[SOLVED] : Full install problems

Message

verynewpup · #1 Post by **verynewpup** » Mon 30 Mar 2009, 17:01

I have been using a frugal install of puppy and finally decided to change it to a full install. I have a P3 555 Mhz HP pavillion with 192MB ram.
There are 4 partitions:
1 - linux swap partition
2 - PClinuxos installation ( contains Grub)
3 - partition for home folders
4 - partition for puppy (6 GB)

I used the universal installer and went through the Full install steps. Finally when it asked to update the Grub, it gave me the text to add to an existing grub installation. I did that. I was able to reboot and select the puppy option and boot into puppy. Here are the problems I see:

1. When in liveCD, I was able to select xorg for graphics and with the basic 15 inch crt monitor, everything worked. However when I started with full install, I couldn't get xorg to work with the same settings. I had to use xvesa.
2. I can see all the partitions of my hd and partition 4 is mounted. I cannot mount any other partition. It simply says " Failed to mount".
3. It doesn't recognize my wireless adapter. With Frugal install and in liveCD mode, I was able to see ath0 adapter and it worked but not in full install mode.

It seems some very basic system service isn't getting started during bootup. I have tried 4.1.1, 4.1.2, macpup, etc with the same results.

HELP!!

rcrsn51 · #2 Post by **rcrsn51** » Mon 30 Mar 2009, 17:14

Please post the menu.lst entry that is launching Puppy.

Are you doing the full install from the Live CD or out of the existing frugal install? How full is sda4?

verynewpup · #3 Post by **verynewpup** » Mon 30 Mar 2009, 17:28

rcrsn51, Here is the addition to menu.lst

title Puppy 4.1.2
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 pmedia=atahd nosmp

I am doing a full install from liveCD. I also formatted the partition as part of the installation.

rcrsn51 · #4 Post by **rcrsn51** » Mon 30 Mar 2009, 17:38

Code: Select all

title Puppy 4.1.2
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 pmedia=atahd nosmp

If this is actually a full install into the fourth primary partition, then the following would make more sense.

Code: Select all

title Puppy 4.1.2
root (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda4 ro vga=normal

verynewpup · #5 Post by **verynewpup** » Mon 30 Mar 2009, 21:28

I am not sure why the partitions are numbered this way but there are only 4 partitions that I can see. The 4 partitions are numbered as:
hda0, hda5, hda6 and hda7.
I used to have windows 98 on this box a long time back and have experimented with several linux distros. I don't know how I ended with numbers like these.
Is there a way to re-number the partitions without messing up the existing pclinuxOS installation?

The gurb step on installation asked me to set root=/dev/sda7 in the second line but that wasn't working. I had to change it to hda7 to get it to boot. Rest everything is as-is. (NOTE: I had a typo in my previous posting, i.e. I put hda6 instead of hda7)

I will try removing nosmp and adding ro and vga=normal and let you know how it goes. What do these 3 options do?

verynewpup · #6 Post by **verynewpup** » Tue 31 Mar 2009, 03:38

that did not work. Any more ideas?

my HD looks like this in gtparted

hda1 - swap
hda2 - extended
---- hda5 - ext3
---- hda6 - ext3
---- hda7 - ext3 ( for puppy)

rcrsn51 · #7 Post by **rcrsn51** » Tue 31 Mar 2009, 13:11

That partition structure now makes sense, but it does not explain your original problem. A full install should work exactly the same as a frugal, assuming that everything got copied correctly out of the core Puppy files.

It's strange that you have seen the same behaviour with other Puppies. The fact that you are installing into an extended partition should not make any difference.

Since you know that frugal installs work, maybe you should continue to run that way. You really don't lose anything.

verynewpup · #8 Post by **verynewpup** » Tue 31 Mar 2009, 15:26

I can always go back to using frugal install but the documentation says that a full install is the way to go if you have less than 256MB ram. I thought by going to a full install I will be able to make the most out of my old box.

If this had worked I would have cleaned up the whole machine and kept only puppy. I also thought that if everything works fine in furgal and liveCD mode, a full install should be a no-brainer.

thanks for your replies rcrs51. If you or anybody else watching this thread thinks of something else, please let me know.
I love puppy and I will keep trying until I get this to work or at least understand what's going on.

racepres · #9 Post by **racepres** » Tue 31 Mar 2009, 16:42

Having never installed any OS to an extended partition, I would try to set-up 3 "regular" partitions, plus swap, and see how that goes.. works for me anyway...HTH. RP

Edit: I have also had a problem before with gParted.. ended up using cfdisk, to set up the Hdd that was causing problems, and the prob. disappeared.. No I do not know why! Just lucky [or sloppy] I guess

verynewpup · #10 Post by **verynewpup** » Wed 01 Apr 2009, 14:29

I found the solution to my problem. Actually it was a problem I created...

While adding the text to the existing menu.lst, I decided to type in the information instead of cut+paste. The culprit was the missing space between root and (hd0,6). So if I had just picked up everything that the installation script gave me, it would have saved be ( and everybody who read this post) some time.

Anyways, here is the final content of my menu.lst

title Puppy 4.2 full install
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinux root=/dev/sda7 pmedia=atahd nosmp

thanks to everybody who tried to help. Now I have puppy 4.2 running as full install and loving it.

#11 Post by **BÃ©Ã¨m** » Wed 01 Apr 2009, 14:43

No offense here. Great you found it yourself.
Now for the benefit of other forum members, can you add [SOLVED] to the subject of your initial post.

rcrsn51 · #12 Post by **rcrsn51** » Wed 01 Apr 2009, 15:09

Just to avoid any future confusion, the "pmedia" argument is only needed by frugal installs. The standard menu.lst entry for your setup would be

Code: Select all

title Puppy 4.2 full install
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda7 ro vga=normal

verynewpup · #13 Post by **verynewpup** » Wed 01 Apr 2009, 18:06

Beem, I edited the subject to say SOLVED.
rcrsn51, I will replace the pmedia argument with ro vga=normal. The install script should probably be updated to stop adding the pmedia argument.

The next task is to figure out why the playback of youtube video is so crappy.. the sound is fine but the video is pretty bad.. it looks like a slideshow instead of continuous playback.. A video stored on the filesystem works just fine.

thanks everyone.

#14 Post by **BÃ©Ã¨m** » Wed 01 Apr 2009, 19:59

verynewpup wrote:The next task is to figure out why the playback of youtube video is so crappy.. the sound is fine but the video is pretty bad.. it looks like a slideshow instead of continuous playback.. A video stored on the filesystem works just fine.

What is the speed of your internet connection?
Dial up?

verynewpup · #15 Post by **verynewpup** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 17:18

I have DSL 1.5Mbps, a linksys wrt54g wireless router and a dlink wireless pci card on my desktop.
I have another laptop(vista) that seems to do just fine so I don't think it is my router.

As I mentioned before, I also have pclinuxos on this box. The video is a little choppy there too but better than in Puppy. I used to think that the video was bad in pclinuxos because it has a lot of stuff (KDE, etc.) that could bog down my old box. I was hoping that Puppy would perform better. Maybe it just needs a few tweeks. It seems there is also a pet package which has a faster version of firefox. I will try that too.

How do I monitor the quality of my connection between dlink - linksys?
Are there some tricks to improve the connection, if thats the problem?
Maybe this is not the forum for this question. I will google it.

#16 Post by **BÃ©Ã¨m** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 18:17

If you type iwconfig in a console/terminal, you have some information on the connection.

1.5mbps isn't that much. Maybe if you can increase the buffereing you can have less choppy performance.

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[SOLVED] : Full install problems

[SOLVED] : Full install problems