the time, but you can't help somebody who won't say what the problem is...

[Guest]

Hi all- new user & new to the forums!

I'm attempting to help my uncle install/test Puppy on an older system alongside Win98. Win98 is currently installed on the entire drive, but could be reinstalled to allow for partitioning. Either that, or maybe use a partitioning program- haven't decided yet.

I've dual-booted other Linux w/MS before. Is it basically the same setup? Two partitions- for 98 & Puppy. Load 98, then boot the Puppy CD & look for "install to HD"? Anything like that?

I may do a drive here, along with the uncle, (we'll be on the phone- he's 2 hours away) just so we can try to work it out together.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Mom

PS- His PC is a white-box, P2-300, I believe, maybe 128mb ram or so...

[adkmom]

Forgot to log in so my post says "guest"...

Anyhow- hoping to hear back on the Puppy/98 dual-boot?

Mom

[Bruce B]

[quote="Anonymous"]Hi all- new user & new to the forums!

I'm attempting to help my uncle install/test Puppy on an older system alongside Win98. Win98 is currently installed on the entire drive, but could be reinstalled to allow for partitioning. Either that, or maybe use a partitioning program- haven't decided yet.

I've dual-booted other Linux w/MS before. Is it basically the same setup? Two partitions- for 98 & Puppy. Load 98, then boot the Puppy CD & look for "install to HD"? Anything like that?

I may do a drive here, along with the uncle, (we'll be on the phone- he's 2 hours away) just so we can try to work it out together.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Mom

PS- His PC is a white-box, P2-300, I believe, maybe 128mb ram or so...[/quote]

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

I've learned it is best to do what Mom asks, otherwise she is likely to enforce her requests with, "But, I'm your MOTHER!"

Anyway, I do owe her for bringing me into the world, my upbringing, and her putting all her fears into my head.

Seriously, what you want to do is fairly simple. If you don't run into snags this should take less than an hour - 20 minutes if you are fast.

1) You will need a little less than 400 MB disk space on C:

2) Might be a good idea to defrag the drive so that the pup001 256 MB file is contiguous

3) Put the Puppy disc in the CD-ROM and copy these three files to C:\

vmlinuz
usr_cram.fs
image.gz

4) Make directories called C:\BOOT\GRUB

5) Download GRUB for DOS from the Internet

6) Put GRUB.EXE in C:\BOOT\GRUB

7) Make this text file called MENU.LST in C:\BOOT\GRUB

# timeout 3
default 0
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray

title Puppy Linux 1.0.7 (on C:)
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram PFILE=pup001-none-262144 PHOME=hda1 vga=normal
initrd (hd0,0)/image.gz

# additional optional kernel arguments if needed in line below, put at end of the kernel line
# apm=off acpi=off ide=nodma noapic noacpi


8) Make config.sys modifications. I am presuming the zero byte default is what you have,
if not configure it according to the existing config.sys, sample config.sys:

[menu]
menuitem=windows, Windows 98
menuitem=puppy, Puppy ver 1.0.7
menudefault=windows
; for timeout use this instead
; menudefault=windows,10
menucolor=15,0

[puppy]
install=c:\boot\grub\grub.exe

[windows]
; windows drivers and configurations if any go here


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

I guess that's all, any questions feel free to ask. Not to imply that I'll answer, but ask anyway :)

Edit note: I edited a typo to read [puppy] instead of [grub] in config.sys sample.

[Bruce B]

I almost forgot, this is addendum to the above post. If you get strange colors booting Puppy, add this line to MSDOS.SYS under options

[options]
Logo=0

[Bruce B]

Edited to say: Opps, sorry folks, I double posted

[Guest]

Ok-

So, Puppy dual-booted w/98 is NOT as the other Linux...It's going to go onto "C" with 98?

Just double-checking here. Since my uncle likes this stuff, but is even less experienced than I (hard to believe- lol)- I may just do this one time, first, to catch the snags & then walk him through it...

Mom
(sounds like you had a good mom teaching you-lol. Around here, when mom calls you, you do NOT say "what"? - and you present yourself instantly...)

[Bruce B]

Mom, I guess it is mostly affirmative.

Allow me to elaborate.

