Can't boot/install Puppy in Vaio PCG-GT1 (dual boot XP)

[lurching]

Hi all,

I have this incredible machine from the early 2000's that I am willing to install Puppy on.

Specs:
Processor: Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 - 600Mhz
Ram: 172Mb (tweaked from 128)
HDD: 60 Gb (tweaked from 20)
Originally running WindowsME but upgraded it to run WindowsXP (lite version with fewest services enabled)
Screen: 6.4" XGA, 1024x768
Interfaces: PCMCIA, Modem 56k, Firewire IEEE1394, Memory Stick, USB1.0



So far, I have tried to lauch puppy from USB, failed, from USB CD-ROM, failed (the drive doesn't seem to do anything on boot)

Bios boot options are:
1. ATAPI CD-ROM
2. External drive
3. Internal HDD

Even by trying to force the options or disabling access to 3. HDD nothing happens, the computer doesn't seem to find anything, neither a legacy usb stick (rufus formatted) or even the most likely compatible 32bit iso image I received in order to attempt launching Puppy on it:

https://archive.org/details/bionic4.9.174

I still may have several options:
1. PCMCIA CD-ROM drive
2. Firewire CD-RW drive (used to boot fine for windows installs but I have to find it, it roams somewhere...)
3. Your suggestions...

Hopefully I can install Puppy in dual boot on this machine (I need to conserve full access to the interfaces piloting it) - and if I can find a relatively easy walkthrough that I can retranscribe, I may also develop some of the drivers for other collectioners like me (I used to offer support worldwide for it's drivers when Sony discontinued it).

Hopefully you can help me to solve this Thank you in advance!

[Flash]

How did you put Puppy on the CD you tried to boot from?

[Wiz57]

Hmm, a machine that old, with that little RAM, you may not be able to boot a newer Puppy. You might
be able to boot one of the derivatives, such as TazPup or CorePup, maybe even a Slackware based one,
Try ScPup 32. However, getting it installed and booted may be all it will do, don't know if I would call
it "running", maybe crawling??? That was my experiences even with WinXP with 256meg RAM.
Once you try doing anything in a "modern" type setting, such as web browsing, that tiny bit of RAM
leads to almost constant thrashing of the hard drive I set up with Linux swap!

[Clarity]

Has anyone considered "suggesting" to use a PUP from 2005-2008?

Why continue to try steering new PUPs toward old hardware? ... even new 32bit PUPs???

The objective for all of us technologist is to get things operational...not to try to make old hardware new.

There are about 100 old PUPs (an exaggeration, of course) that will probably behave admirably on this system in question.

P.S. I remember that back in those days, we used CDs extensively for boots. The BIOS of this PC is probably designed to afford this, too. UNLESS the manufacturer somehow crippled that (I would guess crippling did not occur). If so, using a Linux/PUP/Wins to generated a bootable old PUP still works and could meet objective, here. This assumes the objective is to make this operational. Otherwise, this may be a test of "proof of concept" by the author vs operational status.

I still have these I use when I proof of concept on old hardware to see it they still work.

Old CDs.jpg (47.39 KiB) Viewed 886 times

I never try new Linux on any 32bit systems. The BIOS and hardware and OSes was "solved" for those PCs back then. Stuff done today has 64bit (around since 2006) in the kernel's mind.

I am just trying to help by level-setting....not trying to discourage anyone. I do believe that there is an old PUP that would satisfy this need.

[lurching]

How did you put Puppy on the CD you tried to boot from?

I burned the cd on a 2008 MacBook Pro which I used to boot a 32bit Mint disk on another 32bit MacBookPro that was refusing any non 32bit optical disk, using the system tool. I did it assuming it would be working as well, but I don't see the usb cd drive scanning the cd at boot time, so there may be another problem down the line; I'm now waiting for a VAIO PCMCIA CD-ROM and an USB Floppy drive I ordered to follow other threads I saw, roaming around on the old puppy forum.

[lurching]

Has anyone considered "suggesting" to use a PUP from 2005-2008?
(...)
There are about 100 old PUPs (an exaggeration, of course) that will probably behave admirably on this system in question.
(...)
I do believe that there is an old PUP that would satisfy this need.

Thank you for the encouraging quotes! Don't hesitate to link to iso's I could try on the beast...

The machine works relatively great with XP. I would like to see how I could develop a Linux interface in Puppy for driving the cam with the start/stop button and the zoom handle. Maybe starting with an open source app the likes of Cheese and see how I can tweak it from there to add a zoom control.

Any idea on how this could be done successfully? I'm getting used to Python.

