What's wrong with a full install of Puppy Linux?

[Trobin]

This is just a question to satisfy my curiosity. Is there any reason why a full install of Puppy Linux is not recommended? If one wants to go that way.

[nic007]

With a full install all your files are read/write so can easier be corrupted. With a frugal install your base operating system is read only. With a frugal install you can also operate fully in RAM. You can access more than one operating system on the same partition with a frugal install, etc. There are just so much more advantages with a frugal install. The majority (by far) Puppy users prefer frugal installs. In the end it's still your choice though.. but most on this forum will suggest a frugal install.

[Flash]

From the normal user's point of view, there's very little difference.

[wiak]

Main point is definitely that a full install, being read/write, is difficult to fix should it be corrupted (though you can always just wipe the slate clean and make another full install from the installation media). With a frugal install, assuming you are using a 'save folder or save file', which would normally be the case since most users want save persistence, then that save media is also read/write so also can be corrupted; easy enough to get back to 'pristine' state of course: just wipe the save persistence file/folder. One advantage I find with a frugal install (especially when using a r/w save folder rather than a save file) is that the amount of changes per session made to that save folder can be small and often easily reversed simply by booting to pristine frugal state and manually modifying/deleting/adding whatever you want from/to the save folder structure. That's a big plus of frugal installations IMO.

There is one big advantage to a full installation: you can modify its contents and structure directly after booting, but also via accessing it after booting a different frugal installed distro. You cannot easily do similar with the sfs root filesystem of a typical frugal install since that is read-only.

Yes, some of the frugally installed system can be pre-loaded into RAM prior to use. Personally I'm not at all keen on that unless using a very small save folder/file (or none at all) since anything pre-loaded into RAM uses up some RAM and I'd rather retain as much RAM for actual use as I can, especially in this new world of RAM hungry web pages...

And third useful feature of frugal installs is indeed the ease by which you can store several frugally installed distros/versions in their own installation directories and boot whichever takes your fancy. Having said that, you can have one full installed distro and inside its file structure keep as many frugal installed distro variants as you wish.

WeeDogLinux (WDL) provides an extra optional mechanism: most distro frugal installs involve the use of a squashed filesystem (.sfs) for the main root filesystem plus a save file/folder. WDL allows you to use an uncompressed normal directory (or a squashed filesystem if you prefer) for the main root filesystem. That provides many of the advantages of a full install plus those of a frugal install since being an uncompressed main rootfilesystem it is perfectly possible to access it from another booted distro and quickly make modifications to its contents and structure (something, as I mentioned above, you cannot do easily to an sfs rootfilesystem, since that is read only). You might imagine that means the uncompressed root filesystem could be easily corrupted in use, but that is not the case since once booted that uncompressed directory is treated as one of the read-only layers and any changes again only get made to the save folder. That use of uncompressed root filesystem is unique to WeeDogLinux however; Puppy Linux does not provide that facility.

wiak

[Trobin]

Thanks for the information.

[foxpup]

Main point is definitely that a full install, being read/write, is difficult to fix should it be corrupted (though you can always just wipe the slate clean and make another full install from the installation media). With a frugal install, assuming you are using a 'save folder or save file', which would normally be the case since most users want save persistence, then that save media is also read/write so also can be corrupted; easy enough to get back to 'pristine' state of course: just wipe the save persistence file/folder.

If I may add ...
It is good practice to copy a good pupsave on a safe place, preferably not on your computer.
So if something goes wrong,
- virus, you mess up yourself, corruption ... -
it is easy to go back to a good state and yet not loose much work.
This is almost impossible with full install.

Mind, the documents and similar that you put 'outside' Puppy remain vulnerable.
So, it is good practice to copy your documents on a safe place, preferably not on your computer.

[nic007]

Just to add to this discussion, this is how I operate:

1. Frugal install
2. I don't use a savefile/folder but save changes to an adrv (which is read-only). I choose when to save.
3. I don't install applications, I use sfs-addons instead (which are read-only)
4. The changes I save to the adrv are thus mainly restricted to small, system configuration changes. My adrv is about 5MB in size.
5. Personal files and potentially huge operational files like browser caches are saved "outside" of the running filesystem.
6. The adrv and important personal files are obviously backed up.

