Booting modern PUPPY from USB only via its download (DOGs too)

[fredx181]

Also, setting up save is inconvenient.

Why? You can boot out of an ISO and still provide the boot parameters that identify the location of the persistent storage.

Just write the parameters into the menu.lst or grub.cfg file.

New for me, only way I know with SG2D ISO boot is to press E and modify the parameters to point to the save location.

[backi]

@rcrsn51 wrote:

Just write the parameters into the menu.lst or grub.cfg file.

Good Info...
Could you provide an Example ?

Thanks !

[rcrsn51]

Could you provide an Example ?

Tools like SG2D and Ventoy generate a boot menu EVERY time you start the machine. So you are locked into that menu, unless you stop to edit it in real time.

But if you use a tool that generates the menu FIRST from a set of ISOs, you (or the tool) can customize the menu for how each OS handles persistence. And you only need to do it once, or until you add another ISO to the set.

[backi]

Thanks @rcrsn51 !

[Clarity]

Yes, I agree that is one approach. But, over the years I happened upon a better approach: I often refer to it as 'housekeeping', and for all modern PUPs it is coupled with a PUP facility that @gyrog provided few years ago; namely the SAVESPEC file which a PUP will place in the location of where it boots from. This creation by any PUP is ONLY done once for the benefit of PUP operations. It need not be EVER modified once the PUP creates it AND all subsequent PUP use this file at boot time. This is true for all future boots no matter pristine or NOT. It is so simple YET so brilliant; as @gyro has made this a part of the WoofCE PUPs boot processing!

This single file tells PUPs, pristine or normal, where the 'persistence' Session is saved or found.

Thus, for the past 2 years, I dont need to "E" to edit any modern PUP's boot stanza before it boots. This provides a clear path such that the booted PUP KNOWS where Session info is.

SAVESPEC has NOTHING to do with SG2D: It is purely a part of PUPs.

Here is the SAVESPEC file for this PC's PUP, I am running from:

Code: Select all

SS_ID='Persistence'
SS_DIR='/Sessions'
SS_MEDIA='atahd'

This single file describes

1. the disk partition's LABEL where the session saves are kept (PUP's boot info) is found (I label ALL of my partitions. In this case the partition's label I chose is "Persistence")

2. the Name of the persistence folder (For 'housekeeping reasons', I keep ALL persistence for ALL forum distros in this folder on the Persistence partition)

3. the media that the boot file(s) is located.

The WoofCE developers, combined, with 2 simple updates in 2019 has made booting from ISO files so simple.

In every case for modern PUPs, the PUPs find their persistence. If a user has made multiple "Pup...Save" files/folders, the PUPs will list them for user selection.

Again, and REPEATING, the presence of the SAVESPEC means I never need to his 'E' on any modern PUP's Menu stanza for successful PUP frugal operations. This means, you merely select your choice on PUP's Menu stanza and boot, knowing the PUP will find ALL of his needs to present the same desktop we all call frugal.

Hope this is helpful understanding. EVERYTHING we need for PUP operations are already present in modern PUPs for this simple boot as it is made so easy now.

[rcrsn51]

This creation by any PUP is ONLY done once for the benefit of PUP operations.

Is this SAVESPEC file written to my boot drive without my permission?

[Clarity]

@rcrsn51, an interesting question in the way you are positioning it.

To my knowledge, its been a part of PUP operations for several years. It appears to be a helper designed by development for WoofCE Puppy Linux only at this time. There is a separate utility somewhere that will create it for you.

Look for a SAVESPEC in your /BOOTISOS folder on the USB/drive where you SG2D from. If you dont see one, create one as ALL WoofCE PUPs use it. It will eliminate any need to interrupt the PUP boot at menu time to tell your PUP where your Sessions are kept via a boot-time change to the PUP's Menu stanza.

This was NOT created for SG2D, rather this is a part of PUP operations for PUP distros. NOTHING TO DO WITH SG2D OR ANY BOOT HELPER (ISObooter/Ventoy/etc.); nor any boot manager (LILO/Syslinux/Grub4DOS/GRUB2/Limine/etc.).

If its there, your PUP at boot-time/shutdown-time could use if for session-management. Its a really subtle but intelligently simple facility that WoofCE development provides to our PUPs use and benefit.