[lurching]

Hmm, a machine that old, with that little RAM, you may not be able to boot a newer Puppy. You might
be able to boot one of the derivatives, such as TazPup or CorePup, maybe even a Slackware based one,
Try ScPup 32. However, getting it installed and booted may be all it will do, don't know if I would call
it "running", maybe crawling??? That was my experiences even with WinXP with 256meg RAM.
Once you try doing anything in a "modern" type setting, such as web browsing, that tiny bit of RAM
leads to almost constant thrashing of the hard drive I set up with Linux swap!

Good to know. Thank you for the feedback. It's not an online tool. It's more multimedia, which Pup might be great at.

[bigpup]

Bios boot options are:
1. ATAPI CD-ROM
2. External drive
3. Internal HDD

If this is all you can choose from for boot devices.
What does the computer consider an external drive?
Hooked to the computer how?

This computer may be before USB booting was an option.
If it is able to boot from USB. USB device should be in the list of boot-able devices.

If it can boot from a USB device, may need to do this:
To boot from USB.
The bios usually has a setting to disable or enable USB booting.
So look for that in the bios setup.
If it has this bios setup option.
USB booting needs to be enabled.

Does this have an internal CD drive?
Is that what boot device ATAPI CD-ROM is?
If yes and you know the drive still works.
Burn speed used to burn the Puppy iso image to CD could be a problem.
Burn no faster than 4.

This would be a good older Puppy to try.
Precise 5.7.1
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/precis ... -5.7.1.iso

[lurching]

Bios boot options are:
1. ATAPI CD-ROM
2. External drive
3. Internal HDD

If this is all you can choose from for boot devices.
What does the computer consider an external drive?
Hooked to the computer how?

This computer may be before USB booting was an option.
If it is able to boot from USB. USB device should be in the list of boot-able devices.

If it can boot from a USB device, may need to do this:
To boot from USB.
The bios usually has a setting to disable or enable USB booting.
So look for that in the bios setup.
If it has this bios setup option.
USB booting needs to be enabled.

Does this have an internal CD drive?
Is that what boot device ATAPI CD-ROM is?
If yes and you know the drive still works.
Burn speed used to burn the Puppy iso image to CD could be a problem.
Burn no faster than 4.

This would be a good older Puppy to try.
Precise 5.7.1
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/precis ... -5.7.1.iso

Thanks for the accurate questions!

1. For example the ATAPI CD-ROM option worked with the portable firewire CD-ROM that I bought when I found the machine in Kowloon, Hong-Kong, as it booted successfully with it with a Windows XP boot disk for instance. Unfortunately I don't have direct access to that drive now.

2. USB is indeed not mentionned as such in BIOS. There is a mention about plug and play compatibility that I disabled.

3. No, as mentionned only external CD-ROM/RW drive. I have an LG USB3.0 dvd-rw drive who is recognized in XP but apparently it is not being activated at boot time when activating the ATAPI CD-ROM option.

4. Burn speed I'll try with a windows or ubuntu utility and burn with no faster than 4 and report if any success.

5. Thanks for the link! I'll try it for the 4 speed burn!

[bigpup]

Your problem is having a device the bios will see as a boot device.
Puppy has to be on whatever device that is.

Do you have Windows XP still on the internal drive and will it boot and run?
If yes.
You can use the program Lick installer to install Puppy to the internal hard drive.
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=336
It is a program that runs in Widows to install Puppy along side Windows and duel boot both.

[Flash]

Lurching, you probably already know this, but just in case: you can't just burn the Puppy .iso to a CD or DVD. It must be burned with a program that does it so that the CD or DVD is bootable. I'm not sure of the terminology and in any case it probably varies with the burning program.

[lurching]

Do you have Windows XP still on the internal drive and will it boot and run?
If yes.
You can use the program Lick installer to install Puppy to the internal hard drive.
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=336
It is a program that runs in Widows to install Puppy along side Windows and duel boot both.

That is indeed exactly what I need, thank you.
Approximately how much place do I need for a clean Puppy install? My Ram is 192Mb so I understand I need to leave at least twice that for a Swap file/partition?

[lurching]

Lurching, you probably already know this, but just in case: you can't just burn the Puppy .iso to a CD or DVD. It must be burned with a program that does it so that the CD or DVD is bootable. I'm not sure of the terminology and in any case it probably varies with the burning program.

In my understanding and I have about 9 differrent OSes installed here, when you burn a bootable image the disk is then bootable. What do I have to do in the specific case of Puppy? I'd like to be sure! Thanks in advance.

[wiak]

In my understanding and I have about 9 differrent OSes installed here, when you burn a bootable image the disk is then bootable.

That is correct.

