Storing pupsave.sfs on separate partition

[Clarity]

1. from the Ventoy list, launch BookwormPUP64.

2. at its menu, edit the top line's stanza (or the RAM line's stanza)

3. at the end of the linux line add psave=Persistence:/Sessions/

As usual, I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. When I click the BookwormPup.iso from Ventoy, it launches BookwormPup. What Menu?? The Menu button that displays my programs??

Any changes I make in the program don't matter because it won't save. If there is a way I can specify boot parameters you are just going to have to tell me how to do it in English that makes sense.

This is an example of a linux menu seen when booting ALL forum distros

Menu before desktop boot

BKP64 Menu before desktop boot.jpg (22.04 KiB) Viewed 362 times

location to add linux boot parms

BKP64 Menu before desktop boot(1).jpg (16.35 KiB) Viewed 362 times

[trawglodyte]

@Clarity

Jesus, I'm sorry it took me so long to get this. My menu is a little different from yours. It says it right there at the bottom, press 'e' to edit!!

So now, I guess I have to do the "Boot" button from Fugal Installer to make a boot entry and get a grub.cfg I can put parameters in to make it permanent?

That's what I'm gonna try anyway, because I already rebooted to check and the change is gone. I also tried pmedia=usbflash but I'm not in pupmode 13 yet.

Anyway, progress. I'm really sorry, I guess I just had read that list once or twice and decided the default was for me and been clicking through without thinking since. Never bothered to read the text at the bottom carefully.

EDIT, oh wait. I can't do that I don't think because the "Boot" button in frugal installer wants to know the partition I have the frugal install on. I can edit kernel parameters looks like, but not sure if that helps me. I only know what about 1/3 of them are anyway, and there's tons.

[trawglodyte]

I'm always open for ideas.
With the methods we have discussed, NO user effort(s) are required other than a simple ISO file download to their folder and launch from a list.

@Clarity

Through arduous effort I still do not have this working, after hours. What simplicity are you talking about? Here's where we're at.....

1 Install Ventoy to USB or hard drive.
2 Make folder on Ventoy parition named BOOTISOS.
3 Put pup.iso of your choice in folder BOOTISOS.
4 Put file SAVESPEC in folder BOOTISOS. **
# Put SG2D.iso in BOOTISOS folder. ** - this step probably isn't necessary.
5 Make parition labeled and named Persistence.
# Boot Ventoy and select your your SG2D.iso from menu. - don't do this.
Press enter for default option to scan your system for bootables. - don't do this.
In the resulting menu, scroll to the bottom and select your puppy.iso -don't do this.
6 Boot Ventoy and select your puppy.iso, Do NOT launch the puppy, press 'e' instead to edit the boot parameters by adding "psave=Persitence:/sessions/"
7 press ctl-x to launch with those parameters.
8 After doing Quick Setup (and whatever else you'd like), Menu>Leave>Reboot or Shutdown
9 Default options should create a save file on your Persistence partition in a new folder named Sessions .

** Here is SAVESPEC, https://disk.yandex.com/d/C01sPywTUWN6BA download and rename SAVESPEC without .fake.gz before placing in BOOTISOS folder.
# ** Here is SG2D with download options. https://www.supergrubdisk.org/2022/12/2 ... downloads/ if that link is dead download the .iso at SourceForge https://sourceforge.net/projects/superg ... 6s2-beta1/ **probably don't need this after all.

Still need to find a way to make this permanent rather than editing every time you launch. Still need to find a way to get into pupmode 13 with no grub.cfg to edit..........
I probably need to go back and make sure it will make the save without Super Grub2 as well. I know it will load with the save file by editing parameters. Not 100% sure that it will make the first save though.
If someone would like to complete this, go for it. If there is anyone anywhere who can tell you how to do this step-by-step I haven't found it and I've searched the forum.

[williwaw]

with grub2 in the fat32 partition, I have /boot/grub/grub.cfg
the stanzas posted earlier can be copied and pasted from the code block on the forum page directly into grub.cfg

the path to your grub.cfg may be similar in your ventoy partition. (I nuked the ventoy install just a while a go)

new folder named Sessions

does the Sessions folder pre-exist before shutdown?

[trawglodyte]

I posted this on what I think is the quickest/easiest way to install and multi-boot Puppy Linux with Windows and/or other Linux OS's and your Ventoy USB.
viewtopic.php?t=10373
The simple steps are.

