Some Qs about installing and operating Puppy on an externally mounted SDD

[ChrisH]

Hello. I've been a Puppy Linux enthusiast for over ten years but only an occasional user and, until now, only a lurker on the forums. I'm now intending to move to Puppy as my main OS for a number of reasons. I no longer need to use a Windows system for business and my aging, Acer XC-605 desktop is struggling to run the 50+ Gb of Windows 10 that it currently has installed and it will not support Windows 11. And anyway, I just like Puppy best. So I thought I'd join the forum, explain what I'm intending to do and ask if you have any helpful hints and advice, or warnings. Here goes.

I have an ADATA Model XM11 128Gb SSD that I rescued from a dead Asus Zenbook. At the moment it's in a USB caddy and connecting by cable to my PC or laptop through a USB port. After I switch to Puppy I intend to continue to operate with the SSD as an external drive so that I can easily move between the Acer desktop and my laptop, an old Toshiba Satellite L850 with 8Gb of ram but no HDD. Essentially I'm thinking of it as a very large USB drive.

At the moment I intend to create two partitions on the 128Gb SSD. The first partition will be formatted as FAT 32 and will host a frugal installation of Fossapup 9.5 64, with a save file that I'd like to keep as lean as possible.
The second partition will be a data partition, which will become the main repository for all the personal data (less than 100Gb) that I currently hold on the Acer HDD.

So far so good, to my inexperienced eye. But then I started thinking further and some questions cropped up. I'll outline these briefly here but they're pretty disparate so you may prefer that I create individual posts for them in the appropriate parts of the forum. In that case, let me know and I'll be happy to do that.

The first set of questions are about the Fossapup installation and my desire to keep the save file small.

I use Firefox on all my devices and sync my account between them and I'd want to do the same with the Puppy installation. However the footprint of my "user profile" (not sure what the correct term is - I mean those things that make a generic Firefox installation into a ChrisH Firefox installation) is fairly big, so I'd like to keep it out of the save file. I've read lots here about keeping the user profile out of the save file but I'm really not sure that I've understood it. I'm thinking that it would be nice to have Firefox as a "load on the fly" SFS or as one of Mike's "Portables" or as an Appimage but I'm not sure how that would work nor how I'd connect it with my "user profile"? Can anyone point me at the ready answer that's no doubt somewhere on the forum?

I'm aiming to do much the same with the other non-native Puppy apps that I use regularly. Tartube and gThumb are examples.

I'm presuming that if I make the FAT32 partition about 8 - 10 Gb, that should give me more than enough space to store all the add ons and user profiles.

My second set of questions are about the best format for the second, data partition. This is really driven by the fact that I may occasionally need to use a Windows application on one or aother of the files it contains, though I intend to make as clean a break from Windows as I can.

Again, to my inexperienced eye it seems that I have a couple of options for formatting the second partition so that I can achieve this.

I can make the partition NTFS so, if i need to use a Windows (probably Office) application with a file on the SSD, I can simply plug it into the Acer and access the file from the Windows file manager. But that seems a bit of a cop out and I don't know whether there are any disadvantages to having an NTFS data partition in respect of using apps from the Puppy side.

Or I can make the partition ext 3, say, and use Grsync from Puppy to sync the original data folder on the Acer hard drive with the folder on the SSD, from time to time. That way, when I want to work with a Windows application I just work on the file on the Acer HDD and then sync it back once I'm done. But that does seem like a solution that's almost designed to lead to errors. Any better ideas?

Thanks for listening and for all your hard work in running the forum, any feedback will be gratefully received.

Regards,

ChrisH

[williwaw]

if you want to share data with windows machines I would make the first partition fat 32. the fat 32 will also allow you to UEFI boot

if you keep your saves on an ext partition they can be save folders rather than savefiles, which are more convinent.

your frugal installs can be on either partition

[mikeslr]

Hi ChrisH,

I think you've left out one factor.
To boot-up any Puppy, you'll need a boot-loader to recognize it as an operating system and offer to boot it. With Puppy on a 128 GB SSD in a caddy connected to your computer by cable through your USB-port, there are two ways go about that. I haven't tried either. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I think they are as follows:

You can start with deploying any recent Puppy to a USB-Key. That isn't necessary if you already have a recent Puppy on your internal drive you can boot into. Into that Puppy you can download and install grub2config from here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 703#p29703.

With your 'USB-Caddy Plugged' in, using your Puppy-on-a-stick you can manually deploy (unpack and copy the contents of a Puppy's ISO) any Puppy into a folder on that External Hard-drive. I'll get to which partition on that external hard-drive in a minute. You can then run grub2config and have it do either of the following:
(1) Write to your hard-drive, having selected that it search ALL drives. This will create a boot-loader on your hard-drive whose menu will offer to boot any Puppy on the hard-drive, the External-drive and the USB-Stick, Windows and almost every Linux if one had been deployed. In operation, it Chain-loads Windows' boot-loader. The grub.cfg file it writes is a text file. You can later edit it for example to delete the listing for the USB-Key.
(2) Write to your External-drive with instructions to only search it. But you'll have to configure your computer to give USB-Ports priority over your hard-drive. If I'm not mistaken, you can only do that when a USB-Key or USB-External drive is plugged in.

The boot-loader and config files grub2config writes requires less than 200Mbs of space. This should be formatted Fat32. However, Windows OOTB will only recognize the first partition on an external drive and will not OOTB* recognize Linux formatted partitions. So your first partition on your External Drive should be large enough to hold any files you want Windows to be able to access. Your 2nd and any other partitions on your External Drive should be formatted Linux, either Linux Ext3 or Linux Ext4. There is no advantage in using a SaveFile.. It is 'older' technology developed when it was necessary for Puppys to co-exist on the same partition as Windows. A SaveFile is a block of space with a Linux format. To increase its size requires a reboot; and It can not be shrunk. A SaveFolder, on the other hand, is just a folder. It contracts when you remove stuff, and can expand to the full extent of the available space on its partition.
So, you'll deploy your Puppy into the 2nd or subsequent Linux Formatted partition before you use grub2config to create a boot-loader.

