Need 100% portable OS + apps (& 100% new to linux)

[geoslake]

Hi guys,

First, feel free to be a bit harsh, tell me to RTFM or direct me to existing articles (although i already read quite a bit of both).
Im a Windows 10 user, sucker for portable apps, which ive been using exclusively for years. I also "code" my own Nsis launchers to make non portable apps portable.

I think Puppy Linux could be the ultimate step towards portability, id like to run it from an external ssd, which i would plug to 3 pc on a daily basis.
I would be using Appimages only, on a separate partition on the same drive, using the "appimagename.home" trick to save their settings in their own folders.
Apps I would use : Reaper (already running fine), Ocenaudio, Firefox, Retroarch, Cudatext, probably DeadBeef and that's about it.

So I tried BookwormPup64 and it works fine on those 3 pcs. Right now im just running the iso installed on a usb stick with Rufus.

I would need directions on how to save Puppy state (saving it on exit works but it doesnt load it on next boot). Also I need gfx hardware acceleration for all cards on those machines (intel hd, nvidia AND AMD :p) mainly for RetroArch.

Thanks and merry christmas season all !

[bigpup]

A little understanding of how Puppy operates is going to help you.
Boot the BookwormPup64 USB stick you have.
Look at main menu ->Help ->About Puppy Linux

I do suggest you use BookwormPup64 10.0.9 the latest version.
It should be able to run all the added programs you want to use.
It already has Firefox and DeadBeef.

If BookwormPup64 or maybe also some other Puppy versions are all that is going to be on the external SSD.

Boot with the USB stick you have Bookwormpup64 on and run installer programs that it has for installing Puppy.

This is how I do any type drives using the Frugalpup Installer:
viewtopic.php?t=11171

The save should work on this method to install.

The save file or folder holds all changes, settings, configurations you do in Puppy Linux.
So it is a little bit specific to the computer it was made on.
Mostly the hardware setup like WIFI connection, graphics, etc......

If you are going to use this external SSD on different computers.
It may be best to make a save for each one, with a identifier name for each.
If there is more than one save found on boot up.
You will get asked which one to use.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The issue with the Rufus install and the save not getting used we can help you fix if you want to.

But please start a new topic about this issue.

It gets really confusing and a mess trying to talk about multiple issues in a single topic.

[bigpup]

In my install of BookwormPup64 10.0.9 (compatible with software packages for Debian 12)

I just tried the Retroarch appimage Seems to run OK.

Ocenaudio (ocenaudio_debian12_3.14.8.deb) package for Debian 12 installed OK and runs.

Cudatext (cudatext_1.220.0.4-1_gtk2_amd64.deb) installed and works.
But we all use Geany to do this kind of stuff. It is already in Puppy Linux.

[mikewalsh]

@geoslake :-

Hallo.....and to the "kennels"! Nice to have you onboard.

So; you want a 100% 'portable' OS.....AND 'portable' apps too, huh? Wheew; ya don't want much, do ya?

Well, you've come to the right place, my friend. Puppy itself has always been 100% portable by its very nature. And as for 'portable' apps, eeh.....a man after me own heart!

I, too, like 'portable' apps that you can transfer/share between Puppies/machines. I got 'the bug' when I was still running Windows XP, over a decade ago.....and when I moved to our Pup, 'twas one of the things I always wanted to try and emulate. I knew I needed to become proficient in the mysterious ways of the Linux eco-system, along with learning how things worked on this side of t' fence. Gotta learn to walk before you can run, eh? So I put this stuff on the back burner for a while, until my skills had caught up with my imagination....

I also prefer the simplicity of AppImages, in contrast to the setting-up of a permanent 'framework' that's required by Snaps and/or Flatpaks. They're easier to get rid of if you no longer want 'em; delete them, and.....they're gone. We have an entire collection of self-contained 'portable' apps; many AppImage-based. One of our other senior members started the ball rolling some 6 or 7 years ago now, with a 'portable' build of Firefox; I was intrigued by this, so I dissected his packages and studied how he'd achieved this. I did some experimenting, tried out a few builds of my own.....and found out that it wasn't anywhere near as hard as I'd thought it was. Wasn't long before we had a collection of browsers & email clients, etc, in this format.....including a 'portable' build of Chrome, which had been my original aim when I first began playing around with all this.

That was just the start of what eventually became an entire library of apps in this format.....including graphics apps, multimedia apps, a number of games, office suites, and a whole bunch of assorted utilities. These keep the config/cache stuff (where appropriate) all "in-house" by using the official XDG protocol. Each can be run on its own from its portable directory, or - if required - Menu entries can be added from wherever you place them (they will literally run from ANYWHERE in the system, even outside it). Once this is done, you can then tie them into other places in the system, making a portable app behave like an integrated/installed one, while still retaining its ease of mobility.

