Which Puppy for an older computer?

Booting, installing, newbie
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greengeek
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Joined: Tue 20 Jul 2010, 09:34
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#61 Post by greengeek »

circularL7 wrote:GRUB loaded to HD keeps giving me "tried to kill init" errors. GRUB4DOS, as Dewbie suggested, loaded to HD works like a charm.

Any advice on the error?
Sorry - I have no idea about that one. If Grub4Dos works but Grub doesn't it could possibly be something to do with the way the menu.lst stanzas are written? (ie: maybe not so much a problem with Grub, but rather something missing in the menu.lst??
And the CD readers (one on each machine) did not work for a music CD, which worked in my old personal CD player. Any advice? The drives wouldn't mount.
Did you try opening a media player and getting access to the disc that way? On some of my systems that is the only way to start a music CD.
Another question: why shouldn't I format the thumbdrive that I want to use as a booter to ext2 with no FAT?
No reason unless you find ext2 causes problems booting on some motherboards. FAT gives greater compatibility sometimes.

circularL7
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat 02 Feb 2013, 07:26

#62 Post by circularL7 »

greengeek wrote:Sorry - I have no idea about that one. If Grub4Dos works but Grub doesn't it could possibly be something to do with the way the menu.lst stanzas are written? (ie: maybe not so much a problem with Grub, but rather something missing in the menu.lst??
That's my suspicion, but I'm not yet fluent enough to do anything about it. I think that I'll live with it for now.
Did you try opening a media player and getting access to the disc that way? On some of my systems that is the only way to start a music CD.
Nope. I'll try it.
No reason unless you find ext2 causes problems booting on some motherboards. FAT gives greater compatibility sometimes.
Let's say that I'm going to use a thumbdrive with both an ext2 and FAT option. Does that mean that I'd install it on both as frugals, so I'd have two copies on one drive, one copy on ext2 and one on FAT?


New question:

I burned 4.3.1 to a CD-RW, but I burned it with a number of other items, and it didn't work as a boot CD. Am I supposed to only burn the iso by itself, or can I burn it with other items if the iso is first? Or, should I experiment?

Thanks for all the advice/help!

starhawk
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#63 Post by starhawk »

Burn the ISO by itself. Not as a data disc! That's different. You should have an option somewhere for "burn ISO to CD" or "burn image to CD".

Basically what it's doing is unpacking the ISO onto the disc. The ISO is sort of like a photo that only the computer understands -- it's a picture of exactly where each and every little bit of data goes. This guarantees that everything will be exactly where it should be, rather than just a useless lump of quivering data jello heaped on your disc.

...geez, hope I'm not being totally confusing...

circularL7
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat 02 Feb 2013, 07:26

#64 Post by circularL7 »

starhawk wrote:Burn the ISO by itself. Not as a data disc! That's different. You should have an option somewhere for "burn ISO to CD" or "burn image to CD".

Basically what it's doing is unpacking the ISO onto the disc. The ISO is sort of like a photo that only the computer understands -- it's a picture of exactly where each and every little bit of data goes. This guarantees that everything will be exactly where it should be, rather than just a useless lump of quivering data jello heaped on your disc.

...geez, hope I'm not being totally confusing...
You've also answered another question that I had-- why ISO? Thanks.

What it was doing (a Windows program) was giving me the same option for the lump as it does for the ISO alone. I assumed that it was putting them all on as ISO.

I'll update shortly.

Update: No dice on 4.3.1. I tried on a R and a RW, and it puts out a screen of "[<c01193ef>] ? no_context+0x11f/0x150" stuff. That's the first line, and it proceeds for 23 more similar items. But I just discovered that I should have deleted my pup save files first. Will update.

I tried it a couple more ways, but no luck. But 2.17.1, which I chose by throwing a dart, runs well enough.

Dewbie

#65 Post by Dewbie »

circularL7 wrote:
2.17.1, which I chose by throwing a dart, runs well enough.
But remember that newer browsers won't work with 2.17.1.

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6502coder
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#66 Post by 6502coder »

Since you seem to be having a lot of problems sorting out the business of burning a LiveCd from an ISO file, may I make a suggestion: use a program that is specifically made to do this and nothing else, so that you can't get it wrong.

If you still have access to a Windows machine, I highly recommend BurnCDCC:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downlo ... ftware.htm

This program is dead simple to use, and I have used it to burn all my Puppy LiveCDs (about a dozen so far) and never had any problems getting them to boot up.

circularL7
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat 02 Feb 2013, 07:26

#67 Post by circularL7 »

Thanks for the info, y'all!

I found the problem with GRUB. I was saving the files, so it was messing up. Regular GRUB with 2.17 works.

By opening the CD with the media player, it worked.

The 4.3.1 CD worked on the desktop, so maybe I have a file on the laptop that's problematic.

Currently, it looks like the score is "operator failures: about 12" and "Puppy failures: 0." But, I've learned loads, and (with lots of help) I have a fifteen year old beater that works, and I was confident enough to buy a beater laptop (which works) to play with, and I will build my next computer.

circularL7
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat 02 Feb 2013, 07:26

#68 Post by circularL7 »

New question:

I'd like to try a pupplet on the computer. Which should I try?

Disregard; I discovered the puppy wiki. But I wonder if it's really a discovery if it were right in front of me. . . hmm. . .

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