(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi

I am new to Linux. I have an old Sony Vaio laptop Model PGG-R600HMPD. It had crawled to a stop under windows. I had installed Ubuntu on another laptop with complete success but thought this old machine could do with a lean Linux. So I downloaded the Puppy ISO and it works on my other machines nicely. But not at all on the Vaio. On booting from the CD I get the following.

Loading drivers needed to access disk drives…done
Searching deeper , sub-sub-folders in partitions…lupu_525.sfs not found. Dropping our to initial-ramdisk console…
/bin/sh: can’t access tty; job control turned off.

And there everything stops. What am I doing wrongly please. (I tried the Ubuntu netbook distro on the Viao but the display appears wonky! Maybe this is just a funny non-standard machine.)

Grateful for any help.

Don

Just a wild guess.
Maybe you burned at too high a speed and the vaio can't cope with the burn. BTW did you burn in Windows?
If yes, which program did you use?

Wellcome to Puppy forum.

Edit. What Beem write sounds very logical to me. Maybe the burning specify how fast the CD shall turn and that the Vaio can not read reliably on it but test again on the other machine what I suggest here below

So I downloaded the Puppy ISO and it works on my other machines nicely. But not at all on the Vaio. On booting from the CD I get the following.
...lupu_525.sfs

This is very surprising. That file are there on the CD when you load it up on the other computers and work just fine.

Now when you tested it on the other computer it most likely asked you to make a save file in the end when you shut it down.

I would interupt the boot of the cd in the time slot you have at start. Some 5 seconds by hitton the key for

p as in puppy and then if that succeeds and you see a p there on the line of input then write this

puppy pfix=ram and then follow the instructions in the text. to boot.

The reason I suggest this is that when you tested lupu525 on the other machine maybe it saved info about that machine and if one do the puppy pfix=ram then it ignore that info and start all over and that way it should be able to find the needed file on the CD again.

I apology if that does not work. After all I am a nooby but it sounds logical to me that something could have to do with that you tested it on the other machine and it maybe trust too much that you are on that one again?

I would also get back to that other machine and test the puppy pfix=ram on that one so you see what happens on something that just works

Tell us how it goes. Others can learn from your experience.

I hadn't thought of burn speed affecting the ability of older computers to read. I burnt the CD using Windows 7. I will try a slower burn and see if that works before I try anything else. Thank you all for the assistance.

The first time I tried to load puppy on my ancient machine, it behaved exactly the same way. Problem was I didn't have enough memory to load into ram. I was able to load it with a different option and create a swap file and then everything was cool.

How much memory in the old PC?

IIRC there was a problem with old Vaio's where their CD-ROM drive was not detected by Puppy. But this could be solved with some special boot arguments. At the short initial pause, type

The Vaio system is as follows:

Memory 250Mb
Processor Pentium III CPU-M 1200Mz
Hard Disk 40 Gb

I figured that the Vaio was reading the CD OK because it read the similarly windows-written Ubuntu disk well - though that distro would not loadon the Vaio properly. And I knew that the installation disk was OK because it loaded on other computers. So it had to be something within the Vaio that Puppy did not like.

On a whim, I put in an Xubuntu disk (hope that is not a bad word here) and the Vaio loaded that faultlessly. Meanwhile I have loaded Puppy onto my Windows computer as a second OS.

Many thanks to all who have helped. I hope this thread is of some use to others.

Hi

I got the same result when booting from a USB drive on a Dell Inspiro 2200 laptop (v old) - I assumed it was a general incompatibility, but now see it may have been a a memory problem - will try some different loading methods, and report back.

Chris

There is a bug in lupu, maybe other puppies too. If you are attempting to boot from USB, and have no hard drive in the system, it will have exactly this symptom, "lupu_525.sfs not found".

The work-around is, stick an old hard drive in the system, even if you don'tuse it; or have a puppy CD in the CDROM (for initial booting - still gets the puppy sfs from your USB drive or the hard drive).

It's an annoying bug, because a lot of people (like me) remove the hard drive to reduce noise, heat and to make the battery last longer. Now that doesn't work any more.

playdayz has developed a fix for this.
I think it is in the puppy projects section and called Instant Update 001 for Lucid Puppy 5.2.5

I tried the instant update 001. The problem is still the same. The puppy won't boot without a HD. Maybe install the puppy on USB stick using mbr.bin ?

If the fix don't work it has to be reported in the thread thee.

vickyg2003 wrote:The first time I tried to load puppy on my ancient machine, it behaved exactly the same way. Problem was I didn't have enough memory to load into ram. I was able to load it with a different option and create a swap file and then everything was cool.

How much memory in the old PC?

My understanding is that Lucid needs minimum of 256 M and more if using the Retro version. It boots the CD into ram so that the disk can be removed.

double post

I think the init script checks for available ram and if not sufficient the sfs isn't loaded in ram. When booting from the CD this means that the CD should be kept in the drive.

As a test this can be forced by booting from the CD and at the 2 sec pause enter puppy pfix=nocopy

Béèm wrote:I think the init script checks for available ram and if not sufficient the sfs isn't loaded in ram. When booting from the CD this means that the CD should be kept in the drive.

As a test this can be forced by booting from the CD and at the 2 sec pause enter puppy pfix=nocopy

I'm glad to hear that. James C posted somewhere that it wouldn't load.

"A lot of effort was put into keeping Lucid 525 small enough to load into ram on a computer with 256 MB of ram and allow removing the disc allowing use of the optical drive. Lucid Retro is only about 2 mb larger (extra dialup modem drivers) and it won't load into 256 MB"

damedia wrote:The Vaio system is as follows:

Memory 250Mb
Processor Pentium III CPU-M 1200Mz
Hard Disk 40 Gb

Your system is probably too old for Lucid Puppy 525.
Try Wary.
http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02304

So, first of all I'm a n00b to both the forum and to Puppy. Quickie .....

PaulBx1: "There is a bug in lupu ..."

Is there a work around outside of putting hardware in?

Does anyone know if Wary contains the same bug?

I ask because the system I'm building has no harddrive, or CD ROM, or the capability to put them in. Booting from the USB is not only important, it's essential. Perhaps Puppy is not for but I'm definitely interested in trying.

Thanks

kfisk wrote:Does anyone know if Wary contains the same bug?

This is a recent bug, so you need to get a slightly earlier version, like Lupu 511.

The latest Wary may be OK. You might also like Quirky 1.3.

Thanks rcrsn51!

I tired Wary 5.1.2 and it seemed to work just fine! I'll try an earlier Lucid next and see what happens.

Thanks again!