Puppy Linux Windows Installer - LICK v1.3.3 released

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noryb009
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#541 Post by noryb009 »

There's a few things in your post which are odd to me, let's figure out those first so I can help you set the default.

1) You mention you have Windows XP, but your lickgrub.cfg file seems to be set up for a newer Windows bootloader. Are you sure LICK generated this file?

2) Is that your entire lickgrub.cfg file?

3) When you boot, which menu(s) do you see, and in which order? You might see a grub4dos one, a grub2 one, an XP style boot menu, or a newer Windows boot loader.

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d4rkn1ght
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#542 Post by d4rkn1ght »

noryb009 wrote:There's a few things in your post which are odd to me, let's figure out those first so I can help you set the default.

1) You mention you have Windows XP, but your lickgrub.cfg file seems to be set up for a newer Windows bootloader. Are you sure LICK generated this file?
I used LICK-1.3.3-win32.
noryb009 wrote:2) Is that your entire lickgrub.cfg file?
Yes, It was in C:/Program Files/lick/res/lickgrub.cfg
noryb009 wrote:3) When you boot, which menu(s) do you see, and in which order? You might see a grub4dos one, a grub2 one, an XP style boot menu, or a newer Windows boot loader.
I have the XP style menu.

noryb009
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#543 Post by noryb009 »

First, in the future, please be careful following instructions in posts, and if you deviate from the instructions, please note how in your post. In this case, I specifically asked about "C:/lickgrub.cfg" because it has a very different purpose than "C:/Program Files/lick/res/lickgrub.cfg".

For your case, note that doing this may cause some issues if you ever decide to uninstall LICK's bootloader. If you decide to uninstall the bootloader, please refollow these steps and reset the default entry to Windows. (There shouldn't be any issue if you forget, but it's better to be safe)

Open up Windows. In the start menu, go to "run". Type in "msconfig". Go to the "boot.ini" tab. Select the LICK entry, then click on "set as default".

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d4rkn1ght
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#544 Post by d4rkn1ght »

noryb009 wrote:First, in the future, please be careful following instructions in posts, and if you deviate from the instructions, please note how in your post. In this case, I specifically asked about "C:/lickgrub.cfg" because it has a very different purpose than "C:/Program Files/lick/res/lickgrub.cfg".
Sorry about that. :oops: I've just been working long hours lately and I'm a bit sleep deprived.
noryb009 wrote:For your case, note that doing this may cause some issues if you ever decide to uninstall LICK's bootloader. If you decide to uninstall the bootloader, please refollow these steps and reset the default entry to Windows. (There shouldn't be any issue if you forget, but it's better to be safe)
Noted! I'll be saving this post just in case.
noryb009 wrote:Open up Windows. In the start menu, go to "run". Type in "msconfig". Go to the "boot.ini" tab. Select the LICK entry, then click on "set as default".
Thank you! That's what I wanted! :D

GusCE6
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#545 Post by GusCE6 »

I've used LICK on the 2012 Windows 8 ASUS, 2001 Sony VAIO XP Home Edition, and the early 2000s XP Home Edition Dell.

It has given new life to those two antiques, especially for safe online activity (Puppy Linux 5.2.5 Lucid).

However, be aware that certain distros of Puppy Linux may not work on certain computers. For example, Lucid will not properly install on the ASUS with LICK.

okkebasin
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Installing to SD card

#546 Post by okkebasin »

Hi,

I have a Prowise Proline Win 10 notebook (specs) on which I try to get some Linux distro to run from the uilt-in SD card reader.
Sofar I did not manage to boot from SD cards prepared by RUFUS, the bootable SD does not show up in UEFI.
I then discovered LICK (using 1.3.3) which worked like charm for some old USB flashdrive lying around.
LICK installs to SD without any problem, but when trying to load one of the SD installations (sofar FatDog64 and BionicPuppy64), I end up with a black screen. After a while (5 minutes??) I'm returned back to the bootmenu.

Any help on this would be highly appreciated :-)

noryb009
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#547 Post by noryb009 »

Hi okkebasin,

Do you get to the UEFI boot menu, or the grub boot menu?

If you only get to the UEFI boot menu, where is LICK installed? If it's on the SD card, you might need to move it to an internal partition or USB drive, then have puppy on an SD card.

If you get to the grub boot menu but can't get further, you can try adding some of these options to the kernel line of an entry (you can edit them before booting them). Notably, waitdev or nomodeset may help.

okkebasin
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#548 Post by okkebasin »

Many thx for your quick reply and great software noryb009!

I'm getting to the GRUB menu, and have no problems running the LICK installed USB versions of puppy.

