dual boot (Windows, Lubuntu, encrypted) : replace Lubuntu by Puppy ?

[pierro78]

Hey I have this old (but cute) Panasonic CF-R9 laptop with a very slow hard drive, dual booting Windows10 and luks encrypted Lubuntu (a "funny" thing is that my bootloader is also encrypted, I thought I wouldn't need to enter my luks password for Windows but I do).

I would like to replace lubuntu by puppy in the hope that this will accelerate things on the linux side ... will I still have access to my windows boot from the bootloader menu with the new puppy bootloader ???
(I guess the answer is yes but I am just checking to be sure )

Thanks folks for your help/answers !!

[williwaw]

a puppy install is a few folders and files that can co-exist with other installs. we call this a frugal install, and it can be done two ways

1. using a utility to create a new puppy and also replaces your bootloader

2. copying the puppy files to your linux partition and editing your current bootloader

I would definitely try to work with the second option

to offer assistance, it would be helpful to know what your current boot loader is, and what kind if partition your lubuntu is on.

[pierro78]

a puppy install is a few folders and files that can co-exist with other installs. we call this a frugal install, and it can be done two ways

1. using a utility to create a new puppy and also replaces your bootloader

2. copying the puppy files to your linux partition and editing your current bootloader

I would definitely try to work with the second option

to offer assistance, it would be helpful to know what your current boot loader is, and what kind if partition your lubuntu is on.

Thank you ! Option 2 seems good to me because it looks like I'll still be able boot my Windows+Ubuntu with as many puppies as I want !
( although I ll need to learn how to boot my puppies from grub - also I think there is an utility in puppy that can create the boot options for you but it might be for "option 1" ? maybe "option 1" is easier for a lazy beginner like me ? )
I installed lubuntu 20.04 so my bootloader is grub.
I think my ubuntu luks encrypted partition is ext4 ? but I have space left on the hard drive so I can create new ext4 (or whatever) partitions I want

(but as my bootloader seems to be ubuntu-luks encrypted I don t know if I can use encryption for my personnal data in puppies ? maybe it s easier to just go for option 1 and erase my lubuntu with puppies, meaning forgetting about lubuntu and the luks encryption that came with it ?)

[williwaw]

I know nothing about how the encrypted boot loader works, but thought that not deleting the boot loader might save you a problem with booting windows. Do you boot windows with the encrypted grub bootloader?

using grub implies a bios boot (not using UEFI) windows 7 still?

[pierro78]

I know nothing about how the encrypted boot loader works, but thought that not deleting the boot loader might save you a problem with booting windows. Do you boot windows with the encrypted grub bootloader?

using grub implies a bios boot (not using UEFI) windows 7 still?

yeah it kind of looks strange to me but I have to enter the luks password before the bootloader menu appears and I can start Windows/lubuntu ...

it's windows 10

[williwaw]

I see I needlessly asked which version of windows, sorry. windows 10 normally installs, prefers, UFEI, but your old machine makes me wonder if the machine is still using a mbr bootloader. I suppose confirming the current boot method would make a difference how to proceed.

[rockedge]

I do have a DELL laptop that runs Windows 10 as a dual boot option with an entire range of Puppy Linux variants to choose from, that uses MBR and Grub4Dos. Started out from the factory as a Windows 7 machine which happens to run Puppy's and Dog's really well.