Hope this info is helpful

[Clarity]

... Tools like SG2D and Ventoy generate a boot menu EVERY time you start the machine. ...

The 3 tools (SG2D/Ventoy/ISObooter), I am aware of, merely are "listing" services to allow any user to select the ISO/distro they want to boot.

I refer to these as Boot Listers rather that any type of boot manager. Thus, there is no need, ever, for most users to ever tinker with these, per se. BUT, I am aware that some can or will tinker at that level.

Once any user chooses a selection from the list, the PUPs themselves handle their boot process.

Personally, I have use each of these listers. In this thread, I focus on SG2D because there is never a need to pre-process the ISO file folder or to post-process it. It is the only one which I have a high-degree of certainty that all of the modern PUPs/DOGs will boot to desktop without in pre-post needs. I know that I run into problem with any other 'lister' for any reason, SG2D will/does boot forum ISO files. This has been tested many-many times over the past 3 years.

As you mention SG2D and Ventoy, they each will never require pre-post processing. Merely drop the ISO file to the USB folder and boot. AND, their forums are present to help ... same as the forums for GRUB2/Limine where developers are present to help. Thus, there is no change to the user's system in order for the user to get to any new PUP/DOG desktop.

Again, this is merely information that I'm sure the community is aware.

[Clarity]

P.S, Since SG2D is open-source, I would guess someone could change its Screen to be more PUP/forum specific.

Then their USB stick would readily display the list with a forum theme, IMHO.

[rcrsn51]

There is a separate utility somewhere that will create it for you.

So you are confirming that this file is being written to my boot drive without my permission.

[Clarity]

@rcrsn51 Is it on your boot drive?

Is there something more?

If you object to how the PUP developers are doing something in open source, complain to them. They are public on GIT, too.

Far as I can tell, they did this on their own for PUP needs. No one in this community, AFAIK, requested such. They see a benefit of recording something a user does for subsequent benefit to the user and other PUP versions a user would use.

IMHO, you can erase it if you find compromise at some level. Or you can update it to your liking. Or ???

Personally, I applaud their work, thus far. They seem to fix issues that compromise and they are present as helpers from time to time.

In the use of this feature, knowingly or unknowingly, I have not found this single file to have ANY ill effect of the PUP or the PUP's operation. Nor have I seen anyone complain that it is not helpful in its intended purpose.

You might want to ask around.

In my case, if it will help, it is on my boot USB in the Bootisos folder along with all of the ISO files the USB has.

BTW: The utility I mentioned that can create it, is a PUP utility I seem to remember somewhere in my past stumbling in the systems.

You are one of this forum's senior member.

Hope some/any of this is helpful.

[fredx181]

@Clarity I don't think that @rcrsn51 is accusing you of something, neither asking you to defend something that Puppy developers made.
Just asked for confirmation yes/no (which you gave: yes), that's all IMO.

[Clarity]

The ISO file boot methods I have been testing over the past 4 years have brought to light a lot of review in how live boot distros operate in persistence modes.

PUPPY LInux has one of the best IMHO for the exemplary and simple method that they've subtly employed for our use going forward in distro versions as well as session consistencies. (I hope this comment makes sense.)

I am very close to presenting the community with a document that I feel can be useful to everyone who is a modern PUP distro user in this forum.

Further, I feel, it will reduce some of the many issues we've seen users bring to the forum for boot assistances.

My idea, here, is that if we can make this so simple to understand and reduce the legwork-modification efforts to near zero, we will also reduce the problems they run into to a near zero as well.

This is NOT a crusade, rather MY attempts are to share to help.

[MochiMoppel]

Would like to hear your comments.

EDIT: There are, now, 2 image files at the download site, above:

1. One creates a "ext2" filesystem

2. while the other creates an "f2fs" filesystem

on your USB stick. You can choose either one and you can expect your choice to work, booting the ISOs on your 64bit PCs.

