Unable to install Puppy Linux on old Lenovo Ideapad (2009) (solved)

[sp4nn3rs]

Hello guys

I would like to ask for some help as to why I can't get Puppy Linux installed on my old laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad S10e. I don't have a whole lot of experience with Linux, although I used to run CrunchBang on another really outdated laptop a few years ago and it was a lot of fun.
Some info about this computer:

CPU Type: Intel Atom N270, 1.60GHz
System Memory: 640 KB
Extended Memory: 2038 MB

Boot Order:
1: USB KEY:
2: USB FDD:
3: USB HDD:
4: HDD: Crucial_CT128MX100SSD1
5: USB CDROM:
6: LAN: MBA v11.0.14 Slot 0200
7:
8:

There's also Windows 10 installed on this computer. I don't know what the password to log into windows is, the computer was given to me by my dad who said I can delete everything on the drive as there isn't anything important on there. He doesn't remember the password.

I've been trying to install BookworkPup32-23.12.
I tried to mount the .iso file on a USB flash drive using Rufus and I attach the settings used below. I wrote it in ISO image mode, not dd.

Img1.jpg (43.99 KiB) Viewed 1505 times

I picked No. 3 in the Boot menu, the USB KEY is not on the list here? I don't really understand why.

Img2.jpg (22.7 KiB) Viewed 1505 times

(3. USB HDD: General UDisk-(USB 2.0), not the best image, sorry)

What happens next goes by so quickly that I could barely make out was on screen and the screenshots are from a video I took.
Within about one second the computer goes through all these steps, there isn't really enough time for me to pick anything in GRUB.

PuppyLinuxPic2_v2.jpg (59.07 KiB) Viewed 1505 times

The sequence ends with a blinking cursor and then nothing happens. I've left the computer alone for an hour but nothing happens. I don't think it's doing anything.

Any idea as to what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you for your help
Sorry for not knowing anything and being a noob.

Regards,
Spanners.

[Jasper]

What you will need to make a bootable USB:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5192

Maintenance manual available here ......... useful if you want to add more RAM/HDD:

https://t.ly/J9OeL

[mikewalsh]

@sp4nn3rs :-

Hallo.....and to the "kennels".

Mm. O-kay. Well, if it's running Win 10, then it's a fair bet it's UEFI.....and because Win 10 won't run otherwise, it's also a given that the Secure/Fastboot crap is enabled. You'll need to disable these in the UEFI/BIOS before Puppy will run.

I don't know these machines, but this page should help you to enter the UEFI/BIOS. Once there, you'll have to locate "SecureBoot" & "FastBoot" and disable them, then 'Save' and exit.

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/soluti ... os-ideapad

Intel Atom N270, huh? 'Kay; single-core (but with HyperThreading, so it'll act like a dual-core); SSSe3s, and.....yup; this one IS only 32-bit, so you're on the money there with BookWormPup32. Many 32-bit Windows installs were installed to 64-bit systems, but not this one. Looks like this was originally aimed at the education sector, back in the Windows XP era:-

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/lapto ... eapad-s10e

.....so I'm not entirely sure as that was a good thing. Such machines were usually fairly 'locked-down' and under-powered.....but it's a good candidate for Puppy, I believe.

512 MB RAM, or 1 GB? If you don't know off-hand, it should be simple enough to find out.

Let us know if that link above for the UEFI/BIOS helps. I'll leave you in the capable hands of others; @wizard and/or @bigpup should be able to help further with this one, I think. Wizard has more experience of using Rufus than I do.

Mike.

[stevie pup]

Just a thought, but if this laptop is from 2009, as it says in the title, It's unlikely to have UEFI. All my laptops are from 2009/10 and none of them have UEFI. I don't think Windows 10 was introduced until about 2015 either. So most likely it came with XP/Vista/7 when new then Windows 10 was installed at a later date.