To make things easy to find, I created a thread to 'collect' all the disparate threads I'd created throughout the Forum together in one place. Thus, links to all the 'portable' app threads are now in a single location:-

'Portable' apps collection

==================================

Do bear one thing in mind here. IF you create a Puppy install on a USB stick - very easy; many of our members run Puppy like this all the time - and install apps fully into the system, you've still got the full portability of both system AND apps between different machines. You don't necessarily need the apps themselves to be portable, because the apps will 'travel' WITH the OS.

I run many this way because I'm 'sharing' one common, already-configured app between multiple Puppies ON THE SAME MACHINE. This actually works better than many would believe possible, and some have a job getting their heads around the concept. It makes sense to me though; if you run 10 OS's on the same machine, and want to run any specific app in all of them, where on earth is the point of installing that app 10 times, generating all the config stuff 10 times, etc? Wastes a ton of disk space......so why not set the thing up ONCE and 'share' it?

Which is what I do.

Now; about "walking BEFORE you run". Since you're already familiar with AppImages, it leads me to suppose that you're also familiar with Linux too, yes? Whatever you do, please take the time to familiarise yourself with how Puppy does things. You may be expert with the Linux mainstream.....but this in no way makes you an 'expert' where Puppy is concerned, because she does many things just sufficiently different to mainstream distros that you'll feel like a noob all over again. I've been using her for over a decade now, yet I'm still learning how our Pup does stuff. Yep; I'm STILL a "noob"!

===================================

I would strongly advise taking heed of what m'colleague @bigpup has to say, listening to him, and acting on his advice. He's very, VERY good - and patient - with those who are just starting out with Puppy. He'll not steer you wrong, and will have you up-and-running in no time. However; that's just the beginning. Most of what follows will be up to you! Don't be afraid to ask as many questions - daft, OR otherwise - as you feel you need to in order to achieve your aims. That's what we're here for. We all of us enjoy using Puppy, and are more than happy to share knowledge/tips/tweaks/workarounds with those that need help with anything.

("RTFM" is a real "throwback" to the early days of Linux, BTW. Most distros have gone out of their way to try and make the whole experience as easy-to-comprehend and user-friendly as they can. We want to attract people, NOT drive 'em away..... )

Just follow one golden rule, please; one question per topic. That's all we ask; having multiple questions in a single topic gets really confusing for everybody concerned.

Don't be a "stranger"!

Mike.

[Clarity]

Hello @geoslake

Seems you've gotten started on your own ... Nice!

As a prior Windows user, are you continuing to run Windows from time to time on your 3 PCs?

This is an important question as it is key to a recommendation to ease your steps to an 'easy' start in any Linux.

This Puppy Linux forum has several types of distros that are available for users. Some were mentioned on Distrowatch; while many-many others are not mentioned elsewhere. To get you started, this forum has 3 different area with distros within each of the forum's subareas.

From the main Puppy Linux Discussion Forum (PLDF) webpage, I direct your attention to know of these subarea with their supported distros. From the forum main page, this forum has title area where distros are offered to anyone coming to this forum. It has:

• Under the Distributions area, an subarea named Mainline Puppy Linux Distros where many of those distros are built from the Puppy Builder "WoofCE". At least a couple of these have been mentioned on Distrowatch over the years. This subarea has many offering to the member community.

• Under the Distributions area, an subarea named Kennel Linux Distros where many of those distros start their life from a builder "FirstRibit". These distros are fabulous, too, with many offerings as well.

• Under the Distributions area, an subarea named Puppy Derivatives where distros found here are derivatives of a Parent Puppy distro while some others are built via WoofCE

• Under the Forum area, are the DOGs subarea of the forum. These distros are built with their own unique builder for the distros versions you find there.

  • Dog House has a set of distros built using its generator

  • EasyOS has several distros built with a private builder

  • FATDog has several yearly versions built with its "T2" builder

Looking forward to your participation and help in the forum going forward

Enjoy your new found area of interest

[geoslake]

Guys, thanks so much for your overwhelming support, wasn't expecting that, cant believe how nice you are !!

So I followed @bigpup instructions and it all went well, it now saves my settings (although it doesn't ask for a name nor for a save selection in the boot menu when loading up).

I prefer to use Appimage, including for Firefox or any other app, cos then they are easily human-readable, easily usable in any other distro or puppy variant with all of my data / config already there.
Still got tons of questions (as, as I said, i have zero clue about Linux in general), but I get that you want distinct posts for each of course, so I'll do my best to search first, and maybe reuse existing posts if they ehmm..exist.

BTW Im french so sorry if im sometimes a bit clumsy with my english writing...

Thank you all

[mikewalsh]

BTW Im french so sorry if im sometimes a bit clumsy with my english writing...

Huh. I never would have guessed if you hadn't told us...

Grammatically, you're pretty much spot-on. Idiomatically, too..! (Credit where credit's due... )

Bearing in mind just how badly some of my fellow countrymen manage to mangle their mother tongue (!!), your "written word" is equivalent to King's/Queen's English by comparison. You're all right in my book, buddy.

Looking forward to hearing back as to how you're getting on with Puppy.

Mike.