1. Make a Ventoy USB and format a blank USB to frugal install Pup's on.
2. On first launch do FrugalPup Installers menu options Settings, Puppy, and Boot.
3. From command line do

   Code: Select all

   apt update
   apt install refind
   refind-install

You're done, reboot and you have a nice screen which offers you the Puppy grub, Windows Boot Manager, and Linux OS's you have installed, and your Ventoy USB if it's plugged in, etc....

I feel like I gave booting iso's from a Ventoy a fair shot, and it's complicated and confusing as hell. I've yet to find someone who can tell me step-by-step how to do it. In fairness, @williwaw is talking about booting iso's from a grub rather than from Ventoy and I haven't done my due dilligence on that yet. It is interesting and probably useful for many people.

To be extra clear, I love Ventoy. I use it all the time. I use it in frugal install of pups in the above method. I just haven't seen a way of booting your long-term day-to day OS from it that isn't way more confusing and less user-friendly with no advantage and lots of disadvantages over frugal install. You do tons more steps and work and wind up with something not as good.

If you want to frugal install pups to hard drive, just replace "format a blank USB" in step 1 with "create a partition on your hard drive".

[Clarity]

Hi @trawglodyte and thanks for your update.

Couple of issues
You say in step 6 for PUP to look for "sessions"; then in a later step you go looking for "Sessions"??? Linux is case-sensitive for file/folder names. But I think you know that so what you published must be a typo.

It seems we are mixing understanding of what this is all about, so correct me if I'm wrong. There are 2 distinctly different things that seemingly is constantly being mixed; Booting and Session management. They are NOT related. Booting is the combination task where the ISO files is launched. Session and session-management is governed by either a parm or preset in a distro's menu.
4Tom -EV ===> https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/09/googl ... with-ford/
Booting
Booting and ISO file selections is the task of Ventoy/SG2D. They merely are ISO/IMG file launchers. SG2D is necessary as some of the WoofCE PUPs will struggle or fail when launched via Ventoy. This phenomenon is known. SG2D does not struggle. In Ventoy, some distro fail by dropping to a grub/linux prompt rather than desktop or worst. For those times, SG2D launches sometime overcomes that behavior. If this occurs in SG2D launches, there is something wrong in the actual distro's INIT...not anything to do with the launchers.

Session Management
This is controlled by the distros themselves with multiple forum distros providing their parms to control where session placement is to occur. The SAVESPEC is a WoofCE feature that takes the place of the need to specify the psave= parm. If you looked at it, as suggested, you can envision the similarities to each other.

I think your efforts are helping me to rethink how this is presented to the community of users as it "seemingly" have gotten mixed such that it became complex for you.

What has been proven over the years is the following;
A forum distro's ISO file AND its session is a fully functions frugal operation of the distro containing ALL of the expected use of the distro. This ISO file-session is a total PUP; WITHOUT having to unpack and edit configs or grub stanzas to get to a PUP's desktop. Thus this eliminate where user setups can go wrong and is cause for having user appeals to forum just to get their PUP's operational on there system. ONCE the PC environment is setup, it becomes a download and boot environment versus a download and play around with all the past work for something as simple as a frugal.

This is not complicated, nor complex

We have a boot device AND we have a session device. That's all there is to this. It has been made easy by giving 2 folder names that makes sense of their use. Again, that's all there is to this. Its not fancy; not laborious, IMHO.

So maybe what got you running into issues is the way I have explained. This suggests I need to change the way it has been explained.

What I wanted users to understand is

1. A "simple easy to envision" use of the boot media (Ventoy and a setup that works for both Ventoy and SG2D)

2. A "simple easy to envision" partition's setup for a planned location of all forum distro sessions

These 2 things, boot-media and place for sessions, are unchanged for the life of the user/system going forward; unchanged meaning you set each device up once (forever more).

When this is done, the arrangement now become a simple download an ISO file to the boot media and boot. They are instantly running frugal!

This download and boot has been tested since 2019 for every forum distro I have found and works as describe earlier in this paragraph. I do nothing more, no changes to files, no pre-modification of environment, no magic "slight of hand"...nothing. I just launch the ISO file with NO intermediate step(s) to a frugal desktop operation. "Simple!"