[sp4nn3rs]

What you will need to make a bootable USB:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5192

Maintenance manual available here ......... useful if you want to add more RAM/HDD:

https://t.ly/J9OeL

I read through the post on how to make a bootable USB drive again and there were indeed some things that I needed to change.
I downloaded the older version of Rufus v3.17 portable and I also changed the partition size. I was a little confused about the size of the partitions, so I tried making this USB boot drive twice, once with the Persistent partition size 6GB and once 2GB. However, the result is the same as before when trying to boot with either of these two drives, ends with a blinking cursor. My Rufus configuration now:

Rufus2.jpg (44.12 KiB) Viewed 1406 times

Is there anything else that you see wrong here?
Thank you for your reply.

[bigpup]

Stop using Rufus and use some other program fore installing to a USB stick.

Try using Unetbootin:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

The forum topic on Unetbootin
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=983

Use a downloaded Bookwormpup32 ISO as the source, do not use Unetbootin to download the ISO.

None of these none Puppy specific installer programs really know everything for setting up a good Puppy install on a USB stick.

Notice the suggested edit to the boot loader config file on the USB stick.

Unetbootin is going to install to a USB stick that has one partition and it is formatted fat32, and flagged boot.

You may have to do this partition and format before Unetbootin will use the USB stick.

Do you know how to do this in whatever operating system you can use to run Unetbootin?

[sp4nn3rs]

@sp4nn3rs :-

Hallo.....and to the "kennels".

Mm. O-kay. Well, if it's running Win 10, then it's a fair bet it's UEFI.....and because Win 10 won't run otherwise, it's also a given that the Secure/Fastboot crap is enabled. You'll need to disable these in the UEFI/BIOS before Puppy will run.

I don't know these machines, but this page should help you to enter the UEFI/BIOS. Once there, you'll have to locate "SecureBoot" & "FastBoot" and disable them, then 'Save' and exit.

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/soluti ... os-ideapad

Intel Atom N270, huh? 'Kay; single-core (but with HyperThreading, so it'll act like a dual-core); SSSe3s, and.....yup; this one IS only 32-bit, so you're on the money there with BookWormPup32. Many 32-bit Windows installs were installed to 64-bit systems, but not this one. Looks like this was originally aimed at the education sector, back in the Windows XP era:-

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/lapto ... eapad-s10e

.....so I'm not entirely sure as that was a good thing. Such machines were usually fairly 'locked-down' and under-powered.....but it's a good candidate for Puppy, I believe.

512 MB RAM, or 1 GB? If you don't know off-hand, it should be simple enough to find out.

Let us know if that link above for the UEFI/BIOS helps. I'll leave you in the capable hands of others; @wizard and/or @bigpup should be able to help further with this one, I think. Wizard has more experience of using Rufus than I do.

Mike.

Hello, thanks for the welcome!

At first I also had a hunch that it was UEFI/Fastboot that was causing me problems, but now I'm not so sure anymore. There are no Secure/Fastbook/UEFI options in the BIOS of my computer, I think it's because it's too old. In all the tutorial videos I've seen, everyone has some sort of extra UEFI or secure boot option somewhere, but it isn't present for me. I think this computer predates it. I found my ideapad on the Lenovo manuals page but there is no BIOS simulator for my computer, probably because it's too old. I did CTRL F the manual for my computer for UEFI, secure boot and fastboot and nothing came up. I'm not sure if picking UEFI is even possible on this computer and I'm now wondering if maybe Windows isn't the thing that's causing problems here after all?

I have 2GB of RAM.

Thank you for help

BIOS_sec.jpg (179.88 KiB) Viewed 1387 times

BIOS_boot.jpg (181.82 KiB) Viewed 1387 times

[sp4nn3rs]

Just a thought, but if this laptop is from 2009, as it says in the title, It's unlikely to have UEFI. All my laptops are from 2009/10 and none of them have UEFI. I don't think Windows 10 was introduced until about 2015 either. So most likely it came with XP/Vista/7 when new then Windows 10 was installed at a later date.