Keeping your SaveFile Small: Fossapup64-9.5 (and more recent Puppys) can use SFSes, AppImages and Portable-Applications. None of these need to be located in a SaveFile/Folder; and SFSes can't be. The only things which actually have to be in a SaveFile/Folder are customizatins, and applications for which there are no AppImages, Portables, SFSes and settings. Settings include the instructions to load an SFS, access a portable and/or start an AppImage. And even that can be avoided.
The Save2SFS module of NicOS-Utiities-Suite, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 983#p12983 can be used to 'capture' the current contents of RAM (which holds your customizations, settings and installed by not yet Saved Applications, plus anything you've already Saved and write them to either a READ-ONLY adrv.sfs or ydrv.sfs which placed adjacent to your other system files will become part of your system. As Fossapup64-9.5's ISO already has an adrv.sfs (adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs) you'll want to Right-Click it, select rename and rename it ydrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. Adrv's and Ydrv's are exactly the same, except that adrv's have priority. You'll want your settings and customizations to overwrite the defaults.

Take the time to read thru the Additional Software Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=7 and Fossapup64-9.5's User Contributed Packages Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 8980#p8980 for applications which may interterest you. Also note that currently Ozsouth is developing a 'light-weight-updated' version of Fossapup64 which is spawning some new, light-weight applications. And you may want to consider deploying Friendly-Fossa, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 902#p43902 rather than the original.
But especially take a look at the almost complete list of portables Mikewalsh has published that will run under Fossapup64, viewtopic.php?p=48734&sid=42b4d58b5f2a5 ... a76#p48734. Almost in that he has not yet updated that list to include a link to his Wine-portable v. 5.11 https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 065#p68191

The advantage of Mike's firefox portable over a firefox.sfs is that like all his portables it is 'self-contained'. It's folder will hold your settings (profile) and any web-cache (keeping the latter out of RAM). And most portables are updateable. Firefox is. That means that none of the space in your SaveFile/Folder is used to hold the update; no wasted space on your hard-drive; no need to execute a Save in order for the update to 'persist'. Mike includes a script 'Menu-Add' which will create an entry on your Menu from where-ever you've located the portable.

You might want to consider Mike's portable Softmaker Office. While it only offers Wordprocessor, spreadsheet and presentation programs these are reputed to be the best at reading-writing Microsoft datafiles. Eventually you'd have to register; but the company doesn't share the email you give them; and doesn't constantly nag you to upgrade to a paid version: maybe twice a year.

Either gThumb or Xnview (I prefer the latter) can be installed and initially that install and its 'profile' would be written to RAM so occupy your SaveFile/Folder if you wanted to preserve them that way. But as mentioned above, you could use Save2SFS to locate them in an adrv.sfs. [You might initially have to create a Save before executing Sav2SFS. IIRC, while I could install gThumbs via Puppy Package Manager I had to hunt for some missing libraries. PPM doesn't offer XnView. But a deb from its website could be installed and missing libs tracked down].

I don't know to what extent rsync is necessary. Any Puppy can access any Windows partition and copy into it any file or folder from any Linux partition.

I didn't know tartube existed before you mentioned it. For watching videos, Mike published Freetube portable. And ETP Global IP TV panel, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 4037#p4037. There's also smtube which I have under Bionicpup but never tried setting up under Fossapup. Videodownload helper (a firefox addon) does a good job, itself, downloading; and there are threads on the forum mentioning websites which can be used when you plug in a URL.
I'll let you know what if any hurdles I encounter fashioning tartube for Puppys.

By the way, even completely 'fleshed-out' to include your Puppy, SFSes, AppImages and Portables EXCLUSIVE of datafiles, I doubt you're Puppy will need more than 20Gbs. And I'll mention another advantage of AppImages, SFSes and Portables. Often they can be used by more than one Puppy. So if in the future you decide to try another, it will likely only need its own folder, about 4 Gbs for its Unique files and access all or most of the AppImages, SFSes and Portables you already have. [Sometimes a different Puppy will need some additional libraries].

-=--=-=-=-
* There are programs you can install into Windows which will enable it to read-write Linux formatted partitions. But I don't know if even they will get beyond the 1st partition of an external drive.

[mikeslr]

Just an update regarding your interest in Tartube. I just downloaded and unpacked the deb file. It' control file notes:
Version: 2.4.386-1
Architecture: all
Maintainer: A S Lewis <aslewis@cpan.org>
Installed-Size: 7013
Depends: python3-feedparser, python3-gi, python3-matplotlib, python3-requests, python3:any, python3-pip
Section: python
Priority: optional
Homepage: https://tartube.sourceforge.io
Description: GUI front-end for youtube-dl, yt-dlp and other compatible vi
.
Tartube is a GUI front-end for youtube-dl, yt-dlp and other compatible video
downloaders."

This may be a 32-bit application. If so, you'd need to load and configure 32-bit Compatibility SFS to use it, if usable at all. It involves python --the only thing I know about python is that more often if I try to work with it it bites me. And its a front end for youtube-dl and yt-dlp. Puppy already has versions of those with GUIs. But I've never set them up.

I think I'll leave that project for someone else.

[ChrisH]

@williwaw and @mikeslr, thanks for taking the time to respond and for your advice. Especially, @mikeslr, for taking the trouble to write such a detailed response . The flip side of course is that you've given me a lot to think about so I'm off to do that but I'm sure I'll be back shortly with some supplementary questions. In the meantime, thanks again. Regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

Just an update regarding your interest in Tartube. I just downloaded and unpacked the deb file. It' control file notes:
Version: 2.4.386-1
Architecture: all
Maintainer: A S Lewis <aslewis@cpan.org>
Installed-Size: 7013
Depends: python3-feedparser, python3-gi, python3-matplotlib, python3-requests, python3:any, python3-pip
Section: python
Priority: optional
Homepage: https://tartube.sourceforge.io
Description: GUI front-end for youtube-dl, yt-dlp and other compatible vi
.
Tartube is a GUI front-end for youtube-dl, yt-dlp and other compatible video
downloaders."

