Newly frugal-installed Precise Puppy fails to reboot

[Ido Wolf]

*Reminder: we're talking about a Frugal install of Precise 5.4.3 here.
*Made a frugal install of Puppy on an old Dell laptop with a 20GB HDD, about 18GB are used as ext3/host for Puppy installation, and 1.5GB are used for swap (the laptop has 1GB RAM).
*It seems that 2 different audio cards are found by Linux. The one chosen by default has no output, so I'm trying to change to the other one, and it prompts me to reboot my PC in order to apply the changes.

Here's the issue: when I'm trying to reboot or shut off my computer by pressing Menu > Shutdown > Reboot Computer / Shut-off Computer, nothing happens after quite a while. Why does it happen and how can I change that?

[OscarTalks]

When you run Puppy Universal Installer you get a text file that appears at the end. This contains the lines you should have in your menu.1st file between the lines:-

# Linux bootable partition config begins

and

# Linux bootable partition config ends


Copy and paste those lines in (deleting the ones that Grub config created) and you can also edit the title line to appear differently if you wish eg:-

title Puppy Linux Precise 5.4.3

Someone else more experienced than me will probably tell you what the lines should be. Mine are installed in subdirectories.

EDIT:- Glad you got the initial booting problem solved.

[Ido Wolf]

I solved the previous problem by removing the "/boot" from the kernel line and it boots perfectly well now.

I have another unrelated problem though; When I'm trying to reboot or shut off my computer by pressing Menu > Shutdown > Reboot Computer / Shut-off Computer, nothing happens after quite a while. Why does it happen and how can I change that?

[OscarTalks]

Not sure about the shutdown problem. Is it definitely not responding at all or is it just very slow at saving the session? Did you create a save-file or are you saving to the partition?

As for the 2 soundcards problem, sounds like you are trying to use Multiple Sound Card Wizard and that may work (if you can solve the shutdown and reboot problem) but otherwise you can set the desired soundcard as default (index=0) by editing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf adding a couple of lines.

Look in /proc/asound/modules to see your sound modules, figure out which one you want as default and then add the 2 lines to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf like this:-

Code: Select all

options snd-moduleA index=0
options snd-moduleB index=1
 

Obviously putting the correct names in place of "moduleA" and "moduleB" for your set-up.

Sometimes things like dial-up modems can appear as soundcards and if you are not using them you can blacklist the module in boot manager (from the menu).

[Ido Wolf]

Not sure about the shutdown problem. Is it definitely not responding at all or is it just very slow at saving the session? Did you create a save-file or are you saving to the partition?

As for the 2 soundcards problem, sounds like you are trying to use Multiple Sound Card Wizard and that may work (if you can solve the shutdown and reboot problem) but otherwise you can set the desired soundcard as default (index=0) by editing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf adding a couple of lines.

Look in /proc/asound/modules to see your sound modules, figure out which one you want as default and then add the 2 lines to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf like this:-

Code: Select all

options snd-moduleA index=0
options snd-moduleB index=1
 

Obviously putting the correct names in place of "moduleA" and "moduleB" for your set-up.

Sometimes things like dial-up modems can appear as soundcards and if you are not using them you can blacklist the module in boot manager (from the menu).

I created a savefile, unless the file "precisepuppy.3fs" is not the definition of that (I'm seriously pointing it out to be sure, not sarcasm or anything. Still kinda new in that area).

When I say that it's not responding, I mean that after pressing Shut off or Reboot, absolutely nothing appears. Not a menu, not a message about saving my session, nothing. It DID appear on my first run, when I installed the LiveCD, but it doesn't when I try to reboot when Puppy is booted from the Frugal-installation on my hard drive.

[Ido Wolf]

Sorry for the double post, I have an update though; The reboot issue magically fixed itself after I forced shutdown on the laptop (because of another reason, don't worry, I'm usually not too violent on my PCs like that). But the audio still doesn't really work. I tried to edit the files you mentioned, and also I tried running the IASA (or whatever it's called) wizard, and while it finds 4 (!) audio cards somehow (2 standard audio cards and 2 that begin with "Override", so I guess it's not actually physical cards but just another feature), setting them up and restarting the computer didn't solve my problem.

If there's any specific detail missing about the issue that I could fill or if you want me to try something, I'd be glad to. Till then, I'm gonna play around with the settings and hope something works or just leave it at that.

[bigpup]

I am not using Precise, but it should have this program.

Sound problem, try this:

If no sound, open Menu -> Multimedia -> Alsamixer (alsamixer, not alsawizard). Press F6 and that will show you what sound devices have been detected and configured. If yours is not the top one then arrow down and click it, then make sure everything plausible is turned up.

Also, make sure there is no switch, on computer, that may have audio output turned off.

If you get a big list of sound devices and can not determine which one is the normal audio device, do a Google search for the specs of your Dell computer. Should identify device in specs list.

[rjbrewer]

What is the exact make and model number of that
Dell laptop?