[wiak]

Just to add to this discussion, this is how I operate:

1. Frugal install
2. I don't use a savefile/folder but save changes to an adrv (which is read-only). I choose when to save.
3. I don't install applications, I use sfs-addons instead (which are read-only)
4. The changes I save to the adrv are thus mainly restricted to small, system configuration changes. My adrv is about 5MB in size.
5. Personal files and potentially huge operational files like browser caches are saved "outside" of the running filesystem.
6. The adrv and important personal files are obviously backed up.

Yes, the more read-only you can make the system the better. Certainly, you probably want to add new apps and configs in the early stages of using the distro, but once you have everything set up in that form the more read-only you can make everything (e.g. by remastering or creating suitable sfs addons from your stable set up - the utilities some forum members make for automating such remasters and sfs builds make the whole process very efficient and painless).

And once you have created that stable mainly read-only installation, being a frugal install it is easy to back it up and also use on other computers - I do that too - there are four of us in the house and I've set up four computers pretty much identically by that methology. In our case the computers continue to have a read/write save folder, but at least it is simple to delete that to get back to stable well-configured system (with much more on it than the default initial build).

It is also possible to have several different such builds, some more read-only overall than others, which is probably wise for accessing, for example, your bank accounts and so on (everything just read-only in that case perhaps) - there is not much you can't arrange via the various facilities frugal installs generally provide.

[bigpup]

Frugal installs:

Can be put on any partition any format, any type storage device.

They load more of Puppy into RAM.

Easier to backup, because all changes, settings are in the save. The core Puppy files never change. Only what is in the save changes. All you have to do is copy the save to have a backup.
If Puppy really gets messed up. Just delete the save and replace it with the backup save.

You can easily load or unload SFS program packages.
This lets you use a program without actually installing it to Puppy. You will have to use this option to fully understand it.

All of Puppy is placed in a directory (folder).
You can have many Puppies on one partition.
All completely separate from the other.
All in different directories (Linux term for folder).

Full installs:
Must be installed to a Linux formatted partition.
Uses the entire partition.
Main advantage is it uses less memory to boot to desktop.
Does not use layered file system.
Works best for compiling.
Does not run into size limit that a save file has on a fat32 format.

[dancytron]

A final consideration is that very few people use a full install. That means it doesn't get tested so there will be bugs and since so few people use it, there will be less ability to fix them. It also means that fewer people on the Board will be able to offer general help.

[garnet]

Ummm, nothing wrong with that, but if you like full install why do you even bother with Puppy?
Puppy specialises on frugal install if I understand correctly.
If you like full install then there are many other fine distros that you can tweak to produce a lean and fast OS too.

[Trobin]

If you like full install then there are many other fine distros that you can tweak to produce a lean and fast OS too.

Why tweak another distro to get a clean and fast OS when Puppy is already there. True there are other ways to run Puppy, rather than as a full install, and I have and do so, though I've never tried a frugal install. But I have done full installs, and have had no problems with it. Then I find out that it is not recommended. So I was just wondering why.

[garnet]

I understand. Thank you. (⌒_⌒;)

[mikewalsh]

This is just a question to satisfy my curiosity. Is there any reason why a full install of Puppy Linux is not recommended? If one wants to go that way.

My answer to this one is simple. By doing so, you are voluntarily robbing yourself of most of Puppy's built-in advantages.

There ARE 'use-cases' for a full install; as mentioned by others, it's better for seriously resource-starved hardware, where there simply isn't enough RAM to function the way Pup was meant to function. Though in all honesty, there just aren't that many 'puters like this around any longer; for most folks, the advantages of the frugal handsomely outweigh those of the full install.....

(Even my nearly 20-yr old Dell, though it came with just 128 MB RAM when new, was 'upgradeable' to 2 GB. And that's plenty for Puppy...)

(*shrug*)


Mike.

[bigpup]

ruairidhlegge,

Start your own topic about your problem.
Post it in the beginners help section.

Trying to talk about two or more issues in the same topic is just confusing and hard to follow.

[greengeek]

There are apparently some situations where full installs are considered better than frugal.

I have read that low resource PCs with RAM constraints run better using full installs.

