I have been having major pains with installing Puppy. All of which is no doubt my fault as Linux still boggles my mind.
What I have is an old Gateway laptop that has a 120 processor with 48 mb of ram.
I will be quite content if I can just check email and a few other minor things like surfing.
My first Puppy install gave me troubles with the (Kernal panic not syncing no init found)
I had no idea how to pass the init.
I have since tried to reinstall puppy to new partitions and I always end up with Error 15
I have tried using the Grub loader configuration file but it has not worked for me.
I am more than happy to start at ground zero and download a new Puppy if there is a recommended version for my old laptop. Right now I have version 2.10.
Question??? How can I find my hd to search for files? I have tried the utilities and one will only search the actual CDrom drive and I have no clue where to find my /boot/grub/menu.1st because I can not find the HD that Puppy has installed in.
Plus the Grub loader configuration tool will let me view the file but I can not edit it!!!!
However the good things are is that I can wipe the entire drive clean and start from scrath as it has no files, there is 98 on it and I believe this is where my first mbr was but of course Puppy cannot delete that.
I know this has got to be the most ridiculous question but I ask again
How can I find my hd to search for files?
PS my cdrom drive is very problematic, however I do have a pcmmia USB card that I could use to install from if that card does not first need to be installed from the Puppy OS.
TIA
Install problems Gateway laptop Error 15 resolved
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Puppynewbie
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Wed 31 Jan 2007, 15:23
Install problems Gateway laptop Error 15 resolved
Last edited by Puppynewbie on Wed 31 Jan 2007, 23:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Puppynewbie
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Wed 31 Jan 2007, 15:23
I have downloaded version 2.13 and am installing it now, at least it is loading from live cd.
I was going to remove the prior partitions and install new but it appears to be replacing the old version on hard drive although I did not think it would do this from the CD before Puppy was loaded.
Any advice for partitions and what file system to use and type of?
Thanks
I was going to remove the prior partitions and install new but it appears to be replacing the old version on hard drive although I did not think it would do this from the CD before Puppy was loaded.
Any advice for partitions and what file system to use and type of?
Thanks
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Puppynewbie
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Wed 31 Jan 2007, 15:23
Hi Puppy Newbie, I'm from the other thread. I encouraged responses to your posts there to be redirected to your thread here.
You may wish to change the subject title that shows as the topic of your thread. I didnt check out your thread because i know very little about the stated topics in your thread (kernel and GRUB). I know a bit about HD installs, partitions, filesystems, and swaps. It may be advantageous to change the title to something like "Laptop Install Problems: HD, kernel & GRUB" and maybe change the 'Problems' listed as your progress and problems change. It's just an idea.
I'm not familiar with 2.13, but on 2.02 you can click on the symbol of the flash drive 'drives' and a program will open called MUT, be patient it may take 10 - 20 seconds, MUT will list all the Filesystems (HD, CDrom, usb) it sees, click on 'mount' and a window of the files/directories of that 'filesystem' will appear. remember to click 'unmount' before removing a usb device or a data CD. MUT is also accessible thru Menu > File Managers > MUT.
In another thread Puppy Newbie posted: "I too have a Gateway solo, mine is a 2100 that my dad use to have. As for specs, it has 48 mb of ram, 120 processor speed, and an 800mb HD. I am trying to add 2.13 after having problems with installing 2.10. I have some partitions I need to remove with Gparted. The Windows partition is locked in Gparted, I would like to remove that as well and start anew. Does Puppy want or need a swap partition? My 2.13 has stalled at Creating unionfs on (/intrd)pup_new (to become '/')... " and then later: "Anyways, I am ready to delete partitions and assign new ones. Any tips on size and file types would be greatly appreaciated." (end quote)
First of all, since it seems you've got puppy working, Id recomend playing with it as is for a while, at least a couple of days. Remember that without a swap partition it wont be as fast as possible. I dont know how to make a swap file but it's easy and might be a quick, easy fix for the short term. you can make partitions and swap partitions later.
It seems that version 2.13 is using unionfs so maybe you should stick with that. I suspect it's superior. Otherwise i'd recomend ext3 which has 'journaling' which will automatically allow it to fix itself in terms of file errors and lost fragment kind-of-stuff. I read that reiserfs has problems and that those problems may not get fixed in the near future so i, personally, would avoid reiserfs. You'll probably need a swap. In my opinion there seems to be some controversy about swap size. A minimal sized swap for Puppy would be = 128 - RAM quantity. Remember that this seems to be the 'Golden Puppy Swap Equation" because 128 MB is the MINIMUM combination of both RAM and swap that it needs to run, at least tolerably. In your case 128 MB- 48 MB = 80 MB. Other recomendations, are: 1.25 x RAM size, 2 x RAM, 3 x RAM. Part of the disagreement or different recomendations is due to the fact that different uses of computers can benefit from different sized swaps. Due to your laptop's specs, your use and my relative ignorance i'd recomend about 150 MB. You can always change it later.
