Frugal install to computer disk

[libertas]

Hi,

I tried Vanilla Dpup following some suggestions and liked the system, but when I tried to install to the 8GB disk that comes with this computer got surprised.
It seems that the installer only wants to install to usb flash devices.
Is there a way to install it to the computer disk or this is not intended at all? If so why?

I presume that the installation has to be all done by hand.
For a partition type of msdos, no uefi, how to setup the disk? Only one partition of a ext4 file system is enough?
From the usb stick, it booted using grub2, the first option didn't work.
Is there some instructions for Vanilla Dpup on how to configure grub2? I really dislike grub2 as it's very complex.

Thanks.

[d-pupp]

@libertas The puppy version of grub is not like other distros.
It's just a boot stanza that points to the folder you put puppy in.
The manual install is just coping files from the .img file or usb into a folder on the hard drive.

Do you have a way to install grub or is it already installed?
What else is on the hard drive and how is in partitioned?

[Wiz57]

Would also help to know what type of computer this is...judging from only an 8gb internal drive I would guess it is a chromebook of some sort. Does it use legacy BIOS or the newer UEFI? If older legacy BIOS, I'd try to install grub4dos first, or see if Vanilla DPup has a different installer, something along the lines of FrugalPup Installer. It could that somehow when you attempted to install to internal drive it picked up on something like StickPup. Also, what type of internal drive is this? Is it HDD, SSD, NVME???

[libertas]

@libertas The puppy version of grub is not like other distros.
It's just a boot stanza that points to the folder you put puppy in.
The manual install is just coping files from the .img file or usb into a folder on the hard drive.

Do you have a way to install grub or is it already installed?
What else is on the hard drive and how is in partitioned?

The disk has nothing.
I created a msdos partition table, but can create a gpt one, as well.
It's maybe better to have two partitions, one for the system files, another for the saved data.

What do you recommend as a minimum for the system partition? It can be ext4, right?

[libertas]

Would also help to know what type of computer this is...judging from only an 8gb internal drive I would guess it is a chromebook of some sort. Does it use legacy BIOS or the newer UEFI? If older legacy BIOS, I'd try to install grub4dos first, or see if Vanilla DPup has a different installer, something along the lines of FrugalPup Installer. It could that somehow when you attempted to install to internal drive it picked up on something like StickPup. Also, what type of internal drive is this? Is it HDD, SSD, NVME???

It's a Fujitsu thin-client with some mSATA SSD.
It can boot from legacy BIOS or UEFI.

How to install and configure grub4dos from Vanilla Dpup?

Does Vanilla Dpup has the possibility to save to a directory instead of a folder?

[Wiz57]

Would also help to know what type of computer this is...judging from only an 8gb internal drive I would guess it is a chromebook of some sort. Does it use legacy BIOS or the newer UEFI? If older legacy BIOS, I'd try to install grub4dos first, or see if Vanilla DPup has a different installer, something along the lines of FrugalPup Installer. It could that somehow when you attempted to install to internal drive it picked up on something like StickPup. Also, what type of internal drive is this? Is it HDD, SSD, NVME???

It's a Fujitsu thin-client with some mSATA SSD.
It can boot from legacy BIOS or UEFI.

How to install and configure grub4dos from Vanilla Dpup?

Does Vanilla Dpup has the possibility to save to a directory instead of a folder?

I'm not familiar with Vanilla DPup, but I know that to use a save folder (aka directory) you must format the
drive in a Linux file format such as ext3. I use savefiles, as my frugal installs share an NTFS drive with WinXP.

Here's a good guide to installing Pups to internal devices using MBR and legacy BIOS
viewtopic.php?t=5241

[Wiz57]

Some other things to consider, since this PC only has 8gb SSD...I would recommend a single partition,
either ext3 or ext4 for your expressed desires. Follow those installation guidelines. With only 8gb,
have you considered a different Puppy? I ask because from what I've read Vanilla DPup is a bit larger
than some others. I can recommend S15Pup. Also, is the CPU 64bit or 32bit? If only a 32bit CPU like
the Intel Atom N270 in this Acer Aspire One, then that limits us to 32bit Pups. Anyhow, keep in mind
how much disk space will be needed just for the Puppy files. Depending upon how much RAM you have
we may need to keep some disk space for a swap file. Also, with only 8gb, it's not really going to make
much difference if you use a savefile or save folder (folder is another name for directory)...your going
to be limited either way. Lastly, what do you envision as the primary usage for this PC? If simple
web browsing and such, you shouldn't have any problems. However, again with only 8gb SDD to work
with, storing large data sets, videos, images, etc. may be an issue.

[libertas]

Hi @Wiz57,

The CPU is 64 bits. The RAM amounts to 4GB.
It's intended for seeing videos, youtube or other platform or via USB stick.

By logic, I would guess that s savedirectory would be faster when saving because only the modified contents needed to be saved.
With a savefile, the whole size of it would always have to be saved.
Is this wrong?
A savefile is also difficult to be shrunk.

