Best way to install 2.15CE on harddrive?

[wolfpack]

Ok I have puppy 2.15 whats the best way to put on harddrive? I really don't want nothing of the windows 98 stuff so any good suggestion would be greatly appreciated.... thank you ...Bo

[novellahub]

Ok I have puppy 2.15 whats the best way to put on harddrive? I really don't want nothing of the windows 98 stuff so any good suggestion would be greatly appreciated.... thank you ...Bo

The recommended method is the "Frugal" one. See this sticky thread for how to do it.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=597

There is also a wiki page:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HardDriveInstall

[alienjeff]

The recommended method is the "Frugal" one.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Frugal is one recommended method. A full install is another recommended method. To wit, from the universal installer text:

[Getnikar]

Frugal is one recommended method. A full install is another recommended method. To wit, from the universal installer text

Excellent correction Jeff.

Further clarification, in case it is not 100% clear:

Frugal install = Option 1 install
Full partition install = Option 2 install.

It would be good if the terms/codes 'Option 1' and 'Option 2' were entirely replaced with the English descriptions as per above. Codes like 1 and 2 are completely meaningless, and only help confuse people.

Also I note that the Frugal install does not set up the grub boot stuff. Thats a shame. It should do so. (I have not ever seen the install stuff before, as I just put the 2 or 3 Puppy frugal files onto my Ubuntu partitiion, and add a boot line into grub, which Ubuntu hadalready installed, and presto, Puppy is installed.)

[HairyWill]

Read the text in the screenshot.

In fact, option two is the recommended choice for everyone, if the XXX partition is available for Puppy to take over.

This seems at odds with a development strategy (?) that makes things work in frugal installs first (squashfiles).

I think it is fairly clear that full installs have performance advantages with low RAM and low processor speeds.

Frugal installs are better for limited write media, use less disk space and allow more than one installation per partition.

My personal preference is generally for frugal unless needs dictate otherwise.

Obviously a contentious issue as we seem to regenerate a new flavour of this thread every month.
I recommend we create a page on the wiki and then spend the rest of our lives reverting and redoing each others changes

Sorry wolfpack you are not going to get a single straight answer on this one.

[novellahub]

The recommended method is the "Frugal" one.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Frugal is one recommended method. A full install is another recommended method.

I was going by the sticky page on this forum. Maybe someone should change it.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=597

How to do a "frugal" install The recommended way to install Puppy

I personally have used the option 2 install method since the machine I run on is dedicated to puppy.

[Getnikar]

Frugal installs are better for limited write media, use less disk space and allow more than one installation per partition.

They are also a much better option for ongoing maintenance, in that the distro and your stuff are kept in two different superfiles, the puppy_nnn.sfs and your pup_save.2fs respectively. This is very significant, as its very simple to upgrade, and to recover from stuffing up your setup, and also prevents upgrades from overwriting your changes.

Having said that, with regard to the last point, well-behaved upgrade mechanisms like that in debian-based systems generally handle upgrades OK, by checking each relevant config file and giving options about backup and/or overwrite on a file by file basis, if it finds that you have hacked a config file. While I have never yet had a problem with this, I have more confidence that the approach Puppy takes is more robust in this respect.

[alienjeff]

Obviously a contentious issue as we seem to regenerate a new flavour of this thread every month.

Contentious, indeed! And when someone is new to Linux or Puppy, they are often "blinded by choice."

Perhaps a prudent approach would be to boot from a live CD and use the save-personal-file to HD method. Stick with this method for the time being while getting familiar with Linux/Puppy. In time, your computing behaviors will soon define for you which installation/usage method would best serve you.

-aj

[wolfpack]

thank you very much.. that cleared it up for me I will try and install later right now I'm at work....Bo

[Flash]

...Perhaps a prudent approach would be to boot from a live CD and use the save-personal-file to HD method. ...

That's the only way I've used Puppy with a hard disk drive. Booting is very fast and upgrading or repairing your OS is a snap. However, I would still recommend creating a separate partition for the stuff you really don't want to lose.

Alienjeff, the image in this post makes the other posts in that thread so wide on my screen that I have to use the horizontal scroll to read them. Could you please reduce it to something more like 800 x 600? (Perhaps by cropping everything but the relevant window?) Thanks.