This may be a 32-bit application. If so, you'd need to load and configure 32-bit Compatibility SFS to use it, if usable at all. It involves python --the only thing I know about python is that more often if I try to work with it it bites me. And its a front end for youtube-dl and yt-dlp. Puppy already has versions of those with GUIs. But I've never set them up.

I think I'll leave that project for someone else.

Hi Mike, Tartube seems to work relatively glitch free in my current Fossapup 9.5 64bit installation but I'm very interested to hear that there are Puppy specific alternatives so I'll take a look at those when the time comes to include something like it with my new SSD installation .

[mikeslr]

"Hi Mike, Tartube seems to work relatively glitch free in my current Fossapup 9.5 64bit installation but I'm very interested to hear that there are Puppy specific alternatives so I'll take a look at those when the time comes to include something like it with my new SSD installation."

Your posts perked my interest in Tartube. It's GUI seemed very nice. So I tried a couple ways to install it into my Fossapup64. PPM (Puppy Package Manager) offers a pet. Installs but running it via terminal reports (IIRC) g1 not found. Fiddled with the deb from its web-site to the point where IIRC it gave the same error. As I said, python bites me. But maybe its something on my system which breaks it.

Alternatives: You'll find youtube-get3-1.5.3_noarch.pet here, viewtopic.php?p=40863#p40863. The first time you run it it will tell you it's missing a component (yt-dlp) and offer to download it. Click OK, it will and thereafter it works fine. As you can see (albeit earlier model) it's a simple GUI, but includes a button to update yt-dlp if and when that become necessary (url change). viewtopic.php?p=40855#p40855

Also available via PPM is smtube. Haven't played with the combination yet to figure out how after finding something via smtube I can use youtube-get to download it.*

Smtube GUI.png (193.51 KiB) Viewed 679 times

See amethyst's post regarding alternate download methods, viewtopic.php?p=48267#p48267

* Edit, Update: Just did. You can Right-Click the title of something smtube displays, get its URL and drop it into youtube-get.

[ChrisH]

Hi @mikeslr ,

I've carefully read through your first block of advice and I'd just like to play back my understanding of it to make sure I've understood it, clarify a few of the points you raise and let you know what I intend to do going forward, in case that's of any interest or useful to know. I've copied a stripped down version of your original text here and set out my questions at the relevant places within it.

@mikeslr wrote: "To boot-up any Puppy, you'll need a boot-loader to recognize it as an operating system and offer to boot it. .. You can start with deploying any recent Puppy to a USB-Key. .. Into that Puppy you can download and install grub2config from here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 703#p29703. .. With your 'USB-Caddy Plugged' in, using your Puppy-on-a-stick you can manually deploy (unpack and copy the contents of a Puppy's ISO) any Puppy into a folder on that External Hard-drive. I'll get to which partition on that external hard-drive in a minute."

ChrisH comments: My current Puppy is an installation of Fossapup 9.5 64 bit on a 4Gb USB key made using Frugalpup from my previous Puppy incarnation. I've been making Puppies that way for a while now and I can't remember how the original egg got made before I had any chicken Puppies. The relevance of this comment is that I'd intended to use the same method to drop my new Puppy onto a FAT32 partition on the external SDD, at least until I read your comments on having a small Grub2 partition and having the Puppy installations in a following Linux partition. About that, more below.

@mikeslr wrote: "You can then run grub2config and have it do either of the following:

(1) Write to your hard-drive, having selected that it search ALL drives. This will create a boot-loader on your hard-drive whose menu will offer to boot any Puppy on the hard-drive, the External-drive and the USB-Stick, Windows and almost every Linux if one had been deployed. In operation, it Chain-loads Windows' boot-loader. The grub.cfg file it writes is a text file. You can later edit it for example to delete the listing for the USB-Key."

ChrisH comments: If I've understood you correctly here, I think you are suggesting that I use grub2config to create a boot loader on the internal HDD of the Acer desktop so that I can simply boot to Windows as usual or, if I want to run my Puppy system, I first plug in the SDD to a USB port, fire up the Acer and select Puppy from the grub menu. While that's an interesting suggestion, I think I'd prefer to leave the Acer installation unmodified because I'm not the only user and having a new boot menu pop up on start up may not go down well with my beloved. My intention was, as mentioned, to treat the SDD as though it were a USB key and boot to it by calling up the Windows boot menu at start up using the F12 key. Of course I've been blithely presuming that such an approach would work. Which may be where your next comment comes in.

@mikeslr wrote: "(2) Write to your External-drive with instructions to only search it. But you'll have to configure your computer to give USB-Ports priority over your hard-drive. If I'm not mistaken, you can only do that when a USB-Key or USB-External drive is plugged in."

ChrisH comments: Particularly "But you'll have to configure your computer to give USB-Ports priority over your hard-drive." I presume this comment is driven by the assumption that I'd like to avoid having to manually interrupt the boot process in order to force a boot from the USB? I appreciate the suggestion but if that's the case and if there's no reason why the manual approach wouldn't work then I'll go down manual route for the reason I've given.

@mikeslr wrote: "The boot-loader and config files grub2config writes requires less than 200Mbs of space. This should be formatted Fat32."

ChrisH comments: So I think your point here is that I could choose to configure a very small FAT32 partition to hold only the boot loader files and hold any Puppy installation files on an immediately following Linux ext3 or ext4 partition sized somewhere between 10Gb and 20GB? If I go down that route and if memory serves me correctly, I think I could achieve that using Frugalpup. Is that correct?

@mikeslr wrote: "However, Windows OOTB will only recognize the first partition on an external drive and will not OOTB* recognize Linux formatted partitions. So your first partition on your External Drive should be large enough to hold any files you want Windows to be able to access. Your 2nd and any other partitions on your External Drive should be formatted Linux, either Linux Ext3 or Linux Ext4."

