How to set up a Ventoy system as a Frugal Puppy install
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Disclaimers:
This works for me: YMMV
Sometimes Eye don’t no how two reed the dox
I’m a doofus
History:
Ventory is a lovely app that allows you to boot up Linuxes and other OSes on a Secure Boot system. I won’t go into the details here. The problem is that although there is an option to allow the Ventoy partition to be remounted so the booted Linux can see it, that option only half-works with Puppy.
If the option is off, you get a Puppy menu with weird characters around the borders and no access to the ISO anymore. If the option is on, the Puppy menu works, but after Puppy is booted, the Ventoy partition is locked away from the OS. When you try to make your pupsave, it demands to create it on the Ventoy partition and that partition has -1024 space available. It won’t work. The work-around I used up until today was to use AnyBurn to edit the first boot entry in the grub menu with a psave=sdd3 at the end to tell it to put the save file/folder there. Sdd3 is an ext4 partition on my drive. This worked fine but was limited. As I was waking up today, I remembered something I had read in the “read me” file about a pdrv= parameter and that little voice in my head (not the one that tells me to KILL PEOPLE!!!) said, “that tells the system where the Puppy files are”. SO, I played with it today.
How To Make the System:
You will need Anyburn and a partition for the Puppy files.
1) Use Anyburn to extract the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file from the ISO onto your desktop or somewhere Windows can get at it.
2) Edit it and add a parameter pdrv=[Name of your Puppy partition] to all the entries. It goes in the same line as the pmedia parameter and other stuff.
3) Use Anyburn to replace the old grub.cfg and recreate the ISO file (maybe give it a different name). Put it into the Ventoy partition.
4) Boot that one up with Ventoy. On the first entry, press “e” (for edit) and remove the pdrv entry so it gets the files from the ISO.
5) Press F10 to boot up the system.
6) Get your wifi set up. The rest don’t matter.
7) Download a new Puppy ISO or go to one you have stored on your system. Note: You will NOT be able to access the one in the Ventoy partition, Puppy cannot mount that partition. If it *could*, we wouldn’t have to jump though hoops!!
8) Click on it to mount it.
9) Copy the six .sfs files to the Puppy partition.
10 ) Reboot. Don’t try to save the setup (you can’t anyway).
If you did it right, you should get a nice Puppy system that behaves (mostly) like a proper frugal install. When you go to create the savefile, you will get a proper response.(FINALLY!)
If Puppy is an NTFS partition, it will ask you where to put the savefile.
If Puppy is an ext partition, it will ask you if you want a save file or a save folder.
I want the last few weeks of my life back!
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Optional: Edit the ISO with Anyburn again, remove the 6 .sfs files, and reburn another ISO called “Stripped-down Puppy” or something. The only reason to do this I suppose is as a POC to show that the files in the Puppy partition are really the ones being accessed. I did it.
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I said above, “mostly like a proper frugal install” because the boot files are still locked away in that ISO and you can’t get at them easily as a real frugal install would be. I also say “mostly” to cover my butt. Ultimately this setup may not work for everything. I have not tried a remaster, editing/adding new .sfs files, or any fancy tricks yet.
YMMV
I am a doofus. Dont do this or your computer may explode.
Not valid in Alaska or Hawaii.
Batteries not included.
