PSubdir handling and alternatives

[bernibiel]

Hi everybody

this might have been discussed time and again but I have now spent the last hour surfing and not finding good information - therefore:

I would like to install multiple puppies on a hd (frugal) and would like to use different subdirs for those puppies. What I have seen so far is that there is a kernel parameter psubdir that allows me to specify the name of the directory

1) I have not found a way to put "/" in that psubdir, this means that the folder for a puppy has to be below / of that partition. Is this observation correct or not?

2) I would like to put additional sfs (like openoffice) into that same psubdir folder in order to load them at startup of a specific puppy. The only way to make that happen is to place those sfs in / of the partition that contains all those puppy psubdir folders, because otherwise bootmanager would not find them.

As some puppies make heavy use of sfs (e.g. LHP) this is going to be a nightmare, especially because a lot of sfs are named the same despite being different. What is the workaround to have a clean / and also clean separation of all files for a certain puppy?

As always - any help or comment appreciated
Thanks - Bernhard

[potong]

I keep many frugal installs on the same partition using the psubdir parameter and find it quite easy to manage.

I keep all sfs files for a frugal install under the same psubdir and then link (relative) them to the /mnt/home directory (one directory above)..

You can achieve this via the command line or use rox drag-n-drop.
The resultant symbolic link can be renamed using either the command line or rox.

Hope this helps

Potong

[davesurrey]

bernibiel

I have not found a way to put "/" in that psubdir, this means that the folder for a puppy has to be below / of that partition.

Not sure if I understand you but if you are saying how do you write grub for an install of puppy without a subdirectory then the answer is you don't need to write

Code: Select all

psubdir=XXX

at all.
Puppy will look for the files in / automatically.
ie you can put puppy directly in / or in a subdir of /. In the latter case you have to use psubdir=XXX. In the former you don't.

I would like to put additional sfs (like openoffice) into that same psubdir folder

Sorry but the sfs files need to be in /mnt/home. You can't put them individually in a subdir.

this is going to be a nightmare,

Well I usually run at least 5 puppies in the same partition (you could split them one per partition of you wished but this wastes space) with all in subdirs and Bootmanager is used to decide which sfs files are called for each puppy.

HTH
Dave

[Jim1911]

Hi bernibiel,

How do you intend to boot your pups?

You may place as many pups as you have space for on a partition and they will not interfere with each other as long as they are in their own subdirectory with a unique name, never more that one level from root. My sfs files are placed in root, although it may be possible to link them as potong mentioned.

Assuming that you are using grub to boot your pups, your grub .097 menu.lst code should be similar to this below with a separate entry for each pup. Note that the subdirectory is identified as psubdir=Name and that name appears in three locations.

Code: Select all

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Test (on /dev/sdb7) 
root (hd1,6)
kernel /Test/vmlinuz pfix=fsck pmedia=idehd pdev1=sdb7 psubdir=Test
initrd /Test/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends 

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Test 2 (on /dev/sdb7) 
root (hd1,6)
kernel /Test2/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd pfix=fsck psubdir=Test2
initrd /Test2/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends 

[bernibiel]

Thank you all for your comments.

At the beginning I wanted to have my psubdirs two levels below the root of the partition, as this is not possible, I will change the layout of my directories.

The suggestions to use relative links and rename those accordingly is really helpful. Its not what I wanted to have but it is still a somehow neat solution.

Thanks - Bernhard

[Béèm]

I have my different puppies on sda1 and use subdirs as well, but I don't refer to them on the kernel line with psubdir=

I use the Lin'N'Win method.

My sfs files are on sda2 (/mnt/home) so they can be used with all my puppies.

[davids45]

G'day,

I too use the subdir method of most of the others who've replied, and I have twenty or so frugal Pups in a 50GB partition on a 500GB drive. Well, even more because I had to separate older frugals using the 3.1sfs format from those using the newer 4sfs, so I have two partitions with frugals.

If you too get carried away with trying Pups frugally, there is a method to add a submenu to your grub menu list, so for example I have all the frugals separated from all the fulls as a Frugal submenu, if that's likely to be important to you.

David S.