Any ideas why Puppy can't read it's .sfs file off the CDROM upon initial boot?
My HD died on an older (2002) Dell X200 laptop with CDROM/floppy media base or docking station. I'm having trouble getting an OS back on the new HD because for some reason, the CDROM loads a few sectors and the computer hangs with a cursor blinking on a blank screen. This is true across Windows install CDs, Linux distributions, BartPE, and other bootable options I have. So I tried Puppy...
Puppy Precise 5.7.1 (my go-to for years) and Xenial Puppy (7.5.1) were tried. Both initially booted fine from the CDROM and then reported they could not find the .sfs file. Both did this and dropped to single user initrd command prompt.
My solution was to boot tomsrtbt from floppy, format the HD, bring up the Ethernet card, pull the necessary .sfs file off the CDROM temporarily put into a different Windows (networked) computer using netcat. I put the .sfs file onto the HD and then either Puppy edition boots up fine using the live CD.
Why could it find the sfs on the HD and not on it's own CDROM during boot? Once up and running, either edition of puppy can mount the CD and read CD files fine.
Also interesting, 7.5 is useless on the X200. Won't do the Ethernet or the wireless card. Won't use the touchpad on the keyboard. 5.71 works in these two areas.
Dell X200 Puppy live-CD can't read the sfs file
Xenialpup 7.5 is designed for much newer hardware.
Precise 5.7.1 is designed more for the hardware in that computer.
If that is the original CD drive in that laptop.
Old CD drives have their own problems reading disks.
What you did with the SFS files, is a good fix, that usually works.
Burned the iso image to the CD disk at too high a speed.
I always use no higher than 8X.
This sometimes helps:
If you can not boot with puppy live CD.
Get message unable to find SFS file.
Boot with Puppy live CD
At boot screen select F2 key
Try using one of these boot options
1. puppy acpi=off
2. puppy acpi=on
3. puppy ide=nodma
4. puppy ide=nodma acpi=off
Precise 5.7.1 is designed more for the hardware in that computer.
If that is the original CD drive in that laptop.
Old CD drives have their own problems reading disks.
What you did with the SFS files, is a good fix, that usually works.
Burned the iso image to the CD disk at too high a speed.
I always use no higher than 8X.
This sometimes helps:
If you can not boot with puppy live CD.
Get message unable to find SFS file.
Boot with Puppy live CD
At boot screen select F2 key
Try using one of these boot options
1. puppy acpi=off
2. puppy acpi=on
3. puppy ide=nodma
4. puppy ide=nodma acpi=off
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
Dell X200 Puppy live-CD can't read the sfs file - workaround
bigpup,
I figured "newer puppy" was separate than requiring "newer hardware". If updated software only runs on updated hardware, that sort of destroys one of the key selling points of Pupply Linux. Turns out Xenial 7.5 also fails to find the wireless network card, and the ethernet wired card, and the touchpad mouse. All of this works in Precise 5.7. That's unacceptable to a nominal audience interpretation of version numbers. With upgraded version numbers, things aren't supposed to break, especially when the Puppy reputation is that it works on older hardware. Where can I get updated software (security and features) *and* use older hardware? Well, in this case, actually... anybody interested in a fancy Dell X200 and media slice. I may not have the time to figure this all out and I'll just have to move on...
I tried your recommended parameter changes and even more. I posted a more comprehensive discussion on my blog page so I can remember what I did years later. I included references to all the other web pages discussing this issue. It's a pervasive long-running issue that Puppy has not fixed over the last 8 years at least.
http://blog.increa.com/2019/puppy-linux ... d-hard-fix
Perhaps I asked the question in an unclear way. Did you see in the original post that the CDROM reads fine once puppy is running? So the disk works in this drive and all other drives I have. Only at boot time, Puppy can't read a file off from it. Even more interesting is that Puppy totally hangs at boot time (blank screen blinking curser) if I allow the computer to sequence through boot sources and find the CDROM. I get Puppy to do the initial load (and give me the sfs not found error) only if I manually select F12 and select the CDROM for boot. ~Something~ is different about the two ways of using the CDROM. I have some other OS install disks that mysteriously hang at boot time, but they don't give me any visual clues. Could be the same issue, or could be different. I don't have a CDROM drive to swap in and check the possibility that hardware is faulty. I'm not confident a USB CDROM would be an equivalent situation.