[oui]

If you like full install then there are many other fine distros that you can tweak to produce a lean and fast OS too.

Why tweak another distro to get a clean and fast OS when Puppy is already there. True there are other ways to run Puppy, rather than as a full install, and I have and do so, though I've never tried a frugal install. But I have done full installs, and have had no problems with it. Then I find out that it is not recommended. So I was just wondering why.

you are certainly right with that subjective impress: all is working ...

... excepted security

because Puppy is, use as recommended, in

root (*1

but

ram

Ram gives it power and speed but also

security:

the master copy of Puppy ( the 4 oder 5 files vmlinuz, initrd.*, and all *.sfs OR the ISO needed to start Puppy ARE NOT in RAM and will not be altered by unpleasant "visitors" and are so protected!

if you start your full install, you start with the working files being altered or not for the next restart, ...

... and if they did be altered, all is possible! within a session, the root mode create a certain risk, but as you are not on the files tree branch as the system itself runs in RAM and your other file are not permanent in RAM but on a drive, it is minimal. Since 2003, I did never had some inconvenience with that disposition in Puppy! it is only in theory possible...

consider that problem seriously

(*1 ALL other Linux systems operate rarely in root mode!!!

[8Geee]

In fairness Greengeek, those computers have a high probability of NOT being able to boot from USB. So Hard-drive install is REQUIRED.

Regards
8Geee

[user1111]

With a full install, you could install it, configure it as you like and then run a rsync to preserve that 'clean and configured' setup. Once a full rsync has run through once to add additional 'saves' is relatively quick, as is restoring a prior 'save' when most of the files are already in place. That way you might install something new, try it out, perhaps see it not working and 'roll back' to undo all of the changes.

With a frugal install you can install, configure it as you like, run a save and thereafter just repeatedly boot that 'clean' setup and not save any changes, so the next time it boots its also 'clean' again.

Of the two the frugal has the advantage that you don't have to boot and restore to get back to a clean session. It's just a reboot. Also if whatever changes were made corrupts the system then under the full install it might not boot at all.

Yet another choice is to use a BTRFS filesystem. Most Puppy's tend to use ext filesystem, with BTRFS you can create snapshots and swap things around near instantaneously, but in being relatively new wasn't as solid as using something like frugal boots, but with time has improved significantly. ZFS is a similar sort of thing.

Some like to have multiple systems available to boot and frugal supports that well. Yet others use a base system and run other systems as sub-systems within that.

Fundamentally its a personal preference issue, and most tend to stick with whichever approach they're most familiar with. FreeBSD guys will for instance swear by ZFS and snapshots. Puppy users like frugal ...etc. With Puppy its origins were 'small/compact' such that it can run purely in ram and as such be quicker than if a disk is being used. But as available ram sizes have increased so increasingly more systems run more in ram.

Puppy is great as a single user desktop system, pretty much comes with most things you might typically use for office/web browsing/playing videos/music ...etc. Other systems such as the BSD's are well suited to multi-users, with security separation of those users etc. And if you opt for Puppy then typically you also opt for the frugal style of usage as that is what most use and as such is the more resilient (more eyes finding and fixing bugs in the system).

There can be battles galore as to which system is the 'better'. One problem with Linux is that systems build upon the Linux kernel diverged very widely. Some have sought to address that by aligning things more with the kernel and you have the likes of systemD, others hate that intensely. Or go onto the FreeBSD forums and talk up OpenBSD and you'll be flamed out. etc. From a social interactions perspective Puppy is one of, if not the best.

[ozsouth]

Despite having been around the kennels since 2005, I used full installs until 2017. A few days into my UK trip, I was in a hotel with great wireless internet in Hove, and my full install slacko crashed so badly I had to reformat. I got online using live usb, and Tahrpup64 v6 had just been released and frugal install was recommended, so I downloaded it and tried it with a save folder. It was so good and so easy to back up/restore, I stuck with it throughout my long trip. I've also used Slacko frugal without issues too. I now use ScPup64 frugally & backup up weekly.
What I have found is that Puppy full installs are unforgiving - if you crash them, you often have to reinstall completely and redo all your settings. I used to think a full install was needed for kernel compiling, but found that mounting a physical hard drive in a frugal install and then cd into that mount point works the same. It's possible to tar a full install, but I found restores too often incomplete.