ChrisH comments: I think I'm giving up on the idea of being able to boot up the Acer using its native Windows OS and then plug in the Puppy SDD as though it were simply external storage just so that I can work on a document using a particular Windows app. I'm beginning to think that it will be simpler and cleaner to make them available by transferring copies to a USB stick or bouncing them through Google Drive or Dropbox. That way my choices about formatting the SDD get simpler. Small FAT32 with boot loader and one or two large Linux partitions for (a) Puppies and (b) Data. I think I'm sold on the small FAT32 boot partition. I just need to make my mind up whether it's even worth separating the Puppies from the data when I can do that with folders. Do you have any views on that?

@mikeslr wrote: "There is no advantage in using a SaveFile.. It is 'older' technology developed when it was necessary for Puppys to co-exist on the same partition as Windows. A SaveFile is a block of space with a Linux format. To increase its size requires a reboot; and It can not be shrunk. A SaveFolder, on the other hand, is just a folder. It contracts when you remove stuff, and can expand to the full extent of the available space on its partition."

ChrisH comments: Thanks. Long ago I picked up from somewhere in the (authorised) Puppyverse that Save files were to be preferred over folders, though I can't now find where, and I've been keeping the faith with that advice ever since. But with your advice and now that I've read @Rockedge viewtopic.php?t=5209, I'm become a heretic. So it's Save Folders for me from now on.

@mikeslr wrote: "So, you'll deploy your Puppy into the 2nd or subsequent Linux Formatted partition before you use grub2config to create a boot-loader."

ChrisH comments: Check! Or maybe use Frugalpup?

@mikeslr wrote: "Fossapup64-9.5 (and more recent Puppys) can use SFSes, AppImages and Portable-Applications. None of these need to be located in a SaveFile/Folder; and SFSes can't be. The only things which actually have to be in a SaveFile/Folder are customizations, and applications for which there are no AppImages, Portables, SFSes and settings. Settings include the instructions to load an SFS, access a portable and/or start an AppImage. And even that can be avoided.

The Save2SFS module of NicOS-Utiities-Suite, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 983#p12983 can be used to 'capture' the current contents of RAM (which holds your customizations, settings and installed by not yet Saved Applications, plus anything you've already Saved and write them to either a READ-ONLY adrv.sfs or ydrv.sfs which placed adjacent to your other system files will become part of your system. As Fossapup64-9.5's ISO already has an adrv.sfs (adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs) you'll want to Right-Click it, select rename and rename it ydrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. Adrv's and Ydrv's are exactly the same, except that adrv's have priority. You'll want your settings and customizations to overwrite the defaults."

ChrisH comments: Thanks for the explanation. I'll be reading further on this approach once I've got the basic Puppy system up and running.

@mikeslr wrote: "Take the time to read thru the Additional Software Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=7 and Fossapup64-9.5's User Contributed Packages Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 8980#p8980 for applications which may interterest you.

Also note that currently Ozsouth is developing a 'light-weight-updated' version of Fossapup64 which is spawning some new, light-weight applications. "

ChrisH comments: Thanks, I will take a look.

@mikeslr wrote: "And you may want to consider deploying Friendly-Fossa, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 902#p43902 rather than the original."

ChrisH comments: On your advice I'll take a look at Friendly but I'd be interested to hear why you think I might get on better with it than the original? But please don't feel you need to spend a lot of time explaining, I'm sure I can find out for myself.

@mikeslr wrote: "But especially take a look at the almost complete list of portables Mikewalsh has published that will run under Fossapup64, viewtopic.php?p=48734&sid=42b4d58b5f2a5 ... a76#p48734. Almost in that he has not yet updated that list to include a link to his Wine-portable v. 5.11 https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 065#p68191

The advantage of Mike's firefox portable over a firefox.sfs is that like all his portables it is 'self-contained'. It's folder will hold your settings (profile) and any web-cache (keeping the latter out of RAM). And most portables are updateable. Firefox is. That means that none of the space in your SaveFile/Folder is used to hold the update; no wasted space on your hard-drive; no need to execute a Save in order for the update to 'persist'. Mike includes a script 'Menu-Add' which will create an entry on your Menu from where-ever you've located the portable.

You might want to consider Mike's portable Softmaker Office. While it only offers Wordprocessor, spreadsheet and presentation programs these are reputed to be the best at reading-writing Microsoft datafiles. Eventually you'd have to register; but the company doesn't share the email you give them; and doesn't constantly nag you to upgrade to a paid version: maybe twice a year."

ChrisH comments: Many thanks for the steer. I'll check them all out.

@mikeslr wrote: "Either gThumb or Xnview (I prefer the latter) can be installed and initially that install and its 'profile' would be written to RAM so occupy your SaveFile/Folder if you wanted to preserve them that way. But as mentioned above, you could use Save2SFS to locate them in an adrv.sfs. [You might initially have to create a Save before executing Sav2SFS. IIRC, while I could install gThumbs via Puppy Package Manager I had to hunt for some missing libraries. PPM doesn't offer XnView. But a deb from its website could be installed and missing libs tracked down]."

ChrisH comments: Noted and thanks for the steer towards Xnview, I'll check it out.

@mikeslr wrote: "I don't know to what extent rsync is necessary. Any Puppy can access any Windows partition and copy into it any file or folder from any Linux partition."

ChrisH comments: You're right. Of course. Put it down to my natural inclination to overcomplicate the solution which I will now hammer down and force back into its box!

@mikeslr wrote: "I didn't know tartube existed before you mentioned it. For watching videos, Mike published Freetube portable. And ETP Global IP TV panel, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 4037#p4037. There's also smtube which I have under Bionicpup but never tried setting up under Fossapup. Videodownload helper (a firefox addon) does a good job, itself, downloading; and there are threads on the forum mentioning websites which can be used when you plug in a URL. I'll let you know what if any hurdles I encounter fashioning tartube for Puppys."

ChrisH comments: I use Tartube simply because I found it in the A&V section of Quickpet FossaPup64 and thought I'd try it out. I've been using it ever since.

@mikeslr wrote: "By the way, even completely 'fleshed-out' to include your Puppy, SFSes, AppImages and Portables EXCLUSIVE of datafiles, I doubt you're Puppy will need more than 20Gbs. And I'll mention another advantage of AppImages, SFSes and Portables. Often they can be used by more than one Puppy. So if in the future you decide to try another, it will likely only need its own folder, about 4 Gbs for its Unique files and access all or most of the AppImages, SFSes and Portables you already have. [Sometimes a different Puppy will need some additional libraries]."