[Wiz57]

Hi @Wiz57,

The CPU is 64 bits. The RAM amounts to 4GB.
It's intended for seeing videos, youtube or other platform or via USB stick.

By logic, I would guess that s savedirectory would be faster when saving because only the modified contents needed to be saved.
With a savefile, the whole size of it would always have to be saved.
Is this wrong?
A savefile is also difficult to be shrunk.

With a 64 bit CPU and 4GB RAM, you will be pretty good with any 64 bit Pup. Savefiles and folders are
loaded at boot time, sort of combined into the Puppy sfs to create the OS in RAM, neither is really faster
or slower, BUT, with a save folder it will get larger as needed, whereas a savefile can only be made
larger, anyhow without using advanced measures. With 4gb RAM, you may not even need a swap file,
and you have enough RAM that the newer Pups with ZRAM capabilities may be an advantage there!
This allots a percentage of your RAM, compresses it, so that it appears you have more than you
actually do. Sometimes this slows down reads/writes to RAM, but with a decent CPU you'll probably
not notice it. With this Acer Aspire One and only 1 gig RAM, I did notice the slowdown, so I use a
pupswap file on the HD rather than ZRAM.
So, your primary concern will probably be space on the internal drive, 8GB is not much to work with,
as most of my frugal installs need a bit over 2GB just to "install", which in my case is nothing more
than extracting the downloaded ISO file into its own directory. My primary daily driver, a version of
S15Pup32 22.12 from 4/13/2024, currently occupies about 4.5GB with the only real added software
being the LXDE desktop (via a ydrv.sfs from peebee) and 2 web browsers I use, Palemoon and
ungoogled chromium...Palemoon via a DEB file installed just as you would a Puppy pet file, and
chromium installed via SFS-Load. With these details in mind, you can get an idea of what added
software you need and want. That's one of the reasons I still prefer Slackware based Puppys,
they are on the whole a tad smaller in terms of ISO to download and drive space needed.
For video playback, Puppy has pretty good stuff already built-in, and most web browsers can be
obtained for 64 bit Puppys that have been shown to work. My 32 bit Pups are not targeted as
much by the bigger browsers, but Palemoon is pretty decent, what I can't get with it I can fire
up chromium. What you can do to get an idea of how much space on your internal drive will be
required by Vanilla DPup is look at how much of your USB space is occupied by it, it will probably
need at least as much on your internal drive, and probably a bit more to account for the boot
loader and its files.

[d-pupp]

@libertas

I agree with wiz57 8 GB is a small drive. It looks like a one puppy install.
You will need 2 partitions a small fat 32 to boot off of and a larger ext3/4

There are several options here.
1) dimkr has a hack of his bootflash installer that will let is see all your drives. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... sh#p123567

This will treat it like a usb drive and re partition with 2 partitions about 2Gb will be the finished size.
I think this is the best option for you.

2) There is a formula to do a manual frugal install. However not all of it has been tested. Most pups come with a grub installer and that the part that has not been tested yet. It sounds simple but I don't have a spare PC to test it on.

3) Format the dive as above
Use another pup from a usb to install grub.
From there it just copy puppy files and setup grub boot stanza

[dimkr]

You can indeed use Bootflash by editing /usr/sbin/bootflash, just replace grep usbflash with cat. It will then show all drives and allow you to choose a drive to repartition (erasing all data on it) and install on. It offers choice between efilinux and syslinux, depending on UEFI or BIOS.

No matter which installation method you end up using, go for ext4. It's used widely, it's stable and it has good error correction. Nobody uses ext3 anymore and F2FS has its issues.

[williwaw]

You can indeed use Bootflash by editing /usr/sbin/bootflash, just replace grep usbflash with cat. It will then show all drives and allow you to choose a drive to repartition (erasing all data on it) and install on. It offers choice between efilinux and syslinux, depending on UEFI or BIOS.

No matter which installation method you end up using, go for ext4. It's used widely, it's stable and it has good error correction. Nobody uses ext3 anymore and F2FS has its issues.

Dima,
if I do not have vanilla Dpup installed, is there a place to get bootflash?

[Wiz57]

You can indeed use Bootflash by editing /usr/sbin/bootflash, just replace grep usbflash with cat. It will then show all drives and allow you to choose a drive to repartition (erasing all data on it) and install on. It offers choice between efilinux and syslinux, depending on UEFI or BIOS.

No matter which installation method you end up using, go for ext4. It's used widely, it's stable and it has good error correction. Nobody uses ext3 anymore and F2FS has its issues.

Dima,
if I do not have vanilla Dpup installed, is there a place to get bootflash?

In my S15Pup32 240413, bootflash is located in /use/sbin. So I assume it is in other WoofCE Pups.

[dimkr]

Every Puppy has Bootflash, but most Puppy releases include grub4dos and don't include efilinux, so it offers different boot loaders.