[lurching]

You can use the program Lick installer to install Puppy to the internal hard drive.
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=336
It is a program that runs in Widows to install Puppy along side Windows and duel boot both.

I ordered firewire cables to backup the machine as the disks are quite full, I need to liberate XXX Gb of data - how much should XXX be for Puppy as you indicated? Does it requires to be specified at Lick install time, that was not clear. I have about 7.5Gb free on c: would that be enough?

EDIT: After trying, I go through all the Lick command-line process but it says in the end "error: Invalid boot.ini" then Lick restarts asking all the questions... Also, what do I have to enter as an ID? That is not entirely clear. Thanks in advance for your advice.

EDIT2: Is it maybe required/better to start another thread for Lick troubleshooting in this case?

[Flash]

In my understanding and I have about 9 differrent OSes installed here, when you burn a bootable image the disk is then bootable. What do I have to do in the specific case of Puppy? I'd like to be sure! Thanks in advance.

One way to be sure you have made a bootable disk is to try to boot the disk in a computer that you know will boot from CD or DVD. You don't even have to completely boot, though if you do, Puppy won't change anything in the computer; it's enough to see that the disk starts to boot. It's probably easiest and safest to let the disk boot all the way to a Puppy desktop so you can remove the disk before shutting down without saving anything.

[Wiz57]

"
EDIT: After trying, I go through all the Lick command-line process but it says in the end "error: Invalid boot.ini" then Lick restarts asking all the questions... Also, what do I have to enter as an ID? That is not entirely clear. Thanks in advance for your advice.

EDIT2: Is it maybe required/better to start another thread for Lick troubleshooting in this case?"

A few questions...how are you booting WinXP? From the internal hard disc drive? If so, then when
you are booted into XP, open Explorer (File Explorer, not IE), look at the drives listed. Normally it
opens in the users "My Documents" folder (directory in DOS/Linux terminology). In the Menu bar
at top, look for Options, make sure the option to Show Hidden Files is checked, this will give you
access to System files. Next, navigate up the "tree" to the point the "C:" drive is displayed, then
take a gander at the contents. You should find a file named "boot.ini" there. Highlight this one and
make sure it is NOT marked "read only"..if it is, make it read/write. Reason for this is if it is read only,
the LICK installer (as well as some other installers like Sina for the old Slackware based Slax) cannot
make a backup of it and then write changes to a new boot.ini file. Restart Windows once you have
these changes, and retry running the LICK installer.
If you still have problems, I might be able to send you an old Slacko 6.3 installer for Windows, or
make it available for download somewhere, maybe even the old Sina installer I have for Slax.
If all goes as planned, you end up with a new boot.ini that includes not only Windows XP, but
also via grub4dos access to booting Puppy. It also places a grub "menu.lst" file in C:, this you
can sometimes manually edit to fine tune your boot options!
Wiz

[bigpup]

I have about 7.5Gb free on c: would that be enough?

Yes. That is more than enough free space for Puppy.
Puppy will be installed into a folder using about 500MB space.
This is a frugal install. Frugal is just the name used. It is still the complete Puppy OS installed in a special way.
Frugal is the best way to install Puppy.
Some features only work in a frugal install.

I wish we could use some other name than frugal, but it is too baked into the Puppy programs code.
Frugal is about how little space it uses and how little it takes over control of a drive.

[lurching]

"
EDIT: After trying, I go through all the Lick command-line process but it says in the end "error: Invalid boot.ini" then Lick restarts asking all the questions... Also, what do I have to enter as an ID? That is not entirely clear. Thanks in advance for your advice.

EDIT2: Is it maybe required/better to start another thread for Lick troubleshooting in this case?"

A few questions...how are you booting WinXP? From the internal hard disc drive? If so, then when
you are booted into XP, open Explorer (File Explorer, not IE), look at the drives listed. Normally it
opens in the users "My Documents" folder (directory in DOS/Linux terminology). In the Menu bar
at top, look for Options, make sure the option to Show Hidden Files is checked, this will give you
access to System files. Next, navigate up the "tree" to the point the "C:" drive is displayed, then
take a gander at the contents. You should find a file named "boot.ini" there. Highlight this one and
make sure it is NOT marked "read only"..if it is, make it read/write. Reason for this is if it is read only,
the LICK installer (as well as some other installers like Sina for the old Slackware based Slax) cannot
make a backup of it and then write changes to a new boot.ini file. Restart Windows once you have
these changes, and retry running the LICK installer.
If you still have problems, I might be able to send you an old Slacko 6.3 installer for Windows, or
make it available for download somewhere, maybe even the old Sina installer I have for Slax.
If all goes as planned, you end up with a new boot.ini that includes not only Windows XP, but
also via grub4dos access to booting Puppy. It also places a grub "menu.lst" file in C:, this you
can sometimes manually edit to fine tune your boot options!
Wiz

After having all hidden files and folders displayed, here is no boot.ini file in my c: root and yes windows boots from there!