ChrisH comments: Thanks for that explanation.

Finally, I'd like to ask whether I should choose ext3 or ext4 for the Linux partitions? I read, on the old forum I think, that ext3 is more "stable" than ext4 but that advice is dated now so I'm presuming that ext4 is the way to go. I'll do some further reading anyway, before I decide, but I just wondered what is your opinion?

Many thanks again for all your help. Best regards,

ChrisH

[ChrisH]

"Hi Mike, Tartube seems to work relatively glitch free in my current Fossapup 9.5 64bit installation but I'm very interested to hear that there are Puppy specific alternatives so I'll take a look at those when the time comes to include something like it with my new SSD installation."

Your posts perked my interest in Tartube. It's GUI seemed very nice. So I tried a couple ways to install it into my Fossapup64. PPM (Puppy Package Manager) offers a pet. Installs but running it via terminal reports (IIRC) g1 not found. Fiddled with the deb from its web-site to the point where IIRC it gave the same error. As I said, python bites me. But maybe its something on my system which breaks it.

Alternatives: You'll find youtube-get3-1.5.3_noarch.pet here, viewtopic.php?p=40863#p40863. The first time you run it it will tell you it's missing a component (yt-dlp) and offer to download it. Click OK, it will and thereafter it works fine. As you can see (albeit earlier model) it's a simple GUI, but includes a button to update yt-dlp if and when that become necessary (url change). viewtopic.php?p=40855#p40855

Also available via PPM is smtube. Haven't played with the combination yet to figure out how after finding something via smtube I can use youtube-get to download it.*
Smtube GUI.png

See amethyst's post regarding alternate download methods, viewtopic.php?p=48267#p48267

* Edit, Update: Just did. You can Right-Click the title of something smtube displays, get its URL and drop it into youtube-get.

Thanks Mike, I'll take a look. The Tartube from Quickpet works fine in nearly all circumstances for me. I have a feeling that it kicks out if asked to download any restricted content, though it's not supposed to. I think the last time I got it running I had to install an updated version via PPM but I can't recall for sure.

[mikeslr]

Responding, trying to keep it short:
I now know that on your computer you boot up Fossapup64-9.5 on a USB-Key by pressing the F12 key (which I take-it brings up a Menu with booting from the USB-port as a choice). It’s likely you can boot into the USB-External drive the same way without having to change boot-order.

One large Linux Formatted (Linux Ext3 or Linux Ext4) is fine. It’s actually what I have. But there are some advantages in having two: (a) keeping track of things; (b) using rsync to backup system files without having to back-up data (c) the rare possibility that if something you do corrupts the partition holding your Puppy(s) your datafiles on a different partition can still be accessed and the main one (d) having a second Linux partition in some rare instances may be necessary. I don’t use rsync; there are simpler ways to backup Puppys and/or data. (c) Has never happened to me. And I only needed a 2nd Linux partition once: I was exploring building my own Puppy using woof.

Having data on a different partition means you have to mount it before using it which complicates simply writing data files. On the other hand, not having sensitive datafiles on Puppys’ partition adds a level of security. Puppy only automatically mounts the partition it boots from. When you boot from a USB-Key Puppy DOES NOT automatically write to that Key. You have a Save Launcher on your Desktop and will be asked at shutdown if you want to Save. But when Puppy is deployed to an internal hard-drive it writes to ‘storage’ immediately. I don’t know how Puppy will treat an External Hard-drive accessed via the USB-port. Likely as if it were a USB-Key; but maybe not.

At any rate, you can check and configure it to function as if it were a USB-Key. Both grub2config and Frugalpup-Installer will write grub2 and its grub.cfg to the location you choose. grub.cfg is a text file you can open in a text editor and modify. You may see a line like this (blue for emphasis only):

linux /fossa64a/vmlinuz psubdir=/fossa64a pmedia=atahd pfix=fsck

If so, its being treated as a hard-drive. Change that to read:
linux /fossa64a/vmlinuz psubdir=/fossa64a pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck

and it will be treated as a ‘Flash-Drive. But you may have to take one one step. Open Menu>System>Puppy Event Manager, click the Save Sessions Tab, set the Save Interval to 0=zero and put a check in the ‘Ask at Shutdown’ box.

I always run Puppys that way. I don’t want junk from the internet or mistakes I made automatically preserved. [Set up that way you can still test applications before preserving them. Menu>Exit>Restart Graphical Server causes Puppys to re-catalog what then constitutes it operating system.

If you’re not using a SaveFile/Folder, on boot-up Puppy will dismount the partition it booted from. But even using a SaveFile/Folder you can choose to only mount the other partition holding sensitive data, copy over only what you now need, then dismount it. If you can’t see it, neither can hackers. [‘though a seasoned hacker can figure out how to mount the other partition; but not without you realizing something is happening]. Just something to think about.

You can probably use Frugalpup. gyrog developed frugalpup to enable Puppys to be booted from computers using UEFI. Before it there was only grub4dos which can’t be used with UEFI computers. Frugalpup offers several choices and what you then have to do depends on which choice you’ve made. gyrog did a very good job and I used Frugalpup on several occasions before shinobar published grub2config. I have the memory of a ‘sieve’. Each time I used frugalpup I’d have to read and follow its instructions. I do ‘manual installs’ and in such nstance the procedure for grub2config is exactly the same as for grub4dos: Create a folder, copy Puppy’s system files into it; run grub2config/grub4dos. If your familiar with frugalpup I see no reason it can’t be used.
The important point is to end up with your bootloader and its grub.cnf on your USB-External drive. Each time a Puppy boots it assigns a value to USB and Hard-Drives other than the one it booted from. That value may differ from one boot to another. There may be code you can include in your boot-stanza to work-around that; but off-hand I don’t know it. So you want the stanza being written by either Frugalpup or grub2config to see the Drive it is on as the Drive to boot from. [Which I think contradicts my prior suggestion of possibly writing the boot-loader to your internal hard-drive. Mentally juggling possibilities can be difficult.]

