Question about boot parameters in released Puppy ISOs

[Wiz57]

At one time, most Linux distros were indeed booted/installed from CD ROM. In the last few years it seems
more and more PCs, especially laptops/notebooks, do not have an optical drive. Most do have the ability
to boot from a USB thumb drive however. I've been looking at the various ISOs I have on hand, all of them
contain a "boot" directory, which I think could be a source of issues, especially with people not being able
to save changes, etc. when booting from a USB drive. The problem, or maybe it is not an issue, all of the
various configuration files (grub.cfg, menu.lst, etc) have as a parameter "pmedia=cd" on the kernel line.
We have numerous instances of advising new users to change the parameter to "pmedia=usbflash" or
"pmedia=atahd" etc. to facilitate easier save mode. If instead of including the cd parameter, would it not
be simpler to change the utilized configuration files to use usbflash, or even leave it off, rather than stick
the old pmedia=cd parameter in there, since it seems when booted as a CD ROM the system assumes it
is read only, so no save is offered. Just musing a bit before gametime, lol!

[stevie pup]

@Wiz57 I've never changed anything in grub.cfg or menu.1st (wouldn't know where to start) but although I have had one or two boot issues I've never had any problem with save files.

Just a thought, and will be interesting to see what others think.

[williwaw]

I've never had any problem with save files.

just curious where you keep your save file? seperate from the install folder?

there was a thread a while back about how pmedia=cd calls a search for the save.

[Wiz57]

My savefiles are located in the same folder as the Puppys. The frugal installs on hard drive I've edited the menu.lst for grub4dos kernel line
to read pmedia=atahd, as well as nocopy (so the various SFS files are not copied to RAM, leaves more RAM available, since I only have 1 gig
on the old Acer Aspire One AOA150) but on the old PNY USB thumb drive I found today, with ScPup32 20.06, the menu.lst is not in the "root"
level of the drive. I used Unetbootin to create that drive, can't remember for certain but seems there was an option when creating the bootable
USB drive to create "persistence", and there is indeed a savefile on it that is mounted. Unetbootin seems to handle the initial booting, then
hands it over to a grub, with a grub.cfg which has a variety of boot methods presented (copy, nocopy, ram only, no x, etc). Examining that
grub.cfg has the kernel line pmedia=cd, so it may welll be that it searches for a puppy savefile in the root of the USB drive, which for the
record is 4 gig, formatted as VFAT, utilizing the full drive, including a 1 gig savefile.

[dimkr]

pmedia=cd activates search for save files and directories on other partitions, any value that begins with "usb" restricts the search for Puppy files to USB devices, and any value that ends with "flash" activates PUPMODE 13 regardless of the actual storage device type.

EDIT: forgot the most important setail - pmedia=cd activates PUPMODE 13 when booting from a removable drive, therefore many Puppy users won't feel any difference between "cd" and "usbflash"

[bigpup]

When was the change that made pmedia=cd run in pupmode 13 after making a save?

what happened to pupmode 77?

Depends on the computer and the specific Puppy version.
Especially what the boot process is coded in the specific Puppy version.

I can tell you for sure that changing the pmedia=cd to pmedia=usbflash has fixed boot issue of not being able to find the Puppy SFS files on a USB live install.
I guess you are saying the latest Puppy versions should not have this issue?

Some of the issue is the time it takes for the computes bios to fully activate the USB drive.
for a long time, a time delay was in the boot process, to give it the needed time to do this.

One feature of pmedia=usbflash was to keep the boot process from having to search all possible drives on the computer.
But I guess all the tweaking and code changes over the years has gotten away from this.

[stevie pup]

I've never had any problem with save files.

just curious where you keep your save file? seperate from the install folder?

My savefiles are located in the same folder as the Puppys.

My saves are also in the same place as everything else. Never had a problem creating saves, and never had any issue with the Pup recognising the save when rebooting.

[esos]

I used Unetbootin to create that drive, can't remember for certain but seems there was an option when creating the bootable USB drive to create "persistence", and there is indeed a savefile on it that is mounted.

pmedia=cd is neccessary parameter for booting cd/dvd media.
I've never had any problem to boot isos and frugals as long as using the right boot manager(grub2/grub4dos).
Bootmanager will always/automatically look boot parameter(s) you put in grub.cfg/menu.lst.
You can test it by yourself to boot directly from ISO, pmedia=cd will be ignored(bootmanager will see only grub.cfg/menu.lst what you put in it)
I see your problem because you use unetbootin/rufus/whatever, which just take over what is inside the iso.