Edit: I had typology linux installed which changed my boot configuration, I had to desinstall it, plus then there is one more step to do in XP as follows:
open the c drive folder and..
1. Go to tools @ top
2. folder options
3.view
4.show hidden files
5. unchek "hide protected operating system files (THIS STEP)
6. look in c: and look for boot.ini
7.right click go to props.
8. uncheck Read only

Edit 2: However the problem has not changed, the file boot.ini is now no longer read only but the same error message persists error invalid boot.ini
So I checked the contents and its only a one liner c:\grldr="Topologylinux 5.1.0"
Edit 3: If I get it correctly TopologyLinux had a grub loader installed. I deinstalled TopologyLinux hoping it would restore my original boot.ini but no. The boot.bak file is identical.

What to do?

[Wiz57]

Hmmm...there must be a WinXP "boot.ini" somewhere to allow Windows to boot. Might open Explorer
again and search for all instances of boot.ini , boot.bak etc. and find the one that reads such as :

Edited to add
(Feel free to copy the following 5 lines, and using Notepad if Windows is running, paste it in to a new file,
you can change or delete the "Home Edition" if you want, also check the partition, you may need to change
both instances of (2) to (1) then save this in Notepad as a new boot.ini in the root of your C drive!) end edit

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

This is the backup boot.ini on my little netbook, note the partition, being partition 2 on rdisk 0 (1 hard drive,
2 partitions, 1st partition is a recovery/restore partition). This is sort of a default Windows XP boot.ini...here's my
current one after using the installer for older Slacko 6.3 I have, which menu.lst I edit as needed to pick which
Puppy I want (2 Slacko versions, an ArchPup 32, and 3 ScPups, lol)

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

c:\grldr="Pick A Puppy Linux"

Note...the windows installer I used installed grub4dos, hence the "c:\grldr" line in boot.ini,
grldr (grubloader) then looks for menu.lst in the top directory of C: for options

[lurching]

Hmmm...there must be a WinXP "boot.ini" somewhere to allow Windows to boot. Might open Explorer
again and search for all instances of boot.ini , boot.bak etc. and find the one that reads such as :

Edited to add
(Feel free to copy the following 5 lines, and using Notepad if Windows is running, paste it in to a new file,
you can change or delete the "Home Edition" if you want, also check the partition, you may need to change
both instances of (2) to (1) then save this in Notepad as a new boot.ini in the root of your C drive!) end edit

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

This is the backup boot.ini on my little netbook, note the partition, being partition 2 on rdisk 0 (1 hard drive,
2 partitions, 1st partition is a recovery/restore partition). This is sort of a default Windows XP boot.ini...here's my
current one after using the installer for older Slacko 6.3 I have, which menu.lst I edit as needed to pick which
Puppy I want (2 Slacko versions, an ArchPup 32, and 3 ScPups, lol)

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

c:\grldr="Pick A Puppy Linux"

Note...the windows installer I used installed grub4dos, hence the "c:\grldr" line in boot.ini,
grldr (grubloader) then looks for menu.lst in the top directory of C: for options

Indeed, after some research, I finally found a partition tool that would install on my version of XP Professional.
It shows that my disk is divided into 3 disks, the first one for drives H: then C: then unknown then Ext2 10Gb then D:
The second disk is unallocated space
The third disk is drive E:

According to that info, it would seem that I can copy your boot.ini almost as is, while for the ="topology linux vx.x.x" part, I just change it to the name of my Puppy iso.

I assume I have to do that then run Lick again and see if it accepts the modified boot.ini.

I'll have to check first whether I can boot with a windows xp setup cd which I prepared just in case.

Please confirm if my understanding is correct.

Edit: I have proceeded as described, modified the boot.ini and indeed Lick seems to have done it's job, there was some disk activity and delay, the pupldr file is in c: root, and there were no error messages this time (but Lick returned to the initial menu without any success notice).

The result is successful in that I restart in windows xp but not so much in that I don't have a boot menu at startup, only it seems to be a black screen, so no option yet to boot into puppy

Note: I don't know how to access boot.ini if the computer doesn't restart windows xp, as I tried to boot the setup disk with the usb cd-rom drive but that doesn't work so I'm working without a safety net.