You may have picked up the preference for SaveFiles from me. For a long time I mistakenly assumed they were compressed, so added a level of security against hackers. They are not.

My Friendly-frugal recommendation. Not as significant now that I know your already familiar with Puppys. Friendly is really great for newbies. It has an alternate file-manager (xfe –dual-pane plus a tree view--) so learning the quirks of rox can be put off. It has really solid help files. It has AppFInder which can serve as an alternate menu that provides a description of each application so you’re not at a loss as to what’s already available. Other than that, some of its applications have been updated.

Bye the way, as I wrote in my original reply "I haven't tried either". My advice as to how to actually get Puppy to boot from an external hard-drive connected thru a USB-Port is derived from what I recalled from a post by (I think) bigpup. Word of warning. I have a flaky memory. Hence, my change of mind about where to write grub2 and grub.cfg. I'll be interested to find out if my advice --regardless of which boot-loader you choose-- works.

[ChrisH]

@mikeslr Thank you once again for taking the time and trouble to give such a thorough reply. I think I know enough now to crack on and give it a try, so I'll go and do that and let you get back to what you were meaning to do . I will let you know how I get on and particularly what works and what doesn't. Which means I'd better take notes because my memory is shot too. Regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

@mikeslr Hi Mike, I managed to get the first stage of this completed tonight. I partitioned the SSD into 1 x FAT32 @ 512Mib (the size @shinobar recommends in another post) for the boot files, 1 x ext4 @ 19Gb for the Puppies, save folders and portables, etc., and then another ext4 using the remaining space (less a small, 1.5Gb reserve) for the data. I then used Frugalpup to install Fossapup on the Puppies partition in its own folder and install grub2 to the boot partition. I tested the boot up and everything worked perfectly. It only took twenty minutes! I'll get on with the initial configuration tomorrow. Regards, Chris

[mikeslr]

Great that it booted.

Many years ago I discovered that not all of my 'Great ideas' on paper work in the real world.

[bigpup]

@mikeslr Hi Mike, I managed to get the first stage of this completed tonight. I partitioned the SSD into 1 x FAT32 @ 512Mib (the size @shinobar recommends in another post) for the boot files, 1 x ext4 @ 19Gb for the Puppies, save folders and portables, etc., and then another ext4 using the remaining space (less a small, 1.5Gb reserve) for the data. I then used Frugalpup to install Fossapup on the Puppies partition in its own folder and install grub2 to the boot partition. I tested the boot up and everything worked perfectly. It only took twenty minutes! I'll get on with the initial configuration tomorrow. Regards, Chris

Understand that data you store on the ext formatted partitions, Windows OS will not be able to see it.

Windows cannot access Linux formats.

You could reformat the 1.5Gb data partition to ntfs format.
Windows should be able to access it.
No problem with Puppy being able to access ntfs formats.

If you do not care about Windows OS being able to access it, keep it as it is.

You will be like the rest of us.

We do not need no stinking Windows to do anything

[ChrisH]

Hi @bigpup,

Thanks for your advice. @mikeslr had made the same point earlier on in the thread.

The 1.5Gb is actually the free space at the end of the 128Gib external SSD, which is now formatted as described. The "data" partition is nearly 100Gb and formatted as ext4, as I wrote. This will eventually contain a copy of my data folders from my Windows 10 desktop.

I had originally considered formatting the data folder as NTFS so that I could, if necessary, access it using Windows from the desktop for those occasions when I might really need to work on a document using a Windows application. In the end I've decided to make a clean break and go with the Linux format. If I do find that I need to use a Windows app I'll dump the necessary documents into a FAT32 USB key and get at them from Windows that way.

As a matter of interest, is there any practical difference between the choice of formats, ext4 vs NTFS, when it comes to day to day use by a Puppy operating system?

The question that I'm still wrestling with follows from a throw away comment by @mikeslr much earlier in this thread to the effect that there's little reason to separate the Puppy OS directories and the data directories by using different partitions. I have to admit that it is just a long standing habit of mine from way back in the days of very flaky Windows systems. I'll be setting the data partition to mount at boot up anyway because it'll have my Dropbox folder on it and I'll probably run Dropbox on start up. If you have time, could you offer your sixpenny worth on that question?

Thanks again and best regards,

ChrisH

[bigpup]

is there any practical difference between the choice of formats, ext4 vs NTFS, when it comes to day to day use by a Puppy operating system?

Only affect is if Puppy save is placed on the ntfs format.
It has to be a save file.

A save folder can only be placed on a Linux format.

Puppy installed as a frugal install (all the Puppy files in a folder/directory) does not care about what format it is on.
Any format will work.
When it boots and is loaded into memory, it is running in it's own Linux file system(format).

[mikeslr]

Hi again Chris,

I have my Puppys on one partition of a computer which came with, and still has, Windows 7. On rare occasions I'll stumble across some program I think will be useful under Windows (for example updating rufus) or find some other need to run Windows. Puppys can access partitions formatted Fat32 or ntfs. So it's no problem running Puppy to mount the ntfs partition on which Windows resides and copy anything into it.

[williwaw]

If I do find that I need to use a Windows app I'll dump the necessary documents into a FAT32 USB key and get at them from Windows that way.
ChrisH

that might be more reliable than expecting windows to see a partition on a disk formatted by gparted with mostly linux partitions. I have found windows to be flakey about what should work when accessing disks of other OS. One gotcha is that windows will often offer to reformat your linux disk, and I have heard reports of windows doing it without asking!

Would you format that last 1.5 g space and let us know if windows finds it?
also let us know if windows finds your 512mb fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk?

@mikeslr

So it's no problem running Puppy to mount the ntfs partition on which Windows resides and copy anything into it.

have you found writing to a ntfs which has a windows to be as reliable as just reading from it?
do you think it matters whether the ntfs partition was part of an original windows install, ie formatted by windows? rather than a windows install made on a partition previously formatted by a linux utility?
(It could be my reservations about mixing windows and linux come from some poor experiences many years back, and things have improved since then)

[mikewalsh]

@ChrisH :- Hallo.....and to the "kennels".