[bigpup]

Having Firefox and DeadBeef already installed, is no issue, if you wish to use Appimages of them.
You will just have two different versions to use. Select the one you want to run.

it now saves my settings (although it doesn't ask for a name nor for a save selection in the boot menu when loading up).

In a normal boot up.
If there is only one save to use, it just uses it.

Only asks what save to use if it finds more than one to choose.

When you made the save, it gives you an option to add a additional name to it, when it is being made.
Should have seen this option during the process of making the save.

Example save with name added to:
dpupbw64save-test3

Just to make sure you know about this.
Each specific version of Puppy Linux has a specific name used for it's save.
dpupbw64save is the name for a save folder used by BookwormPup64 Puppy Linux.

You only need one save file or folder. It gets updated every time something changes.
But it is somewhat specific to the hardware it was made on.
So boot a different computer using this save and hardware setup stored in it, could be wrong for this different computer.

[mikeslr]

Sorry, it's late. Was just about to turn in when I read your post. Haven't read all the replies. Just wanted you to know that there's a trick to using Rufus with Puppies in order to be able to Save changes to your USB-Key. Before you let Rufus deploy the Puppy make sure that you've used the slider to create a PERSISTENT partition. Then when you shut a Puppy down the first time, select that partition as the location to Save Changes. If you don't create a persistent partition, Rufus writes a READ-ONLY, iso9660 drive.

If you don't want to start from scratch, there's a work-around. See, viewtopic.php?t=9834

[geoslake]

You only need one save file or folder. It gets updated every time something changes.
But it is somewhat specific to the hardware it was made on.
So boot a different computer using this save and hardware setup stored in it, could be wrong for this different computer.

But I'd like to be asked if I wanna save the changes or not at each shutdown
(most of the time I'll discard em)

I guess its a good idea to backup my initial save folder (once properly configured but prior to me installing crap and messing up stuff), by zipping it for instance...

[bigpup]

Yes a backup copy of the save is good to have.

This is how to have options to save or not:
viewtopic.php?t=263

Need to be running in pupmode 13, so Event Manager ->Save session options are select able.

Need to first make a save and boot using it before using Event Manger.

[mikeslr]

...

But I'd like to be asked if I wanna save the changes or not at each shutdown
(most of the time I'll discard em)
...

Couple of things to do:
Read viewtopic.php?t=5818 and viewtopic.php?t=6526 and especially, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... be7#p97183

If your SaveFile/Folder is on a hard-drive partition, open grub.cfg in geany/Cudatext. Edit the Linux line argument pmedia=atahd to pmedia=ataflash. This tricks Puppy into thinking it's running from a USB-Key.
Example:

menuentry 'Bookworm 10.0.10 (sda4/book1)' --class puppylinux{
search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid 999xxxx...
linux /book1/vmlinuz pdrv=999xxxx... psubdir=/book1 pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck
if [ -e /book1/ucode.cpio ]; then
initrd /book1/ucode.cpio /book1/initrd.gz
else
initrd /book1/initrd.gz
fi
}

Reboot. There will now be a Save icon* on your desktop you can use whenever you want to Save Changes. If it annoys you, you can delete it but then have to remember to manually Save you'll have to open a terminal and write the command 'save2flash' without the quotes.

When you've reached desktop, open Menu>Event Manager, Click the Save Sessions Tab, change the Save interval setting to 0 [zero] and put a check-mark in the 'Ask at shutdown' box. Restart-x (AKA Graphical Server) to have puppy take note of that change. Don't forget to execute a Save to make it 'persistent'.

You'll alway be asked at shutdown/reboot. The Save Box will be highlighted so all it takes to Save is to press the Return/Enter Key. But the default action is 'No Save'. If you do norhing Puppy will reboot in 60 seconds without Saving.

Puppy has one other trick which may interest you. It can include all your changes while not using a Save at all; always operates under PupMode 5. Note it will require more RAM because all your Applications will be copied into RAM at boot-up. But it offers an additional level of security. Your changes will be in a READ-Only file; and no partition will be mounted. If booted from a USB-Key, you can even unplug the Key.

If not already installed you can SFS load nicOS-Utilities-Suite, viewtopic.php?p=69307#p69307. When you run it select Save2SFS. It will create (your choice) either an adrv.sfs or ydrv.sfs. Both are READ-ONLY. Read the rest of that thread for limitations/advice.
-=-=-=-=-=-=
* I like having the Save Icon on the desktop. But as it doesn't always fit my design aesthetic, I replace it with one which does. Select/create an png file you like. Locate it anywhere; note /usr/share/pixmaps houses many icons. Open a file-browser window to that location. Right-Press the desktop icon. A menu will open. Slide so that File 'save' points to Set Icon, then press. Drag your desired icon into the box which opens.

[geoslake]

I'm all good for now, thanks to you (i still have many questions but will create new topics). This os is a marvell !
I compiled my first driver, backed it up (the ko file), then rebooted without saving to get rid of all of the stuff that was added, and installed it on the pristine os, perfect !

Thnaks again and happy new year to you !!!