@Clarity My first attempt to try one of your IMG files, using a brand new USB3.1 stick as target. Didn't go well. "Something" was written to the stick, but since I can't mount it, I don't know what. Gparted also tells me that these are fat32 and ntfs partitions. Not what I expected. What did I do wrong?

screen_2022-12-01_16-14-45.jpg (106.5 KiB) Viewed 1869 times

[mikewalsh]

@Clarity :-

Hmm... Do you ever do a "proper" install of any OS, or do you run absolutely everything via SG2D and/or QEMU? I ask, because you seem to mention these things more often than anything else....

(This is no "niggle", or moan, or complaint. Not this time. I'm genuinely curious! )

Mike.

[Clarity]

HI @MochiMoppel

YOu downloaded the smaller of the all there (1GB IMG). And it looks like the write to the USB works.You should be able to mount and view the contents of the NTFS partitioin to see PUP ISO files. Further your stick should be bootable.

Yes, that IMG has 2 partitions, and the 2nd is smaller than your stick. It looks right and your command to put it to your stick seems correct as it is the reverse I used to create the IMG file
dd if=/dev/sdd of=/root/filename,img bs=1M --progress.

You can expand that 2nd partition (via GParted, of course) as this is where ALL of your ISO files will be housed within the BOOTISOS folder. And expanding it will 'fix' the partition table.

Question

• Can you mount sdd2?

• Do you see the contents?
  And, did your USB mounts, mount as 'rw' or 'ro'

P.S. I will get my 1GB stick and boot, again, to test if boot-abilitiy.

[Clarity]

@mikewalsh Do you want an academic discussion here????
OR should you OPEN A PERSONAL THREAD to discuss merits?

So far, I only see 'niggles" over the years from you, IMHO.

Someone at your level should know the advantages of download and boot to desktop, directly, without any intermediate step(s).

If you want, I am open to have an offline discussion or a discusson on a thread you start to discuss merits. Much of which has been published on the open forum.

For Other Members
For about 3 years, now, I merely download a forum ISO file to my USB and boot it along with all the other ISO files on the USB. I do NOT make any prior changes to accomplish such. And I have ALL the same benefits we expect from the PUP distros INCLUDING "Persistence"; namely 'saved-sessions' in Puppy lingo. Puppy architecture affords us the benefits I have been publishing. Everything we need is enclosed within the scope of all WoofCE PUPs...built-in

[MochiMoppel]

@Clarity Finally some progress...and some failures.
But let's start from the beginning of my adventure.

1) The trigger
I saw your post here . Because it promised a small download, I decided to go for it. I'm using Slacko 5.6 on a 2GB Netbook.
Downloaded SG2Dwith2PUPs.img.zip and unzipped, but I didn't know what to do with it.

2) Hunting for info
In your opening post I found, as kind of side note "You will notice, too, on the download site that there is a "README..." of known utilities that will create a USB from an image file" . OK, finally a hint on how to create such device. Next stop your Google Drive - again.
Found 2 READMEs in DOCX format and a script FlashImage2USB.sh. Downloaded all 3.
What I don't understand here: Why 2 READMEs when 1 would suffice? Why DOCX and why on the Google Drive at all? It's not that much information and it would make a perfect forum post. Please consider to make this important information easier to access for casual users like me.

3) The acid test
Tried the FlashImage2USB.sh script. The code starts with "# CREDIT: Prepare and submitted by BigPUP on the Puppy Linux Forum" Couldn't find anything "on the Puppy Linux Forum", not the new one, not the old one. Maybe @bigpup can help?
Anyway, the script didn't work for me - and so did your code examples in your READMEs. The problem is the status=progress argument, which is not supported in my version of dd. BK mentioned this in his blog post and wrote that he had solved the issue in his easydd . Maybe, as a general rule, it would help if you also test your tools on older Puppies to find any incompatibilities. Even such stone age tools like dd may contain surprises

With a reduced dd command I achieved what you saw in my previous post. I tried to mount the resulting mess with pmount. Pmount froze and I had to kill it.

4) Testing on a different computer
I removed the stick from my Netbook and tried to boot with it on my desktop PC (sporting an old AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ with 2GB RAM). Nothing: "This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy ...". Good joke. In the BIOS the stick didn't even show up, so couldn't prioritize it in the boot order. Back to the Netbook ...