Yes, I think so too now. There are no UEFI options present in my BIOS, I have posted screenshots above. My dad decided to install Windows 10 on here maybe a year ago. I don't know why he did this.

[bigpup]

To make sure it is a legacy bios.

Look in all the sections in the bios settings for secure boot and fast boot.
Not just security and boot sections.

Not all Puppy versions will work on all possible computers.
May need to try a different Puppy 32 bit one.

Try my earlier post about using unetbootin to do the install.

Even the one you have made, may need the edit to the boot loader config file it is using.
Not sure what boot loader is on it.
I think it actually uses the boot loader provided by the ISO.
The file to edit will be in the folder boot/grub/ on the USB stick.
Edit the menu.lst file.

Changing in the entry pmedia=cd to pmedia=usbflash.

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

As @mikewalsh noted you have a Atom N270 CPU (Passmark v9=279) and looks like 2gb of ram (which was the max). Have had a couple of Acers with the same specs and they will run Puppy, although the CPU will struggle a lot with any modern browser. Don't expect it to be able to stream Youtube videos.

Don't have experience with BookworkPup32-23.12 on this class computer and would suggest you might want to try something more modest such as one of these two:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5799

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=165

You might also find this topic useful:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=9701

Rufus creation:

once with the Persistent partition

Don't do that.

Otherwise, looks correct.

My dad decided to install Windows 10 on here maybe a year ago. I don't know why he did this.

W10 would install and run, would be terribly slow.

wizard

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

Just ran some quick boot test on these, on a low spec computer, to refresh my memory.

BookworkPup32-23.12
BionicPup32-19.03-240208
friendly-jammypup32-rc2

Friendly-jammypup32-rc2 used the least amount of both ram and cpu after boot. You can find it here:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=9972

wizard

[rcrsn51]

You'll need to disable these in the UEFI/BIOS before Puppy will run.

Evidence please.

[williwaw]

I presume you are trying to install to a USB so that you can try out some different puppies and have some tools to reformat the HD and eventually install your chosen puppy to the HD?

do you have a bootable linux on any other machines, or are you limited to working from windows or mac?

[sp4nn3rs]

Stop using Rufus and use some other program fore installing to a USB stick.

Try using Unetbootin:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

The forum topic on Unetbootin
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=983

Use a downloaded Bookwormpup32 ISO as the source, do not use Unetbootin to download the ISO.

None of these none Puppy specific installer programs really know everything for setting up a good Puppy install on a USB stick.

Notice the suggested edit to the boot loader config file on the USB stick.

Unetbootin is going to install to a USB stick that has one partition and it is formatted fat32, and flagged boot.

You may have to do this partition and format before Unetbootin will use the USB stick.

Do you know how to do this in whatever operating system you can use to run Unetbootin?

@bigpup

I should first clarify that I am currently using a laptop with Windows 10 to do all of this.

I would like to ask you what you meant with creating a USB with "one partition, formatted fat32 and flagged boot".
I know I can set it to fat32 in the file system in Explorer.

But when you say that I have to create one partition, what do you mean by that? Is that like shrinking the volume in diskmgmt.msc? This method is described in this article: https://www.wikihow.com/Partition-a-Thumb-Drive So: in my case of an 8GB drive, I would it be ok to shrink it down to a 6GB drive?

If I understood correctly, flagging the partition as a boot partition is described here: https://www.easeus.com/computer-instruc ... ws-10.html ?

Does the order of doing these three things matter? And after I do this I should then use Unetbootin to mount the ISO file?

Thank you very much for your help

[williwaw]

I should first clarify that I am currently using a laptop with Windows 10 to do all of this.

if you are simply trying to build a working linux USB with your W10 laptop, look at this tutorial starting about half way down @ USB Image Tool. EasyOS is supplied as a disk image complete with formatting and partitioning. It also has the linux tools you might find easier to use in order to partition and format and install your puppies to either another USB or your HD.

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-write ... Image_Tool

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

"one partition, formatted fat32 and flagged boot".

