Can boot from USB stick, but can't install to hard drive

[mingovia]

I have tried bionicpup and F96-CE. I boot from the thumb drive, and the live system works. While in the live system, I select "install" and try to install to my hard drive. I want it to completely take over the computer. The install tells me it is done, but when I re-boot it still boots up to the old operating system (which happens to be Lubuntu). How do I get it to wipe out Lubuntu and boot Puppy?

[bigpup]

Could you post the specs of the computer or make and model?

Need to know if it is A legacy bios computer or a UEFI bios?

This info will tell us if you are using the best version of Puppy Linux for your computer.

Most Puppy versions offer several programs for doing installs.
You do not say which one you used.

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You need to boot with the USB live install so you can use the programs in it. Best if you have a F96-CE USB you can boot from.

Because you had Lubuntu installed and it's installer just did everything for you and setup the internal drive the way it wanted to.

Sorry, but Puppy software always provides you choices on what to do.

This how to install is what I would do, if all you want on the internal drive is Puppy Linux. (UEFI bios computer)
viewtopic.php?t=5275

The only difference depending on having a Legacy bios or UEFI bios.
Legacy bios will like it better, when setting up the drive, and making the partition table, you select msdos for type, not GPT.
But all other steps are the same.

WARNING:
Make sure when selecting the drive to work on with Gparted.
You are selecting the internal drive not the USB drive.
Internal drive is most likely going to be sda.

Anytime you give info about what specific Puppy version.
Give the full complete name of the Puppy versions ISO file.
There are several versions of a specific named Puppy and that can make a difference in how stuff works.

[mikewalsh]

@mingovia :-

Yup; m'colleague's right.

With Puppy, you need to develop a slightly different "mindset". Installers for most of the mainstream distros tend to do everything for you.......from deletion of any previous data already on the disk, re-formatting of the disk, copying & setting-up of the new OS components, and finishing up by installing the bootloader to ensure it will fire-up.

Our Pup's a wee bit more 'hands-on'. Normally, you need to prepare the disk yourself - including setting the boot 'flag' - and the method for this can vary depending on the age of the machine. Is it older (with MBR/BIOS).....or is it fairly recent (needing GPT/UEFI)?

Then you need to decide on just how you want your Puppy install performed. D'you want Puppy to occupy the entire drive? D'you want Pup on a single partition? Or do you want to run her from a sub-directory WITHIN a partition?

Decisions, decisions!

I'm reliably informed that attempts have been made in recent years to write such an "all-in-one" installer, that will do everything for you. I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not these utilities do what they claim to.......because I haven't used an "installer" for many years. I always perform a "quick'n'dirty" manual installation, followed by editing the bootloader menu to add another entry.

Easy enough when you know how - and quicker/more efficient, too - but it's all a bit of a mystery when you're a noob.

As my colleague so often tells people; "The more information you can give us, the more likely we are to be able to help you". That hasn't changed.....

Mike.

[mikeslr]

Did you by any chance allow Lubuntu to encrypt its drives, or use an application --whose name I forgot-- that treats all partitions as one big partition?

[trawglodyte]

I want it to completely take over the computer.

Do I understand correctly that you want BionicPup or F96-CE to be the ONLY operating system on your computer when you're done? (possibly with an option of adding other Puppy Linux OS's later)?

Because if that's your goal, the instructions for doing that are considerably easier and foolproof, but you will have to use gparted to partition the drive first, before doing the frugal install.

The link @bigpup gave you shows you how --> viewtopic.php?t=5275

[mingovia]

Yes, I want the installation of Puppy to take over the hard drive completely, with no remnant of any other operating system left. I also have no interest in running several different versions of Puppy. It is a 2012 MacBook Pro with a 1 terabyte hard drive. I did not have Lubuntu encrypt the drive.

In the meantime, while waiting to figure out what to do about Puppy, I installed Linux Mint, which is running fine. I did not have to tell it anything about partitioning when I installed Mint.

Thank you all for you help so far. My work with Puppy is probably suspended for a while now.