[01101001b]

frugal install [...] was so good and so easy to back up/restore [...] I now use ScPup64 frugally & backup up weekly.

That's exactly one of my favorite points of frugal install.
The other one is being able to use .sfs files. Those are a must for me. I hate to install apps and make my system an immense ball of software
Thanks to .sfs files, I run almost all the software I need while keeping my system slim and so much easier to backup

[mikewalsh]

@ozsouth :-

Despite having been around the kennels since 2005, I used full installs until 2017. A few days into my UK trip, I was in a hotel with great wireless internet in Hove, and my full install slacko crashed so badly I had to reformat. I got online using live usb, and Tahrpup64 v6 had just been released and frugal install was recommended, so I downloaded it and tried it with a save folder. It was so good and so easy to back up/restore, I stuck with it throughout my long trip. I've also used Slacko frugal without issues too. I now use ScPup64 frugally & backup up weekly.
What I have found is that Puppy full installs are unforgiving - if you crash them, you often have to reinstall completely and redo all your settings. I used to think a full install was needed for kernel compiling, but found that mounting a physical hard drive in a frugal install and then cd into that mount point works the same. It's possible to tar a full install, but I found restores too often incomplete.

Hey, oz.

I do very much the same for any package work I want to perform. Because I've got so much storage space, I have a dedicated "WORK" directory set-up on one of the partitions of a 3 TB secondary data drive. In fact, I have two of 'em; one set up with Fred's AppImage/self-extracter scripts, along with UPX for compressing executables, and the AppImage-extraction binary (though that only works on earlier AppImages.) The other is a 'plain' directory.

Anything I want to do, I enter the directory, move everything I need to use there, and open a terminal.....and work from inside the directory.

As for backups, well; in truth, I've lost track of the number of folks who think I'm talking out of my backside when I tell them that for Puppy, it's a simple case of copy & paste. They think I'm nuts.....but it's all I've ever done. And it always works.


Mike.

[DixieDog]

I have been using Bionic Pup full install for quite a while,, no file corruptions yet,, other than the fact its just plain different, I'm quite impressed.
See, Linux MINT 20, the latest Ubuntu,and LMDE4 all have terrible issues that force me to use my full install of Puppy.
Only place it falls short so far, is printing to a network printer....
I used a full install of Puppy Slaco for years as main OS on my business laptop. Much of what I do requires the instalation of software, all can be found ready to add.....
I like a Full install of the dog.

[mikewalsh]

I have been using Bionic Pup full install for quite a while,, no file corruptions yet,, other than the fact its just plain different, I'm quite impressed.
See, Linux MINT 20, the latest Ubuntu,and LMDE4 all have terrible issues that force me to use my full install of Puppy.
Only place it falls short so far, is printing to a network printer....
I used a full install of Puppy Slaco for years as main OS on my business laptop. Much of what I do requires the instalation of software, all can be found ready to add.....
I like a Full install of the dog.

There's a LOT to be impressed by in Puppy..!

As I've stated elsewhere, there's nowt wrong with a 'full' install of Pup, any more than with any other distro. However, Puppy has been developed & refined, over the years, to work best as a 'frugal', and the biggest part of all software developed/packaged for her reflects this fact.

• A frugal install can co-exist on the same partition as another OS; a full install cannot.

• A frugal install is incredibly simple to backup, and to recover from.....just the save-file/folder is necessary, since this is where corruption will be. With a full install, it's got to be whole partition 'cloning', etc.

• A frugal install can use SFS packages; a full one cannot.

Etc...

Horses for courses. It's what you get used to.


Mike.

[DixieDog]

I wish this tabloid ran on Puppy.

[Mike3]

So if I understand things correctly, with the frugal install there are two main things one for the basic OS and one for added apps and files.

How much more ram is used with a frugal compared to full install? Why is more RAM used?

Is there any speed issues when puppy is installed as a frugal compared to full, when having it loaded and running? And if so is it only a speed difference when starting apps or also when running them?

[bigpup]

You know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Do a normal frugal install of a Puppy version you are using as a full install.

