Puppy won't boot to GUI {Resolved.}

[Colonel A]

Have a fairly standard PC {normally runs Linux} and would like to try Puppy on it with a view to getting a netbook and replacing chrome.
Have tried lxpup 13.01 and precise 5.7.1 releases but both "drop out to initial ramdisk console" after loading the disk & graphics drivers.
Saying that puppy_release_version.sfs is not found.

The PC has two hard drives and multiple partitions.
Have tried various boot options, always same result.
Cannot usefully read the init file to check if the file system combination could be the culprit.
Any suggestions ?
Is there a copy of the init file available so that I can try to figure out whats wrong ?

[don570]

Did you do MD5SUM check of your download??

A small corruption can damage one of the SFS files in the archive
and a partial bootup is then possible. It happened once to me.

The only solution is to do download again.

________________________________

[bigpup]

How are you trying to boot Puppy?
Specific details?
Live CD/DVD?
USB drive install?
How did you get it installed on bootable device?
You do what?
You see what?

Answering these questions helps us help you.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90471

[Colonel A]

Thank you for the replies so far.
Have down loaded tried {but not yet check-summed} two versions.
Switched to boot from CD drive.
Get through the initial boot options screen {have tried a few} and get messages about loading disk and graphics drivers and then the system says, "dropping out to initial ramdisk console".
I can find this message in the init script but cannot find any working tools to let me usefully read said script.

[ardvark]

Hi all...

Perhaps the solutions mentioned in these pages, here and here, might be of help.

Regards...

[rcrsn51]

Puppy sometimes has trouble detecting optical drives. Here is a work-around.

1. Get a flash drive.

2. Unpack the Puppy ISO and copy the three core files onto the flash drive - vmlinuz, initrd.gz and pupxxx.sfs. If you do this from Windows, you must rename the Puppy files on the flash drive to their lower-case names.

3. With the flash drive inserted, boot off the CD.

4. At the initial 5-second pause, type

Code: Select all

puppy pmedia=usbflash

[Colonel A]

Thank you for these replies.
The two links "here and here" are exactly what I am experiencing.

I tried the CD in my wife's laptop and it worked a treat.

And it would seem that indeed on my system although the CD boots fine Puppy cannot read the sfs file from it.

I will try with a usb stick as described and make a final post.

[Ted Dog]

there used to be a way to check the burn against the download checksum. But have not used it in a while. Sounds to me like a bad download and or bad burn. Or a very old laptop with a slower than expected read rate. If it can burn DVDs try that.

[rcrsn51]

Sounds to me like a bad download and or bad burn

I tried the CD in my wife's laptop and it worked a treat.

[Colonel A]

Thank you for all the suggestions.

The work around proposed by rcrsn51 worked perfectly.
Thank you again.