Adding parameters to the SD entries didn't help, but gave new clues. It appeared that grub never passes the "search" line (for example "search --set=root --file /bionicpup64-8.0-SD16/vmlinuz").

I then poked around in GRUB a bit and found a list of devices which I cannot traceback all, being: (hd0) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (hd1,gpt4) (hd1,gpt3) (hd1,gpt2) (hd1,gpt1) (hd2) (hd3).
Ejecting the present USB lead to disappearance of (hd3), however, ejecting the SD card did not make any difference in the list (after rebooting without).

This makes me conclude that the SD card is not seen, is that a correct conclusion? Are there better ways to check this? And more important, is there a way to make the SD card visible to GRUB?


Ciao,

Annemarie

noryb009
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#549 Post by noryb009 »

If grub can't find something, it returns an error saying that the file can't be found. It might be hanging, waiting for a partition to become ready to be searched.

To check which partition is which, just ls them (the trailing slash gives you file names, without the slash you get info about the partition):

Code: Select all

ls (hd1,gpt2)/
You can see if looking at any of those partitions hang, and if any of them are your SD card.

I believe I compiled grub for lick with all modules bundled in, so I don't believe there is a way to have grub load a puppy directly from the SD card.

However, you might be able to move vmlinuz and initrd.gz onto a separate drive (either an internal partition or a USB drive), update the paths in grub's config (C:/lickgrub.cfg) to point to the new location (except for the psubdir parameter, which is how vmlinuz finds the root sfs file).

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Lobster
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#550 Post by Lobster »

@noryb009 and Linpuppers,

A story from the archives ...

When I was first using Puppy, before version one even, I was planning to leave ye monolith/microtheft/macrosith and Widows XP. However I would praise XP as the best XPierience available for those through ignorance, familiarity or other reasons not able to be fully penguin. Not every Puppy liked that.

I have not had to use Windows for years. Praise Allah, Buddha and Thor.

I am very familiar with Puppy and Monocorps. I prefer to be a dawg/lone bitch/independent penguin ...

That being said. We welcome all churches: Androidians, Jobbers, the unprogrammed, bloatware penguins, anorexic fiends etc.

Thank you for the LICKs

We are Puppy
Welcome to our Kennel
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

FONZACUS
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huge kudos

#551 Post by FONZACUS »

its fun testing out a few puppies before actually installing one. im a 30 yo gamer, doubt i can escape from gaming and windows. i feel swap files are easier than partitions and installing puppy as its own folder/files is a win IMHO. currently in search to remove my debian testing partition since win10 is pooping all over the place (needs more space). with lick it makes the process much easier since if i do find a pup i like, i can just keep it with a savfile and stuff.

is it possible to request another tool that can rw an sfs? and possibly filling in all the unused *drvsfs as 'additional user sfs'?

okkebasin
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#552 Post by okkebasin »

A bit more clarity, the solution seems even further however.

Indeed the SD card is not seen by GRUB. It searches any of the known partitions, however when it comes to the "empty ones" (hd2) and (hd3) in the above, thus without partition information, GRUB hangs. Performing an ls on these also makes GRUB hang. This means that no error information comes through...

I did try a LICK installation to the HD, when starting this session, I get an error message that the directory cannot be found.
The same accounts when puting vmlinx and initrd.gz to the HD and having the rest on the SD.

Due to my limited knowledge, I did not manage to write the debug information to file or to find any other usefull log information.
For what it's worth, the install that is on the USB works flawless.

noryb009
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#553 Post by noryb009 »

is it possible to request another tool that can rw an sfs?
That's beyond my skill set. I only manage LICK, it's the rest of the community that does all the heavy lifting. I don't know the correct place to ask for that.

okkebasin: If you're in the USB version of puppy, can you see whatever is on the SD card? If so, you might be able to remake the initrd with whatever driver the SD card uses, which would allow you to have the initrd and vmlinuz on the hard disk/USB, and the rest on the SD card. I can't find a puppy-specific guide from a quick google search, so it might be a bit tricky to make it.

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mikeslr
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#554 Post by mikeslr »

Hi okkebasin,

noryb009 is too modest. But there are already several tools for 'rewriting' a Puppy.sfs. They go under the term 'remaster'. I think nic007 recently published the newest version specifically for just remastering the an SFS. But I haven't used it. I have, however, used his remaster-suite, and shinobar's remasterx. You should also be aware that built into every Puppy is a tool clearly named 'remove builtins'; and there's a tool called gnewpet, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 673#598673, which will create an installable pet from the files of a builtin or user installed application so that you can re-use, or modify then re-use that application in a different Puppy or a remastered version.