[yorkiesnorkie]

Hi,

Just a thought from a total newbie here with regard to the install process. I've recently come to Puppy to evade my problems with Windows 98SE. I could go on a mile about what they were...

I suppose the point is that I ran puppy 2.15CE off the CD, decided I really liked it and wanted to install it. However, I got myself mixed up reading all the various install information and had to take a second run on the install as a result, which was successful.

I think my main problem was that I had to make up my mind and decide what kind of installation I wanted before proceeding. I think a lot of people are looking for the magic doggy biscuit, that installs Puppy without their having to think about it. They aren't going to be able to just push a button so they are going to turn up here and start asking questions.

Clarification of the installation process and its choices would help a lot in understanding what is happening and might result in a higher success rate. As you've rightly pointed out there are some vague points in the texts but I do think when you say installation type 1 or 2 people will understand if they have used the installer. I got that pretty quick and that the type 2 is recommended.

The wiki is very comprehensive, as are the instructions in the installer but for users without a linux background anything vague or new looks a bit mysterious. There is also a lot to absorb and finding what you "need" for the install type you want, if in fact you know what you want which is a real question, is a bit daunting at first.

I found what I needed to decide on was:

A full (replace your existing os) or a dual booting situation and what steps to take to get it done

What partitioning needs to take place as a result of originally being fat32 or NTFS, how many partitions to make and what format, ext2/3 and linux swap

Whether to install using the type 1 frugal installation or type 2 full partition installation which could vary for the reasons you guys have mentioned.

And lastly, how grub fits into the picture to make Puppy boot from wherever it has been installed, and any additional steps that need to be taken as a consequence thereof.

I only had one questionable moment:

During the install the part where the grub installer asks where to put the grub files (boot/grub) defaults to "dev/hda2" which is pretty meaningless to newbies if not obscure. To understand what dev/hda2 is you have to at least tried to make a partition with gparted. If you've never tried that before you have to be a little bit brave and take it on faith, as with the MBR.

I've learned quite a bit in a short time and found its not that hard to install Puppy. I've been well served if not inundated by helpful messages and plenty of information in the wiki and other supporting pages.

In short, this is a cool and supportive community where new people can come and feel welcomed.

Yorkiesnorkie

[yorkiesnorkie]

Hi Wolfpack,

I know this isn't quite what your looking for because you want to let Puppy take over the shop. I don't know if this will help except perhaps to shed a little light on your situation by contrast:

In my case I decided to keep Win98SE. Its got a fat32 partition. So my plan was to install puppy 2.15CE and choose which system to run from the grub menu when the laptop boots. Your trying to do something different! However my own experience might help a little even if its not exactly what your looking for. If anyone spots something out of order here please feel free to jump in and correct me, I"m new to this.

Before starting I read quite a bit on the forum and in the wiki, and Raffy's instructions were really helpful.

I defragmented the drive in Windows before running gparted in Puppy. When I booted puppy I typed "puppy pfix=ram" at the prompt or I wouldn't be able to edit the primary hard drive partition. I used gparted from the menu in puppy to reduce the size of the partition and make space for puppy.

In gparted the old C: shows up as dev/hda1. I needed the intructions on how to use gparted from the net. Its not hard to use. I reduced dev/hda1 by 800 mb. That left dev/hda1 where windows lives 3gb. I created two additional partitions, the second dev/hda2 and formatted to ext3 (which I was later informed the preferance is for ext2) and the third dev/hda3, format is linux-swap. In my case dev/hda2 I made only 600mb. The linux swap is 2x my 96mb of ram, 192mb.

I then ran the menu installer and I chose the dev/hda2 and a type 2 install, which let puppy take over the dev/hda2 partition.

When the the installer ran the grub part, I went for the automatic settings. The defaults are all ok, including where it asks to install to dev/hda2 by default, but I did have to type in the part where it askes about MBR manually. Typing MBR in the dialog box.

At the success window I got out, logged out of Puppy, and rebooted, popped out the cd before it booted, and voila, I got the Grub prompt, chose Puppy, and bingo, it asked about the keyboard, display, and then launched. Most cool.

I guess the bottom line is that if you wanted to keep a small or minimal 98 install on your machine you could easily dual boot without too much trouble. I've got some weird hardware which is why I still want 98se.

Yorkiesnorkie