Before I go any further, a tip:-

When replying to other people, it's NOT a good idea to do 'comments' using the *mention* function on your own name. You'll end up with about a million notifications from yourself!

Use it on other people's names, by all means. Just NOT your own....

--------------------------------------------

Reading about your hardware set-up, I had to smile. It's an almost exact mirror-image of what I've done myself.

When my truly ancient, 20-yr old Dell lappie finally snuffed it last year, I rescued the 64 GB IDE/PATA KingSpec SSD it was using. I modified a far older Compaq floppy-disk storage box I've had kicking-around for over 30 years to serve as a case, or 'caddy'. I bought an IDE/PATA-to-SATA convertor off Fleabay for all of £3.....which then allowed me to make use of a spare SATA-to-USB 3.0 cable that was also going begging.

I'm currently running Haiku OS on this combo. Been trying to get the thing to run for several years, and at long last the recently-released R1-beta4 finally does, so.....I'm having fun with it.

I've set things up so it'll either boot from the Grub4DOS Advanced Menu OR from a chainloader to the Haiku bootloader on the SSD itself. Can't do it any other way, 'cos Haiku uses the unique BeFS file-system, shared with only two other OSs in the world; the original BeOS of 1997 - from where Haiku derives - and SkyOS. (I think it was also ported to Syllable, but I'm not certain about that one.) Regardless, neither Grub4DOS nor Grub2config can interface with it directly; that honour has to go to Haiku's native boot-loader......and this is why Haiku really needs to have a drive all to itself.

Just imagine trying to set-up a unique file-system on one partition of a multiple-partition drive, where that file-system INSISTS on having its own dedicated bootloader.....and point-blank refuses to 'play nice' with whatever you have booting everything else!

Nightmare....

--------------------------------------

Yep, I concur wi' t'other Mike. The 'portable' browsers solve several problems. They keep the ever-ballooning cache out of the save, 'cos the recommendation for portables is to run them from outside of the file-system anyway, so no need these days for the older "move-the-cache-and-symlink-it-back" trick.

The business of being able to share them between multiple Puppies means it gives me my own version of browser 'Sync', since all Puppies that use it are reading from the same profile, hence bookmarks, extensions of course remain the same. I haven't 'Sync'd' a browser for several years, yet always have common, up-to-date, shared information to work with..!

You can even run a bunch of these portables from a flash drive, in the exact same way that the Windows PortableApps work. And, as stated above, almost all of them have updaters. The 'zilla-based ones have it built-in; I developed an updater script for portable-Chrome, modified it for portable-Iron, then someone else got it working with portable Edge 4 Linux. Fred helped out enormously by figuring out a simple way to implement updaters for the Slimjet, Brave and Ungoogled Chromium portables, amongst others.

You can do this with portable browsers, because they're just a self-contained standard directory. You can't do it with an SFS, Puppy's traditional load-and-run system.....because by design such things are read-only, and cannot be written to.

----------------------------------

You're in GOOD hands here. We'll get ya sorted, sooner or later. Hang in there!

Mike.

[ChrisH]

@bigpup on Thu Jun 22, 2023 1:18 pm and @mikeslr on Thu Jun 22, 2023 1:18 pm, thanks for those clarifications.

@williwaw on Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:54 pm, "Would you format that last 1.5 g space and let us know if windows finds it? also let us know if windows finds your 512mb fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk?" Yep, will do.

@mikewalsh on Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:54 pm. Thanks for the welcome, for the friendly advice about mentions and for the fascinating but challenging snippet about your own, arcane adventures with an old SSD and Haiku OS. And it's very good to know that I'm not alone.

[mikeslr]

@williwaw, I find that Puppys read and write to ntfs formatted partitions equally well. But those were 'factory made'. I've never had a reason to use gparted to format a partition as ntfs.

[amethyst]

@williwaw, I find that Puppys read and write to ntfs formatted partitions equally well. But those were 'factory made'. I've never had a reason to use gparted to format a partition as ntfs.

I've had few issues with Puppy writing to NTFS over the years. Always checked and fixed the ntfs partition for errors afterwards running Windows XP. The big partition with my storage data is ntfs so one of the reasons I keep Windows around.

[ChrisH]

If I do find that I need to use a Windows app I'll dump the necessary documents into a FAT32 USB key and get at them from Windows that way.
ChrisH

that might be more reliable than expecting windows to see a partition on a disk formatted by gparted with mostly linux partitions. I have found windows to be flakey about what should work when accessing disks of other OS. One gotcha is that windows will often offer to reformat your linux disk, and I have heard reports of windows doing it without asking!

Would you format that last 1.5 g space and let us know if windows finds it?
also let us know if windows finds your 512mb fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk?

@mikeslr

So it's no problem running Puppy to mount the ntfs partition on which Windows resides and copy anything into it.

have you found writing to a ntfs which has a windows to be as reliable as just reading from it?
do you think it matters whether the ntfs partition was part of an original windows install, ie formatted by windows? rather than a windows install made on a partition previously formatted by a linux utility?
(It could be my reservations about mixing windows and linux come from some poor experiences many years back, and things have improved since then)

Hi @williwaw. As requested, I formatted the last 1GB or so to NTFS (naming the partition "Styx", because I take a childish delight in that kind of thing), shut down, booted into Windows and inserted the USB. Lo and behold, Windows File Manager did indeed show both the FAT32 boot partition (which is the first on the drive) AND the small NTFS partition AND, as expected, found neither of the two intervening partitions which are formatted to ext4. It also allowed me to drop a file into the NTFS partition which survived the crossing from the underworld to reappear here in the light when I rebooted into Puppy! Yay!

Hope that helps. Let me know if you need anything more.

Regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

So, @mikeslr, I've managed to install my first portable, Firefox (special thanks to @mikewalsh), on my newly created, external SSD Puppy and here I am using it to put this message on the board. Gosh, I have that "kid in a sweetshop" feeling all over again. Now what's next?

