How to DIY a Frugal Debian System Using Puppy's Vmlinuz and Initrd?

[miltonx]

This is an experiment in order to understand how to convert an installed debian system to fit in the puppy layered file system.

Here is what I did and failed:

- Prepare a usb drive (usb1) installed with fossapup64_9.5, and another usb drive (usb2) installed with debian 10;
- Delete zdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs, fdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs, adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs, puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs from usb1;
- Boot into any other linux system, plug in usb2, copy usb2's / file system to somewhere and make it into a squash file, and rename it to puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs, then copy this sfs file to usb1, in the folder where the previous puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs was;
- Reboot computer with usb1;

Result: The debian booted into command line, but no X. Running command startx did not work.

My guess is that something needs to be tweaked in usb2's debian file system before making it into a squash file to be booted by the puppy vmlinuz and initrd. Is it practical to manually tweak that? And if so, how?

[rcrsn51]

Why use Puppy components to convert Debian to a layered filesystem? The projects in this section already do just that.

[fredx181]

Why use Puppy components to convert Debian to a layered filesystem? The projects in this section already do just that.

Yes, I'd say so too.
@miltonx Anyway, not saying it's impossible what you want, but it needs a lot more to do than using only Puppy's vmlinuz and initrd, the Puppy .sfs's are containing many scrips and configs (too much to mention here, for me anyway) to make the layered system work as it should.

[williwaw]

This is an experiment in order to understand how to convert an installed debian system to fit in the puppy layered file system......
My guess is that something needs to be tweaked in usb2's debian file system before making it into a squash file to be booted by the puppy vmlinuz and initrd. Is it practical to manually tweak that? And if so, how?

not sure if you need to tweak the debian before making it into a squash or look to a different vmlinuz/initrd, but maybe this is closer to what you are trying to do? viewtopic.php?f=135&t=190

[wiak]

This is an experiment in order to understand how to convert an installed debian system to fit in the puppy layered file system......
My guess is that something needs to be tweaked in usb2's debian file system before making it into a squash file to be booted by the puppy vmlinuz and initrd. Is it practical to manually tweak that? And if so, how?

not sure if you need to tweak the debian before making it into a squash or look to a different vmlinuz/initrd, but maybe this is closer to what you are trying to do? viewtopic.php?f=135&t=190

I got the impression miltonx wanted to boot DebianDog rootfilesystem via puppy initrd??? But, as fred says, that is going to be problematic - puppy initrd uses a Puppy-unique layer structure that depends on the utility/scripts included in official puppy rootfilesystem sfs files... It is very much a Puppy-only initrd/init by design (not at all 'generic'). So yes, easy to basically boot, but system pretty much unusable since DebianDog root filesystem does not of course contain scripts for Puppy root filesystem arrangement... Overall answer then is indeed "why bother" - DebianDogs already boot their own root filesystem perfectly well - usually via their modified Porteus initrd, which all the utilities provided in DebianDogs are designed to work with.

WDL as a skeleton generic boot initrd is being offered as a method of booting other distros that do not themselves come with very flexible frugal live-install boot facilities. That is hopefully useful, but what miltonx is 'experimenting' with has, as far as I understand it, no practical end-user point at all aside from a learning practice for themself (no harm in that of course) - seems to be an experiment already inspired by the WDL published method, but result would definitely not be anything like close to useful without huge amounts of actual DebianDog root filesystem alterations; whilst that 'could' be done, surely it would be better to use an actual DebianDog or an actual Puppy Linux than try to make a new DebianDog booted via Puppy???!

i.e. If you don't like Puppy layering methodology - just use DebianDog if you prefer that apt/dpkg compatible distro.

On the otherhand, if you simply longed for dpkg/apt capability in Puppy then I once published a (WeeDog) 2-sfs addon for Puppy that provided that for FossaPup. I only know that rockedge experimented with it, but I haven't maintained it since.

[miltonx]

...It is very much a Puppy-only initrd/init by design (not at all 'generic'). ...

This is what I suspected but had to know for sure by actually trying and failing... Now I know I can't just squash any linux system and cram it into a puppy frame.

...WDL as a skeleton generic boot initrd is being offered as a method of booting other distros that do not themselves come with very flexible frugal live-install boot facilities. That is hopefully useful, ...

This sounds interesting. I did that crude experiment just in hope that there could be some way to boot other distros in a frugal manner similar to puppy. DebianDog is not what I want because I know it is also made through a complicated customization process. I was wishing to boot a real debian (or ubuntu, or arch, whatever...) into a frually installed, layered system. (Yes, I know practially it does not make much sense, but that's what an experiment is.)
I will check WDL to see if it is 'generic' enough to achieve that.

i.e. If you don't like Puppy layering methodology ...

I surely love it, and puppy is still my No. 1 linux system, full-time used.
The purpose of me trying to frugally install and boot debian is to do a lot of stupid tinkering on debian as a learning process without worrying about breaking and reinstalling. (Since in this case it's about tinkering/learning debian, I want a real debian instead of debiandog.)

[wiak]

The purpose of me trying to frugally install and boot debian is to do a lot of stupid tinkering on debian as a learning process without worrying about breaking and reinstalling. (Since in this case it's about tinkering/learning debian, I want a real debian instead of debiandog.)

Fair enough. In that case grab whatever official debian iso you want and (depending on its organisation) you can boot that using WDL initrd via the process described here (using fredx181's better explained post...): viewtopic.php?p=36144#p36144

Disclaimer is that I haven't actually downloaded an official Debian iso so don't know is it is a live iso or not (meaning that it comes with its root filesystem components in the form of squashed filesystems). But if you did full install onto say a fast usb stick then you could then mksquashfs that and the WDL initrd method would almost certainly work fine with that anyway. However, I expect Debian will provide a live iso that can be used more directly like the official Manjaro isos.

However, that would no longer be DebianDog so any discussion you have on that now becomes off-topic and should be taken elsewhere - i.e. I suggest you start a new thread, maybe in the WeeDog area if you do that, and post details.

wiak

[Clarity]

Debian "does" have a Live distro v11 as well as a v10.

[miltonx]

Fair enough. In that case grab whatever official debian iso you want and (depending on its organisation) you can boot that using WDL initrd via the process described here (using fredx181's better explained post...): viewtopic.php?p=36144#p36144

Disclaimer is that I haven't actually downloaded an official Debian iso so don't know is it is a live iso or not (meaning that it comes with its root filesystem components in the form of squashed filesystems). But if you did full install onto say a fast usb stick then you could then mksquashfs that and the WDL initrd method would almost certainly work fine with that anyway. However, I expect Debian will provide a live iso that can be used more directly like the official Manjaro isos.

However, that would no longer be DebianDog so any discussion you have on that now becomes off-topic and should be taken elsewhere - i.e. I suggest you start a new thread, maybe in the WeeDog area if you do that, and post details.

wiak

Thank you for directing me to the WDL info, wiak. This looks very promising, and I'm glad there is another new tool to learn.
I will read about WDL, and will post in WeeDog area for further discussions.