@bigpup is refering to how to prepare a USB flash drive for install with Unetbootin. Unetbootin can run in both Linux and W10. It is more particular about the condition of the USB than Rufus.

Either Rufus or Unetbootin can be used to create a bootable Puppy USB flash.

For Unetbopotin, partition 1 on the USB should be minimum 2gb and formatted fat32 and blank. You do not have to set the boot flag since Unetbootin will do this during the install of BookworkPup32-23.12.

For reference, just tested both Rufus and Unetbootin installs to USB and they both boot correctly.

wizard

[stevie pup]

@sp4nn3rs

"one partition, formatted fat32 and flagged boot".

@bigpup is refering to how to prepare a USB flash drive for install with Unetbootin. Unetbootin can run in both Linux and W10. It is more particular about the condition of the USB than Rufus.

Either Rufus or Unetbootin can be used to create a bootable Puppy USB flash.

For Unetbopotin, partition 1 on the USB should be minimum 2gb and formatted fat32 and blank. You do not have to set the boot flag since Unetbootin will do this during the install of BookworkPup32-23.12.

For reference, just tested both Rufus and Unetbootin installs to USB and they both boot correctly.

wizard

With either Rufus or Unetbootin you don't need to create any separate partitions. Just make sure the USB stick is FAT32 and use as is. Also you don't need to set any persistence with Rufus.

[sp4nn3rs]

Since Bookwormpup32 was perhaps a bit too ambitious, I've now tried to install Friendly-jammypup32-rc2, which @wizard recommended as a particularly light version. @bigpup recommended using Unetbootin for USB stick installation so I used that. I first formatted the USB key as FAT32 in Windows explorer:

FormatUSBDrive.png (11.77 KiB) Viewed 1095 times

Then I used UNetbootin like this:

UNetbootin.png (20.75 KiB) Viewed 1095 times

I then followed @bigpup's advice to change some parameters in the config file, I did this by changing the extension to .txt, making changes and changing it back to .cfg, I hope this is the correct way to make these changes?

The syslinux.cfg already had the pmedia set to usbflash.

I then made the same changes to the boot/grub/menu.lst file. In that file the pmedias were indeed still set to cd.

I then tried booting with this USB key, and the blue boot menu UNetbootin worked correctly now. I picked JammyPup32 22.04, but then received this error:

JammyPupError.jpg (172.54 KiB) Viewed 1095 times

It seems that the main .sfs file cannot be located. This issue was discussed
before here: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=4936
However, because I'm in Windows I'm not entirely sure how to make those required changes to the initrd.gz.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know
Thank you everyone for your help, I really appreciate it.

[sp4nn3rs]

I should first clarify that I am currently using a laptop with Windows 10 to do all of this.

if you are simply trying to build a working linux USB with your W10 laptop, look at this tutorial starting about half way down @ USB Image Tool. EasyOS is supplied as a disk image complete with formatting and partitioning. It also has the linux tools you might find easier to use in order to partition and format and install your puppies to either another USB or your HD.

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-write ... Image_Tool

Perhaps I will give this a shot. Cool idea, thanks.

[rcrsn51]

Have you tried this with another USB drive? An 8 GB model is pretty old.

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

The most important thing to do first is to make a bootable USB, That means not editing or doing anything special. Stick with the basics. Once that's successful you can then start to modify and customize. Here's a recommendation:

-Use W10, Rufus, and Friendly-jammy to create a USB.
-Try to boot with the USB

If it will not boot, repeat using a different USB

If it will not boot, try using it in another computer.

This will tell us if it is a problem with the flash drive or the hardware.

wizard

[sp4nn3rs]

@sp4nn3rs

The most important thing to do first is to make a bootable USB, That means not editing or doing anything special. Stick with the basics. Once that's successful you can then start to modify and customize. Here's a recommendation:

-Use W10, Rufus, and Friendly-jammy to create a USB.
-Try to boot with the USB

If it will not boot, repeat using a different USB

If it will not boot, try using it in another computer.