5) Second attempt
Inserted the stick and - tadaaaaa!! - both partitions appeared as icons and could be mounted. Gparted showed no problems:

screen_2022-12-02_11crop.png (29.34 KiB) Viewed 1766 times

Seems that all I should have been done is remove and reinsert the stick.
I expanded the 2nd partition with Gparted, added 2 ISOs (tahr-6.0.6-uefi.iso and xenialpup-7.5-uefi.iso) to /BOOTISOS and booted. Being on a 32bit machine I booted Slacko7.0 - and it worked. Great!
The problem: the 2 ISOs I added didn't show up in the menu. The menu says that it looked into /boot-isos and /boot/boot-isos, both directories that don't exist in your setup Why does it find your 2 ISOs in /BOOTISOS but not mine?

So as of today I have a stick that works on *some* computers and doesn't accept new ISOs.
I also don't understand the choice of NTFS as file system. To make it MS Windows compatible? Just a mistake? In your opening post you claim that your IMG files are formatted as EXT2 or F2FS (BTW: Adding the information which of the files is formatted as what would be helpful)

Anyway, interesting stuff Thank you!

[mikewalsh]

@MochiMoppel :-

With regard to your comment above about the "status=progress" thing with your version of dd in Slacko 5.6.0, you might like to try the attached statically-linked "dd" binary.

This is the exact same dd that BK offered up when we were discussing EasyDD a couple of years ago, and when I built & made available the portable versions of that utility. I soon found that it would run in absolutely ANY Puppy I tried it in; being statically-linked, it doesn't even seem to worry about what arch it runs under, either.

Up to you, of course. It's a good, drop-in replacement for existing versions in any Pup.

Mike.

[Clarity]

@MochiMoppel, Thank you VERY MUCH for sharing what you ran into. I am going to embrace your comments and address the issues you present. This feedback is needed and appreciated.

You hit a problem with the ISO files you selected. Those are not ones of the builds done of the modern (since 2019) WoofCE PUPs. All of the modern ones I have tested and they work. All of the modern DOGs boot from their ISOs as well. Also, excepting for a minor issue with last 2 versions of KLV, it boots those as well (these beta versions are currently under reveiw). All of the modern forum PUP/DOG/KLV ISO files have been tested and they should boot to desktop via your SG2D stick.

I have a 32bit PC and it has a dedicated SG2D stick with 32bit ISO files that I use to test periodically.

32bit ISO files tested on a 32bit PC

32bit ISO files on SG2D.jpg (90.72 KiB) Viewed 1726 times

Question

Have you tested any of the modern ISO files or Ubuntu?

P.S. You are correct about NTFS. It is used so that a Windows user could review/add ISO files using a MAC or Windows or Unix or LInux PC. I will make this plain for those who download the ready-to-run IMG files I make.

NTFS
I recently ran some tests of different filesystem formats on a couple of USB sticks. I compared performance of NTFS vs ExFAT/F2FS/Ext4/Ext2: there is ltille to no performace advantage observable on these sticks. For SG2D and others ISO file listers, it does NOT matter as the stick's filesystem(s) have nothing to do with the booted operating system's behavior. The sticks play no part in the OS at all and in many cases it is unmounted upon distro desktop arrival.

Thus for the IMG you selected, it is much better for the universe of users coming to the forum.

[MochiMoppel]

Question
Have you tested any of the modern ISO files or Ubuntu?

Your IMG file already comes with 2 "modern" ISO files and I tested one of them. Almost all new distros come as 64bit. How can I test them when my 64bit machine doesn't even recognize the boot device?

BTW on my Netbook the BIOS lists following boot options:
USB HDD: USB
IDE HDD: ATA Hitachi HTS54322
IDE USB: BUFFALO USB Flash Disk (that's my normal boot stick)
IDE USB: Generic-Multi-Card (that's a bootable SD card)

I wonder why the newly created stick appears just as "USB" while its full name is "USB SanDisk 32Gen1" (recognized as such in pmount and Gparted). Maybe it's also related to my boot problems on the Athlon PC.

[Clarity]

Hi @MochiMoppel On my netbook, I'm running Slacko v7 (32bit) ISO file on my USB that I showed in the S2GD listing earlier.

If you find any WoofCE PUP that does not boot, please report so that the developer can resolve. All WoofCE PUPs should boot from their ISO files without trouble.