When you are done the C: will have these extra files.

c:\vmlinux = you copied from cd
c:\image.gz = you copied from cd
c:\usr_cramf.fs = you copied from cd
c:\boot\grub\grub.exe = you copied from internet
c:\boot\grub\menu.lst = you created with text editor

also two modified files:

c:\config.sys = you edited according to my instructions
c:\msdos.sys = you will probably have to modify according to my instructions

plus the mystery appearance of a new file after Puppy boots.

c:\pup001

This file got created as a result of the instructions in c:\boot\grub\menu.lst

This is a 256 MB file which can reside on any standard DOS / Windows or Linux partition.

When Puppy boots, pup001 gets mounted as a Linux filesystem

Puppy is Linux, it is not a compromise of any sort, it is the real thing. And it can be installed and self-booting as Linux on your existing DOS/Windows partition as per the instructions above.

[adkmom]

Thank you Bruce, sounds lovely then...

I see I have some work tomorrow (or tonight, depending).

Now, tell me this- how/where do I save things created in/or for Puppy? As it exists on the same drive, would I, say, be able to save items created in Puppy to the My Docs in 98?
Or play a music file from that folder? Is the data interchangeable between these OS's?

If not, how is the saved/created data handled?

Again, thank you for your time in getting us started here- it's very intriguing & I hope to report back our success very soon!

Mom

[Bruce B]

> Now, tell me this- how/where do I save things created in/or for Puppy? As it exists on the same drive, would I, say, be able to save items created in Puppy to the My Docs in 98?

It is seamless, files will get saved inside the pup001 file. It is easy to make full backups also. When running Windows simply copy pup001 to pup001.bak

Also, you will note after Puppy is installed, that you can have access to all the files on C: because it is mounted also.

You can for example save files to the C: (AKA known as hda1 and you should find it mounted as home)

If you want to share files with Windows, then save the files outside pup001.

I might add there are some utilities (I think) that can mount pup001 from within Windows if you need to. I don't remember what those utilities are by name?

> Is the data interchangeable between these OS's?

A lot of files are interchangeable, for examples, .mp3, .wav, .jpg

For maximum interchangeability I use HTML GUI editors for formatted text in place of Word Processors, and text editors for flat text.

Text based files created in DOS/Windows vs. Linux vary by the carriage returns and line feeds. These are non-visible printing and formatting characters.

If you run into end of line problems there are utilities for fixing the EOLs.

Linux has 'dos2unix' and 'unix2dos' command line utilities.

DOS equivalents are readily available.

Often the program you use will self correct for these discrepancies and you won't have any problems.

> Again, thank you for your time in getting us started here- it's very intriguing & I hope to report back our success very soon!

Love those success reports. I was thinking, make sure to do the editing changes I told you about with a genuine text editor as opposed to a word processor, okay?

Bruce

[JaDy]

Need to see your Linux files (they're in pup001) from Windows?
Look here: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/SeePup001FromWindows

[Rickrandom]

This may be a dumb question, but here goes...

Can I use the same technique for a dual boot with Win XP home? (The hard drive is already formated FAT32, not NTFS, if that's relevant.)

I would like to get away from using the CD, but I'm a bit reluctant to try to partition the hard drive (laptop is still under extended warranty!) , so the process of just saving some more files on the C drive sounds good to me.

I assume with this method, anything I do in puppy is just saved within the pup001 file, unless I deliberately mount the C drive and save in a folder I would use in Windows. Is this correct?

I've already copied the user_cram or whatever it's called to the C drive to speed up the boot process, (20 seconds quicker) but I'd like to be totally independent of the CD.

[Bruce B]

Rickrandom, you can do the same thing with XP, but not by using the same procedure. (Don't even try).

Read this for a howto and additional input from contributors.

[Bruce B]

Need to see your Linux files (they're in pup001) from Windows?
Look here: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/SeePup001FromWindows

I download and tested the explore2fs utility referenced in the link above. It looks like a very good tool for reading and copying data from ext2 and ext3 partitions from Windows.

I don't however see how I could use it to read a pup001 file. For one thing explore2fs doesn't seem to display FAT partitions, which is where the pup001 file would be on a 9x computer. More over pup001 is not a partition and explore2fs seems designed to recognize and display only partitions.

So, how do I see the files in pup001 with this tool from Window?

[JaDy]

So, how do I see the files in pup001 with this tool from Window?

This may be embarrassing, but here goes:
Select File, then Open File.
In Look in, select C: from the drop-down list.
In Files of type, select All files.
Now double-click on pup001.

[Bruce B]

JaDy, thanks for your prompt response. Works great.