Hi peebee
One of the changes I just noticed between bionicpup1805 and bionicpup1903 is the BootFlash USB installer. I like it
Very nice, thanks for the useful tool!
GParted just needs to catch up now, it does not see all 3 partitions just a big iso9660 CD disk.
All three partitions are available on the desktop when booting from the USB stick.
Attached a pic at the bottom of the post.
Some background for reference;
If you like the security of running from a live CD the new BootFlash USB installer can give you the same security from a usb stick. You may think "so what? - we
could always
dd the hybrid iso image to usb stick".
What makes the BootFlash USB installer a great tool is that it will automatically recover the unused space on the usb
stick by resizing the partitions, that is something that I always had to manually do using tools from different systems.
Initially when you dd a hybrid .iso to usb pen drive it turns the whole usb stick into a big iso9660 write protected CD disk - getting the unused space back can be troublesome.
This new BootFlash USB installer resizes the partitions and recovers the unused space into an extra ext2, ext3, ext4, fat32, vfat, ntfs (your choice) formatted partition automatically.
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EDIT - Some additional informaton about significant differences between upupbb 18.05 and bionicpup32 19.03 concerning remastering and writing a remastered .iso image to usb pen
drives using the BootFlash USB installer in BionicPup32 19.03. For best results I recommend using only the BionicPup32 19.03 hybrid .iso either in its original form or as a remastered
custom .iso. The reasons for this recommendation are listed below.
1.Bionicpup32 19.03 can create a custom remastered .iso while retaining the properties of its hybrid .iso and can subsequently write that custom .iso to usb pen drive where it will be fully
functional and capable of using the extra space created on the usb stick for storage after using the BootFlash USB installer. option.
A remastered custom Upupbb 18.05 .iso does not retain the hybrid properties of the original .iso and will fail to boot if installed onto a usb pen drive using the install program in
Bionicpup32 19.03. Additionally the install program will complain that the .iso is not a hybrid .iso which is good. I have not tried other puppy releases with the BootFlash USB
installer in BionicPup32 19.03.
2. The BootFlash USB installer in BionicPup32 19.03 seems to work with all hybrid .iso images and reports(complains) if the .iso image you are asking it to write is not a hybrid .iso
- it will let you write it if you wish but the usb stick will not boot.
Please note that this does not mean that all hybrid .iso images written with the BootFlash USB installer will be able to see or use the additional drive space made available on the
written-to USB drive. An example is the upupbb_18.05 .iso as released, is is a hybrid .iso but does not see nor can it use the space freed up on the usb drive by the new BootFlash USB
installer in BionicPup32_19.03, - maybe due to operating system limits but would need further investigating to identify the exact cause.
In the case of a remastered custom .iso in upupbb 18.05 not retaining hypbrid capability, there may be differences in how the remastered custom .iso is produced in upupbb 18.05 or just
the limitations of the upupbb 18.05 operating system . FWIW, that issue would need further testing by remastering the upupbb 18.05 /livecdbuild/ directory using the Remaster Puppy Live-CD
tools in the BionicPup32 19.03 release - if that is even possible. Maybe I will try that and see if that produces a bootable usb that can read the additional space (would be interesting
mainly due to applying that process to other .iso puppy variants, both hybrid and non-hybrid in the chance it will produce a bootable usb that can use the reclaimed space on the usb stick.)
In summary, if you plan on doing a remaster and writing it as a live-cd to a usb pen drive then stick with the Bionicpup32 19.03 releases to guarantee that the remastered .iso will
retain its hybrid properties and will be capable of using the recovered drive space on the usb stick that the Bionicpup32 19.03 install program is now capable of providing.
Will be doing more testing to see what I can get away with using other puppy .iso variants remastered with the tools in BionicPup32 19.03