An installation that hasn't worked yet. YET
NOTE: This is a report (at this stage ... observations.)
It is not a request for help ... yet ...
There is a moral: look below for text in red ...
Below I reported that a USB kdb did not work until Puppy was running. The fix: plug a kbd into the PS2 socket.
This is divided into two parts. In part I I describe problems with video and kbd. In part II the kbd problem is solved. (see above) To skip part I look here:
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5395
In part II the kbd works (see above) and I can select: Boot a PC with severe video problems ...
Beginnings: A friend said, "In the cow paddock behind my house you'll find a cardboard box. Inside the box you'll fins a PC. It's yours if you want it. If you don't take it - it's trash." How could I resist such an offer? (Hardware is not identified because the OS isn't booting properly yet ... but generally the box has a dual-core CPU with a 360GiB drive from (I guess) 2008. A free PC! Oh delirious joy! Something to keep me off the streets ...
Booted Stretch Puppy from a CD: Stretch-7.5-UEFI-K4.1.48 (recorded in 2019 so may not be the latest).
The result: The usual boot sequence appeared, followed by the config menus - time zone, encoding, monitor settings & so on. Everything was fine until ... blat! the monitor screen turned black (rather like some screen-saver became active). Power off ... re-boot ... same thing (with a few variations). Decision: Abandoned the Slack Pup. Got out another CD from my stash of CDs kept
'in a safe place'.
Booted uPupBB32 (even though this box is 64 bit ...)
The result: The usual boot sequence followed by a successful configuration.
I partitioned the HDD.
sda1 > 2.5GiB as FAT32 with one directory called (I think) OS_BOOT. boot-flag is set.
sda2 > 160GiB as ext4, labelled WORK.
sda3 > rest of disk, almost 200GiB, labelled BAK.
Windows - gone! The PC from the cow-paddock appeared a little shinier ...
All the above using the Puppy OS booting from the CD.
Installing uPupBB: After that I followed MikeSLR's method of installing The Puppy using the ROX file manager.
Copied to a Directory in (or on) sda1. FAT32 file system.
Using the supplied GRUB(something) from the uPupBB menu (setup > GRUB(something) I wrote the boot manager to the boot sector. After that - a few more things around the desktop (probably looked at the ROX file manager, perhaps opened a terminal ... DID NOT CONFIGURE THE INTERNET CONNECTION ...)
Then unmounted and ejected the CD. Shutdown, with save-file to sda3 (BAK).
Power off. The sun is shining, grass is growing and there is tea in the tea-pot.
Booting the newly installed Puppy.
Thinks: Why not boot my lovely 'new' PC/OS? Thinks a little more ... good idea ...
Press the power button (this is a good way to boot a PC - it nearly always works ...)
(Remember the CD is now ejected - the OS is on sda1).
I saw the early booting messages - first the multi-line boot menu with an option to boot the system as installed.
Thinks: Let's boot "RAM ONLY". Tap the arrow down key. Nothing.
This is weird! Once Puppy Linux has booted completely the keyboard works, but the arrow keys won't allow me to select an item from the early boot-menu.
After a moment the first boot sequence (the line under the cursor) ran.
Thinks: OK, now Puppy will boot using the config details from the save-file on sda3.
I saw the messages uPupBB32 usually displays ... then the save-file appeared to be found and then ... an evil spirit struck ... I saw weird patterns on the monitor. Hmmm ... This is not good ....
Rebooting from CD (again)
So ... insert CD ... power off ... wait ... press the power button ...
I can tell the OS is booting from the CD. Booting from the HDD is always quicker. Now the boot software from the CD appear to find the uPupBB-save-file from sda3. I'm confident the config from sda3 was invoked.
(I think) a message appeared saying (did not shut down cleanly and so on) but (in the end) the screen is (how shall I say this?) "interesting". A checkered patchwork obscures the beaver and the words "Bionic Pup". It is a static snow-storm of small mauve and white blocks. The menu items that normally lie across the top of the screen are gone - There I see a checker-work of grey and white blocks. To a degree the mouse responds. At times the mouse can make a full white block appear where the common desk-top menu items appear.
Thinks: Probably configured the wrong video driver.
Booting the Tahr-pup.
Thinks: I'll try booting the Tahr-Pup. (It's 11:28 and here, on the east coast of Australia we have seen the sun for the first time in 2 weeks. Further up the coast serious storms have destroyed tens of thousands of houses. I don't want to be flippant, but this problem with a computer I got from a box in a cow-paddock isn't really a big deal ...)
After pressing the power button the boot process began:
"Loading the puppy-tahr_6.0.6" (or something like that).
The PC is definitely booting from the CD. The Tahr desk-top and config boxes appear.
There is a problem. Again the two Tahr-pups are behind a snow-storm of streaks and so on.
Thinks: Maybe a problem with the (1) video driver, (2) driver settings or even a (3) mismatch between the card and the monitor. (It's a Samsung thingy, 1980 pixels wide. I reckon that's the trouble. It's already 2022; the Russians are in Ukraine and the monitor is back in 1980 pixel mode. But don't worry. An election is scheduled for later in the year and after that everything will be OK, yes?)
Now this PC has two HDMI outlets and a flash of genius suggested, "Switch the video plug to the second HDMI." Did that. Rebooted the Tahr-puppy. Hmmm. I see a mouse and (now) a very normal screen. Good ol ROX file manager is there. The CLI is there. I can "cd" around the partitions on sdaN. Geany works.
I think I'll leave the box to sit for a while, power on.
The moral (so far): At the beginning, when I knew nothing about Puppy Linux, I down-loaded and burnt two copies of uPupBB/The Slack Pup/The Tahr-Pup and so on onto CDs. After that I put them in a CD carrier in a safe place. Now - today - that strategy paid off. That's the moral for the moment.
I'm not out of the woods yet. Even with the monitor cable connected to 'the other', uPupBB boots into a desktop that is still a snow-storm. I can run the terminal (Command Line Interpreter).
Time for a break. o-o-o back later
Again: at this point I'm not looking for help, just recording an 'interesting' resurrection of a PC in a box in a cow-paddock ...
I have a blank HDD. Time to exchange drives. My hunch: If I boot uPupBB from the CD (without a save-file) I'll get a 'normal screen'. .... but that's later ....
---------------- part II ---------------