But as you're new to 'remastering' and doing so is beyond the scope of this thread, I suggest that you ask about it in the "Users (For the Regulars) Section" of the Forum -- specifying the Puppy you want to work on and you plans for changing it.

foxpup
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#555 Post by foxpup »

noryb009 wrote:
FONZACUS wrote:is it possible to request another tool that can rw an sfs?
That's beyond my skill set. I only manage LICK, it's the rest of the community that does all the heavy lifting. I don't know the correct place to ask for that.
.sfs is read-only. :-)

You have to use commands unsquashfs and mksquashfs to unsquash an sfs-file to a directory and to squash a directory to an sfs-file resp.
Documentation on the internet and with --help in the terminal.

phredo
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#556 Post by phredo »

I've used LICK for years on my old Win 7 desktop, putting everything in my C:\ drive. I now want to put several Puppies on my new Win 10 laptop, one of the Puppies on the SD card, and be able to boot into them.

Regarding the Puppy on the SD card: I want to make that card a bit of a "steath" card, so that I can, when I want, remove it from the laptop and not leave any obvious trace of its presence behind. With that in mind, is there a bit of code I could add to the relevant boot document that would, before offering that Puppy as a choice, check to see if the SD card is found, and, if not, not offer it on the boot menu? I realize, of course, that it would not be a perfect "stealth"solution since anyone with the ability could still look at the boot file text and see the card reference, but nothing is perfect.

Another way would be to not use LICKS at all for that puppy, but instead format the card as uefi bootable, install the Puppy on it, and then boot to it using the ESC key to give me the choice of booting from the card, but I'd rather avoid that and use LICKS, if possible. And thanks for all the great work you've done with LICKS!

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mikeslr
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#557 Post by mikeslr »

Actually, noryb009, while you're considering phredo's request, perhaps you could address a problem I recently encounter.

My objective was to use Lick to install a Puppy (dpup-stretch, but I don't think that matters) to a USB-Key. There was a problem with the Key. Sometimes, although plugged in, it wasn't recognized as being present. Or perhaps the problem was with the USB-port's connections. And, maybe I just failed to observe that the key --which I expected to be the first option-- wasn't present. In any event, rather than installing to the Key, the installation was installed to sda1, overwriting Windows boot installer but failing to create a boot-loader which would boot Windows.

At any rate, perhaps some code to test for the presence of the device, whatever it may be. In phredo's case, if the device wasn't found an alternate boot-menu could be displayed.

noryb009
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#558 Post by noryb009 »

phredo:

The simplest way I can think of is have a puppy that is slightly different from one on your hard drive, then manually edit the boot entry each boot. For example, if you have "puppy-123" on your hard drive, you can have "puppy-1234" on your SD card (regardless of the name of the actual distro). You'll need to press "e" on each boot and add the 4 to a couple lines, but it would be stealthy, even if you look at the boot menu.

Otherwise, it looks like grub2 has a bash-like script built-in. Try editing the C:/lickgrub.cfg file (or, if you don't want to mess up that file, you can add a menu item to a testing cfg file:

Code: Select all

menuentry "Test cfg file" {
    search --set=root --file /testgrub.cfg
    configfile ($root)/testgrub.cfg
}
Alternatively, you can just have that cfg file on the SD card. That would tell people that there is a testgrub.cfg file missing, but not what's in it (unless you put that in an if statement). Anyways, grub2 has a lot of ways to do what you want.

mikeslr:

So it sounds like the bootloader was installed in the EFI partition (which is the only place it can really go, unless I want to get into partitioning USB drives, which I don't), and the lickgrub.cfg was on a USB drive? I believe it's meant to always be placed on the partition Windows is on. But regardless, if lickgrub.cfg gets corrupted or something, it would be nice to have a backup. I created an issue to track this.

phredo
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#559 Post by phredo »

It looks like I have to step back a bit:

When I wrote I hadn't actually installed a puppy (bionic64 uefi) because I hadn't yet obtained an sd card. Now I have installed bionic pup to it (the D: drive), but LINK will not start it. The directory shows up on the D: drive all right, but I get an error message when I choose it on the LINK boot menu. Says it can't find the puppy files.

Using another puppy on the C: drive, I formated the sd card to FAT32, just in case that was the problem. Then I used LINK to un-install and re-install bionic on the D:. Same response.

Is it a problem with Win10 and uefi booting, do you think? On the other hand, I was a bit surprised when I looked at the cfg file that there was no mention in the newly installed bionic pup of the D: drive -- it's code looked just like the code for the puppy intalled in the C: drive. Perhaps LICK was looking for files in the C: drive?

phredo
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#560 Post by phredo »

Sorry, I wrote "LINK" several times, meaning "LICK", of course.

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