Thanks in advance for your indication on what could be causing the non display of the grub menu:

Edit 2: After rebooting I checked my boot.ini file and there are actually 2 lines at the bottom now:
c:\grldr="precise-5.7.1"
c:\pupldr="Start LICK boot Loader"

Tried in case to delete the first line of the two in order to prioritize pupldr but no effect, windows xp still boots on top of it.
I've also put the timeout to 30 and it seems the menu is not loading as there is no difference in boot time to xp.

Edit 3: I noticed I was missing the grub4dos file in my root c: so I downloaded grub4dos and just added grldr file in c: but no success either with the config with the two lines at the end of boot.ini as you informed and that LICK then updated. cfr grub4dos install instructions - windows still boots on top. http://www.owl.homeip.net/manuals/syste ... indows.htm.

Edit 4: remember H: being first in disk1? Well there was a boot.ini in h: and with a modification (adding the two last lines) I have the grub operational
SUCESS!

Now precise 5.7.1 is not appropriate: "this kernel requires features not present on the cpu: pae"
"Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your cpu"
Apparently pae stands for Physical Address Extension"

I suppose this is due to the specificity of the transmeta: can anyone recommend an image I can download that would work out this issue?

[Flash]

Lurching, out of curiosity, when you boot with a CD in the USB drive, does the drive light up at all, indicating that it's trying to read the disk?

[lurching]

Lurching, out of curiosity, when you boot with a CD in the USB drive, does the drive light up at all, indicating that it's trying to read the disk?

It seems that it wakes up but it doesn't seem to scan the disk inside the drive there is no sound that it reads, just wakes.

[lurching]

So now as stated 2 posts before thanks to wiz57, now LICK is working properly, but I need to load an iso that is able to run on a Transmeta Crusoe processor - fixing the pae issue.
pae stands for Physical Address Extension"

Could anyone suggest images that would be compatible now that everything else is working fine? I tend to the ubuntu flavored one if any.

I tried:
precise5.7.1
bionic4.9.174
bionicpup32.8.023

All get blocked with that same pae kernel error:
"this kernel requires features not present on the cpu: pae"
"Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your cpu"

Thank you in advance!

Update: I could load Wary5.5 and it works! Though slow, I would need to patch the kernel apparently to take advantage of the full features of the Crusoe processor... cfr. here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 6a807866f9
Anything like that available on Wary?

Also the camera doesn't seem to be recognized by the pupCamera digital access - where should I start

Then I should maybe update the video drivers although the quality is good - the card is an ATI with 1920x1080 resolution

[darry19662018]

non-pae is what you need.

[darry19662018]

Try this update of fluppy: https://archive.org/download/Fluppy013b ... re2018.iso
or this update of 4.31: https://archive.org/download/pup4.311gl ... 9%29v3.iso

[lurching]

Try this update of fluppy: https://archive.org/download/Fluppy013b ... re2018.iso
or this update of 4.31: https://archive.org/download/pup4.311gl ... 9%29v3.iso

Here's some feedback:
is working:
wary5.5 very slow, windows wave on and off / pale display
phoenix4.31 fluid, my choice / network activates nicely
fluppy0.13bare fails to load swap partition / doesn't get it on video settings / network doesn't activate properly

My choice for now is phoenix, for obvious reasons, it also seems to have more support. How can I document myself on package updates like debian apt?

[darry19662018]

https://archive.org/details/pup4.311gli ... 794sserev1
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=119&t=551

[Wiz57]

Congrats lurching on getting a Puppy loaded and operational! As for the non-PAE, there is one I've
used in past, Slacko 5.6.4, which should also boot. The problems with the camera, I'm going to let
others dive in, as my little netbook has a camera, but I've no desire to use it, and last time I even
tried (back in 2019 or so) Slacko didn't find the camera and I was too lazy to look for why, hehe!
I still have my ISO of Slacko 5.6.4 non-PAE if you want to try it.
Wiz

[lurching]

Thanks!

First of all I would like to sincerely thank everyone in the thread for making it possible for this little project to succeed. Having Linux run on this machine was my dream since about 2004, and finally I got the time and capacity to do it with your great assistance

The VAIO GT-1 is a great machine, running on Linux now. Let me know where I could post and summarize the results in a way that is fair to the community here and that will be useful as a walkthrough to the many collectors of this very rare machine. Some might be very interested.

Second of all, now I have to list all of the problems I still have on Phoenix(/try 2 others iso's that were suggested), like the crashing browser, the performance still at best inferior to Windows XP, and the non working microphone and camera with it's zoom control. Especially the camera has a separate bios I would like to talk about. I develop in python and I hate c but I can forget that for the purpose of translating a driver/adapt an application, but I have no idea where to start.

Let me know if we can continue the discussion here or if it's necessary to start another thread.