This will tell us if it is a problem with the flash drive or the hardware.

wizard

Great approach, I tried it out.

1. I created a bootable USB with Rufus 3.17, with FriendlyJammy on it, using the same 8GB USB key as before and tried it out on my Lenovo Ideapad. Same result as in the beginning in my first post in this thread: it quickly skips through a sequence, final line is "Processing menu file (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst"... and then goes to a blinking cursor.

2. I then created the exact same kind of bootable USB key with Rufus, only on a new USB key which was 30GB and again tested it on my Lenovo Ideapad. Same outcome as above in point 1.

3. I took the same 8GB drive and tried to use it on a different laptop, a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E8410 (Core i5, storage: 160GB, RAM: 2.5GB). Not a great machine, but it's what I had laying around and it doesn't have anything valuable on it. This time, Grub4DOS loaded correctly, but during installation it still ended with a situation of the main .sfs not being found, same thing as what happened above before. (This comp has some sort of video issues whenever it first boots up, but they go away once an OS starts going.)

SFS.jpg (191.28 KiB) Viewed 1004 times

4. Finally I wanted to try the new 30GB USB key on the second Fujitsu laptop. And... it worked like a charm! At a quick glance, everything works perfectly, even YouTube videos work really well. I was also impressed with how a drawing tablet worked immediately, without installing any drivers.

tablet.jpg (104.36 KiB) Viewed 1004 times

So: it seems that I originally had an unsuitable USB drive for whatever reason, but there also seems to be some sort of additional issue with the Lenovo Ideapad. At least I now have a tested and working USB boot key.

Anyone have any ideas as to what to try next?

Thank you again

[sp4nn3rs]

Have you tried this with another USB drive? An 8 GB model is pretty old.

This was indeed one of the problems, thanks!

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

on the second Fujitsu laptop.

Try the 8gb USB on this computer to confirm that USB is not good for booting.

wizard

[rcrsn51]

USB booting has always been a black art, especially on old hardware. That's why you need different USB drives and different machines to figure it out.

[sp4nn3rs]

To make sure it is a legacy bios.

Look in all the sections in the bios settings for secure boot and fast boot.
Not just security and boot sections.

Not all Puppy versions will work on all possible computers.
May need to try a different Puppy 32 bit one.

Try my earlier post about using unetbootin to do the install.

Even the one you have made, may need the edit to the boot loader config file it is using.
Not sure what boot loader is on it.
I think it actually uses the boot loader provided by the ISO.
The file to edit will be in the folder boot/grub/ on the USB stick.
Edit the menu.lst file.

Changing in the entry pmedia=cd to pmedia=usbflash.

In order to make sure that the Lenovo Ideapad indeed has a legacy BIOS, here are the screenshots from all the BIOS pages:

CombinedBIOS1.jpg (306.24 KiB) Viewed 991 times

CombinedBIOS2.jpg (298.46 KiB) Viewed 991 times

BIOS5.jpg (71.35 KiB) Viewed 991 times

[sp4nn3rs]

@sp4nn3rs

on the second Fujitsu laptop.

Try the 8gb USB on this computer to confirm that USB is not good for booting.

wizard

I did above, point 3. The 8GB USB key is indeed no good for some reason.

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

Another test.

-boot with the good USB
-connect the 8gb USB
Menu>Setup>Bootflash
-choose the 8gb USB
Create grub4dos USB

Then try booting with the 8gb

wizard

[sp4nn3rs]

@sp4nn3rs

Another test.

-boot with the good USB
-connect the 8gb USB
Menu>Setup>Bootflash
-choose the 8gb USB
Create grub4dos USB

Then try booting with the 8gb

wizard

Was Bootflash replaced with something else?
I googled it and I saw that this was a thing on older puppies but on mine I have these options:

Screenshot(1).png (115.71 KiB) Viewed 957 times

[wizard]

@sp4nn3rs

My bad, was looking at an older Puppy

For jammy:

Menu>Setup>StickPup usb stick installer
-choose: this
-choose: the 8gb USB

wizard