Later, i'd recomend at least 3 partitions. One for only the Operating System (OS) and Programs, next a swap partition, and then a partition used only for data like pictures, music, letters, downloaded webpages, pdf's, and usually called a Data partition. Advantages to this are: it makes changing or updating the OS easier, may allow the OS to work faster due to less clutter in the OS partition, may make backups easier and more organized, and may keep personal data safer from the web.
For more discussion of partitions and swap than you may care to know, see: [ http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 3&start=15 ]
For others you may wish to use the forum's search function.
You may wish to change the subject title that shows as the topic of your thread. I didnt check out your thread because i know very little about the stated topics in your thread (kernel and GRUB). I know a bit about HD installs, partitions, filesystems, and swaps. It may be advantageous to change the title to something like "Laptop Install Problems: HD, kernel & GRUB" and maybe change the 'Problems' listed as your progress and problems change. It's just an idea.
I'm not familiar with 2.13, but on 2.02 you can click on the symbol of the flash drive 'drives' and a program will open called MUT, be patient it may take 10 - 20 seconds, MUT will list all the Filesystems (HD, CDrom, usb) it sees, click on 'mount' and a window of the files/directories of that 'filesystem' will appear. remember to click 'unmount' before removing a usb device or a data CD. MUT is also accessible thru Menu > File Managers > MUT.
In another thread Puppy Newbie posted: "I too have a Gateway solo, mine is a 2100 that my dad use to have. As for specs, it has 48 mb of ram, 120 processor speed, and an 800mb HD. I am trying to add 2.13 after having problems with installing 2.10. I have some partitions I need to remove with Gparted. The Windows partition is locked in Gparted, I would like to remove that as well and start anew. Does Puppy want or need a swap partition? My 2.13 has stalled at Creating unionfs on (/intrd)pup_new (to become '/')... " and then later: "Anyways, I am ready to delete partitions and assign new ones. Any tips on size and file types would be greatly appreaciated." (end quote)
First of all, since it seems you've got puppy working, Id recomend playing with it as is for a while, at least a couple of days. Remember that without a swap partition it wont be as fast as possible. I dont know how to make a swap file but it's easy and might be a quick, easy fix for the short term. you can make partitions and swap partitions later.
It seems that version 2.13 is using unionfs so maybe you should stick with that. I suspect it's superior. Otherwise i'd recomend ext3 which has 'journaling' which will automatically allow it to fix itself in terms of file errors and lost fragment kind-of-stuff. I read that reiserfs has problems and that those problems may not get fixed in the near future so i, personally, would avoid reiserfs. You'll probably need a swap. In my opinion there seems to be some controversy about swap size. A minimal sized swap for Puppy would be = 128 - RAM quantity. Remember that this seems to be the 'Golden Puppy Swap Equation" because 128 MB is the MINIMUM combination of both RAM and swap that it needs to run, at least tolerably. In your case 128 MB- 48 MB = 80 MB. Other recomendations, are: 1.25 x RAM size, 2 x RAM, 3 x RAM. Part of the disagreement or different recomendations is due to the fact that different uses of computers can benefit from different sized swaps. Due to your laptop's specs, your use and my relative ignorance i'd recomend about 150 MB. You can always change it later.
Later, i'd recomend at least 3 partitions. One for only the Operating System (OS) and Programs, next a swap partition, and then a partition used only for data like pictures, music, letters, downloaded webpages, pdf's, and usually called a Data partition. Advantages to this are: it makes changing or updating the OS easier, may allow the OS to work faster due to less clutter in the OS partition, may make backups easier and more organized, and may keep personal data safer from the web.
For more discussion of partitions and swap than you may care to know, see: [ http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 3&start=15 ]
For others you may wish to use the forum's search function.
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Puppynewbie
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Wed 31 Jan 2007, 15:23
Thanks CatmanDru,
I did not want to seem to be cross posting but the other post seemed a likewise problem.
I will change the thread title to reflect resolved. I do have a swap linux partition set up and I did install Puppy on .ext3 FS.
My main things for getting it to work will be a pcmmia wifi card and a pcmmia usb card. Both of those should make a world of difference.
The reason for my problem installs is my cdrom drive works when it wants and is rather lazy thus I had to keep rebooting and trying again. I am not sure how to get rid of myWindows yet as linux will not let me touch that partition.
Being able to add usb to this old laptop will be great as I can really expand to having a few gigs to play around with.
I am definitely keeping Puppy and look forward to getting some knowledge from here.
Thanks again
I did not want to seem to be cross posting but the other post seemed a likewise problem.
I will change the thread title to reflect resolved. I do have a swap linux partition set up and I did install Puppy on .ext3 FS.
My main things for getting it to work will be a pcmmia wifi card and a pcmmia usb card. Both of those should make a world of difference.
The reason for my problem installs is my cdrom drive works when it wants and is rather lazy thus I had to keep rebooting and trying again. I am not sure how to get rid of myWindows yet as linux will not let me touch that partition.
Being able to add usb to this old laptop will be great as I can really expand to having a few gigs to play around with.
I am definitely keeping Puppy and look forward to getting some knowledge from here.
Thanks again