You can also use the Vanilla Dpup ISO - write it to a flash drive, boot from it and use it to install to the internal drive.

[bigpup]

@libertas

You seem to indicate you have Vanilla Dpup on a USB stick and can boot the computer with it and run Vanilla Dpup.

You were told about this topic on how to do an install to an internal drive.
viewtopic.php?t=5241

Have you even tried to use the method provided in this topic?

If yes and it did not work.

Only way we can help is you telling use specifically I did this step and this happened.

Keep asking all kinds of questions about stuff not specific to doing an install by this method is just a wast of time.

You do what?

You see what?

Is the only info that will tell us anything useful to help you.

I do installs to any type drive by following the steps in this topic:
viewtopic.php?t=11171

It was written for USB sticks, but same steps work for any type drive.
I have done these same steps to install on internal or external (SSD, HD), USB sticks and SD cards.

[libertas]

You can indeed use Bootflash by editing /usr/sbin/bootflash, just replace grep usbflash with cat. It will then show all drives and allow you to choose a drive to repartition (erasing all data on it) and install on. It offers choice between efilinux and syslinux, depending on UEFI or BIOS.

I saw two instances of grep usbflash and just removed them with the corresponding pipe | .
I created a 500MB Fat32 partition and a second partition with a Ext4 filesystem for the rest of the mSata disk.
But the installer just removed those partitions and just created one big partition of Fat32.
It was a BIOS + Syslinux install.

Will it be possible to reformat the partition as ext4? Or does it have to be an UEFI system?

@libertas

You seem to indicate you have Vanilla Dpup on a USB stick and can boot the computer with it and run Vanilla Dpup.

You were told about this topic on how to do an install to an internal drive.
viewtopic.php?t=5241

Have you even tried to use the method provided in this topic?

If yes and it did not work.

Only way we can help is you telling use specifically I did this step and this happened.

Keep asking all kinds of questions about stuff not specific to doing an install by this method is just a wast of time.

You do what?

You see what?

Is the only info that will tell us anything useful to help you.

I chose the simpler method suggeste by dimkr.
Sorry for having taken so long, but I have little available time.

Thank you all for your answers and suggestions.

[esos]

For a partition type of msdos, no uefi, how to setup the disk? Only one partition of a ext4 file system is enough?
What do you recommend as a minimum for the system partition? It can be ext4, right?

You are good to go with only 8 Gb HD in one EXT4 partition, plenty enough for S15 or LXpup(~400MB in size).

This is the structure of my internal Hdrive on legacy bios with all in Ext4 partition using Grub2 as boot manager. I dont need any vfat/ntfs/exfat.
Sda1 is for all direct booting from ISO(s), sda4 is for frugal-booting and sda2 is for data only.

ext4-grub2.png (60.01 KiB) Viewed 408 times

You can also boot directly from ISO:

menuentry "S15Pup64-22.12-241201.iso" {
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root ab564178-1b93-4a3b-acd2-9a2e2cf4d33c
iso_path=/S15Pup64-22.12-241201.iso
loopback loop $iso_path
linux (loop)/vmlinuz find_iso=$iso_path pmedia= psave= pfix=fsck
initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
}

[dimkr]

Will it be possible to reformat the partition as ext4? Or does it have to be an UEFI system?

bootflash does the partitioning for you (which erases everything on the drive you're installing to). It offers choice between one big FAT32 partition, or a small FAT32 partition (for the boot loader and important files) plus a second partition (ext4 or f2fs).

However, the bootflash code is a mess (it's unmaintained like most of woof-CE) and it offers ext4 only in some cases. You might need to create a backup of the files in the second partition, reformat it as ext4 yourself, then restore the files in it.

(For Vanilla Dpup 11.0.x, I simplified Bootflash a lot and fixed most of its issues)

[libertas]

Will it be possible to reformat the partition as ext4? Or does it have to be an UEFI system?

bootflash does the partitioning for you (which erases everything on the drive you're installing to). It offers choice between one big FAT32 partition, or a small FAT32 partition (for the boot loader and important files) plus a second partition (ext4 or f2fs).

However, the bootflash code is a mess (it's unmaintained like most of woof-CE) and it offers ext4 only in some cases. You might need to create a backup of the files in the second partition, reformat it as ext4 yourself, then restore the files in it.

(For Vanilla Dpup 11.0.x, I simplified Bootflash a lot and fixed most of its issues)

For which case should it work that way, BIOS/syslinux or UEFI?
I tried with the former, but didn't boot.
Tried again with UEFI partitioning and everything went to a big FAT32 partition.
Maybe it's best to add the configurations to the UEFI boot configuration file, but I didn't recognize that format.
Is it syslinux?

[dimkr]

@libertas It offers syslinux for BIOS or efilinux for UEFI, with the same layout (FAT32 for boot loader or ESP, optionally with second ext4 or F2FS partition).

Define 'didn't boot' - what happened? What stage of the boot process failed?