See how it does stuff compared to the full install.

No one is forcing you to do a frugal or full install.

Depending on the computers specs. You may not see much of an actual speed difference.
Most of Puppy is very small programs.

If you have 1GB or more of RAM.
It is not going to make any real difference in RAM usage to matter.

Puppy is designed around it being a frugal install.
Some of the best features of Puppy only work when it is a frugal install.

[user1111]

• A frugal install can co-exist on the same partition as another OS; a full install cannot.

• A frugal install is incredibly simple to backup, and to recover from.....just the save-file/folder is necessary, since this is where corruption will be. With a full install, it's got to be whole partition 'cloning', etc.

• A frugal install can use SFS packages; a full one cannot.

It's all very subjective. For instance depends upon how the 'full install' boots. If the full install mounts a file filesystem instead of a physical partition, then a full install can be installed into that file filesystem, and if the file filesystem is formatted using mkfs.ext3 that file can sit within a partition formatted to ntfs ... whatever. So a full install can co-exist on the same partition as another OS.

When the file filesystem is a single file, then it also is easy to backup.

Creating snapshots is also incredibly quick/easy, just a rsync using hardlinks. And as such rollbacks are just as quick/easy.
rsync -a --link-dest=...
Has to be on the same filesystem, which in being a file filesystem it is

To 'save changes' you just rm the hardlink copy folder, and recreate a new hardlinks rsync, which being just inodes (not actual data) is incredibly quick. To 'not save' you just rm the main folder, rename the hardlink folder as the main folder and create another hardlink rsync of that. A few seconds either way even for something like a main sfs of 500MB or more.

A full install can use SFS's, you just extract them into the / and its then 'loaded'. Not as quick as overlaying a sfs, but for modest sized sfs's its not too slow either. If you create a snapshot (another hardlinks image)) prior to 'loading' you could also subsequently 'unload' it (same as 'not saving').

Have a play around with rsync, for example extract a puppy.sfs on a ext3 filesystem, such as /mnt/sda1 (or wherever)
cd /mnt/sda1
unsquashfs puppy.sfs
... that creates a squashfs-root folder of the content
and then rsync hardlinks 'snapshot' that using syntax

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/sda1/hardlinks
rsync -a --link-dest=/mnt/sda1/squashfs-root /mnt/sda1/squashfs-root/ /mnt/sda1/hardlinks

... remembering that rsync is fussy about having a trailing slash on the source folder name.

Works the same inside a file filesystem (that's ext3 or ext4 formatted), other than you have to mount that first.

There are tricks you can use to even save using hardlinks onto another local or remote filesystem by in effect creating two copies of the data and hardlinks, that can be relatively quick to 'save changes' - subject to the amount of changes made i.e. the speed is largely dependent on the total size of transferring all changed/new files.

And that all uses standard tools. aufs in contrast isn't part of the core Linux kernel, and as such requires patching the kernel (along with being dependent upon the individual(s) supporting aufs.

Fundamentally the distinction between full and frugal can be very gray/grey ... subjective. Even more so when you factor in other alternatives such as BTRFS, ZFS filesystems that incorporate Copy on Write and snapshots etc. Basically the answer is that you do best by following the choice that most users actually use and that the developer prefers, as then there are more eyes finding and fixing bugs (better stability).

[bigpup]

That is a very interesting way to run Puppy.

But the discussion should only be about how Puppy actually works.

[mikewalsh]

@rufwoof :-

I think you're becoming more of a traditional UNIX user than a Puppy one these days, Ruffers.....

All that is way over the top of my head, and I don't mind admitting it. On top of which, I'm a very atypical Linux user; I use the terminal - powerful as it undoubtedly is - as little as I possibly can. I like my GUIs too much, despite them adding 'bloat' and introducing delay into the system. But with a quad-core running at almost 4 GHz and 16GB of fast DDR4, I'm rapidly becoming a very atypical Puppy user, too..... I'll tell you this much, though; I'm having more fun with Puppy these days than ever before!

Horses for courses. I guess it's what you're used to, and what you're happy using. I still don't like mainstream distros, and will firmly remain with Pup as MY daily driver.


Mike.