I'm hoping that someone knows what Puppy is doing ~during~ boot time so as to not read the file. Then I go after that specific issue and maybe fix the issue for all my OS install disks!
I figured "newer puppy" was separate than requiring "newer hardware". If updated software only runs on updated hardware, that sort of destroys one of the key selling points of Pupply Linux. Turns out Xenial 7.5 also fails to find the wireless network card, and the ethernet wired card, and the touchpad mouse. All of this works in Precise 5.7. That's unacceptable to a nominal audience interpretation of version numbers. With upgraded version numbers, things aren't supposed to break, especially when the Puppy reputation is that it works on older hardware. Where can I get updated software (security and features) *and* use older hardware? Well, in this case, actually... anybody interested in a fancy Dell X200 and media slice. I may not have the time to figure this all out and I'll just have to move on...
I tried your recommended parameter changes and even more. I posted a more comprehensive discussion on my blog page so I can remember what I did years later. I included references to all the other web pages discussing this issue. It's a pervasive long-running issue that Puppy has not fixed over the last 8 years at least.
http://blog.increa.com/2019/puppy-linux ... d-hard-fix
Perhaps I asked the question in an unclear way. Did you see in the original post that the CDROM reads fine once puppy is running? So the disk works in this drive and all other drives I have. Only at boot time, Puppy can't read a file off from it. Even more interesting is that Puppy totally hangs at boot time (blank screen blinking curser) if I allow the computer to sequence through boot sources and find the CDROM. I get Puppy to do the initial load (and give me the sfs not found error) only if I manually select F12 and select the CDROM for boot. ~Something~ is different about the two ways of using the CDROM. I have some other OS install disks that mysteriously hang at boot time, but they don't give me any visual clues. Could be the same issue, or could be different. I don't have a CDROM drive to swap in and check the possibility that hardware is faulty. I'm not confident a USB CDROM would be an equivalent situation.
I'm hoping that someone knows what Puppy is doing ~during~ boot time so as to not read the file. Then I go after that specific issue and maybe fix the issue for all my OS install disks!
Even Puppy Linux has a limit on just how old the hardware can be and still be supported.
Your computer is at the very lowest level of support.
Pentium lll processors are really to old for the newer Puppy versions.
The Linux kernels they use no longer support those processors and those processors do not have the now needed abilities that even web browsers require.
At some point very old hardware just needs to be no longer supported.
Like I said before Precise 5.7.1 was still a Puppy version that supported that hardware.
Very old CD players (especially) ones in old laptops are not very good drives.
They are slow, take longer to access data, have timing issues, very old read hardware that is very much better in new CD drives.
Running a cleaning disk in the drive may help.
If nothing else, it will make sure the read lens is clean.
This being a very old Dell computer.
Dell did a lot of things with hardware, back in those days, that made the hardware very Dell specific, using Dell specific drivers and firmware.
Linux is a lot of backward engineered drivers and firmware because the manufactures do not want to provide Linux drivers and firmware. Especially Dell in those days.
Your computer is at the very lowest level of support.
Pentium lll processors are really to old for the newer Puppy versions.
The Linux kernels they use no longer support those processors and those processors do not have the now needed abilities that even web browsers require.
At some point very old hardware just needs to be no longer supported.
Like I said before Precise 5.7.1 was still a Puppy version that supported that hardware.
Very old CD players (especially) ones in old laptops are not very good drives.
They are slow, take longer to access data, have timing issues, very old read hardware that is very much better in new CD drives.
Running a cleaning disk in the drive may help.
If nothing else, it will make sure the read lens is clean.
This being a very old Dell computer.
Dell did a lot of things with hardware, back in those days, that made the hardware very Dell specific, using Dell specific drivers and firmware.
Linux is a lot of backward engineered drivers and firmware because the manufactures do not want to provide Linux drivers and firmware. Especially Dell in those days.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
Lucid Puppy would be a version to try.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected
YaPI(any iso installer)