[williwaw]

Hi @williwaw. As requested, I formatted the last 1GB or so to NTFS (naming the partition "Styx", because I take a childish delight in that kind of thing), shut down, booted into Windows and inserted the USB. Lo and behold, Windows File Manager did indeed show both the FAT32 boot partition (which is the first on the drive) AND the small NTFS partition AND, as expected, found neither of the two intervening partitions which are formatted to ext4. It also allowed me to drop a file into the NTFS partition which survived the crossing from the underworld to reappear here in the light when I rebooted into Puppy! Yay!

Regards, ChrisH

the true test is to see if anyone has been able to cross back from the other side of the river styx. Ie
will a file created in puppy and written to a ntfs partition have full functionality when opened and changed in windows?

anyway, it looks like things are better than they used to be!

[ChrisH]

Hi @williwaw. As requested, I formatted the last 1GB or so to NTFS (naming the partition "Styx", because I take a childish delight in that kind of thing), shut down, booted into Windows and inserted the USB. Lo and behold, Windows File Manager did indeed show both the FAT32 boot partition (which is the first on the drive) AND the small NTFS partition AND, as expected, found neither of the two intervening partitions which are formatted to ext4. It also allowed me to drop a file into the NTFS partition which survived the crossing from the underworld to reappear here in the light when I rebooted into Puppy! Yay!

Regards, ChrisH

the true test is to see if anyone has been able to cross back from the other side of the river styx. Ie will a file created in puppy and written to a ntfs partition have full functionality when opened and changed in windows?

anyway, it looks like things are better than they used to be!

I'll be trying that too, once I get my personal data transferred onto the SSD and I've got FreeOffice up and running. I'll let you know how that works for me once I do.

[mikewalsh]

So, @mikeslr, I've managed to install my first portable, Firefox (special thanks to @mikewalsh), on my newly created, external SSD Puppy and here I am using it to put this message on the board. Gosh, I have that "kid in a sweetshop" feeling all over again. Now what's next?

@ChrisH :-

Don't go getting the idea that I dreamt up the idea of portable browsers all by myself.....'cos I didn't. While I will take credit for the current incarnation of Firefox-portable in its present format, credit for the introduction of the portable-browser concept goes to @fredx181 , with the original Firefox-portable some 4 or 5 years ago. I think even Fred admitted at some point on the old forum that he'd found the scripts for this idea floating around the web; Firefox-portable, as a concept, has been around almost as long as Firefox itself.....because the way it's always been built - as a self-contained directory - lends itself to this idea right from the "off"!

The idea piqued my curiosity, however, because I'd always wanted to build a Puppy version of a 'portable' Chrome. I did some experimenting; a portable Pale Moon followed in short order, soon followed by a portable version of Thunderbird. Then I turned my attention to the Chromium-based browsers, starting with Opera. Several others helped to refine that first attempt, including Fred, until we had it behaving itself as it should. Then followed portable-Iron.....portable SeaMonkey.....re-built, easier to manage, more 'modular' builds of Firefox 'mainline' & ESR.....portable-Brave, and eventually I felt confident enough to attempt portable Chrome, since it has to run-as-spot (it won't run any other way). Finally I sorted-out portable SlimJet, which was a PITA to get right.

At the same time, I was starting to give the 'portable' treatment to a host of other apps. Fred provided the inspiration, but I admit I was the one who got the bit between his teeth and really ran with it! Almost everything I run these days is a portable build......because to my mind, the concept works so well with Puppy.

If you're interested, you can find the entire list here:-

viewtopic.php?t=5104

....which I DO try to keep as up-to-date as I can.

Mike.

[wiak]

At the same time, I was starting to give the 'portable' treatment to a host of other apps. Fred provided the inspiration, but I admit I was the one who got the bit between his teeth and really ran with it! Almost everything I run these days is a portable build......because to my mind, the concept works so well with Puppy.

If you're interested, you can find the entire list here:-

viewtopic.php?t=5104

....which I DO try to keep as up-to-date as I can.

Mike.

I'm recently using your Slimjet 'portable' except that I've replace its 'slimjet' folder component with the latest beta (40.0.0) I downloaded as tar.xz and uncompressed there. The previous stable version was no longer working for Youtube downloads, but the issue was fixed in that new beta (and therefore will be fixed in next stable release). One other difference is that I edited the LAUNCH script to not remove the PROFILE directory at end of usage - just my current preferred choice to keep previous PROFILE really, but sometimes I might not want to do that. EDIT: actually no... Now letting it rm the PROFILE dir afterall. I'm using it with Zorin lite and the PROFILE directory doesn't seem to be relevant here (I haven't studied the slimjet start script to see how it works) - as things stand in my setup, it isn't storing .config/slimjet or .cache/slimjet outside of user home directory, but that is fine anyway with Zorin lite full install situation.

Admittedly, I don't really need the 'portable' variant - the download slimjet would be enough for me, but also means I can conveniently use the portable with the likes of any Puppy install without needing to think about how to implement it best.

I've also re-changed the libffmpeg.so to provide newer codec types for 40.0.0 release per: https://www.slimjet.com/en/libffmpeg.php which for slimjet 40.0.0 mean using 0.77.0-linux-x64.zip extracted into my slimjet folder after downloading from: https://github.com/nwjs-ffmpeg-prebuilt ... t/releases

Slimjet is pretty good (built in youtube downloader is nice, as is its adblocker - yes extensions to Chromium could do the same but maybe more efficient built in?). I don't know if it has any downsides compared to a normal Chromium release from the likes of Arch Linux. Pity it is only freeware (personal and commercial use allowed) and not proper open-source though.

[ChrisH]

@mikewalsh Thanks for pitching in. Don't worry. I realise that the portables are the result of a collaborative effort. Mikeslr pointed me at your list in one of his posts to this thread so I went and read your notes along with the list.

I've already got the Firefox portable installed and FreeOffice. I'm hoping that the latter will enable me to break free completely from Windows. The only tie back to Windows that I now have is the occasional need to modify heavily formatted documents that were created in Word. If Free Office can properly replace Word for that purpose then with one mighty bound I'll be free.

As a matter of interest, how difficult is it to create a portable? I have no Linux coding expertise at all but I'm retired now and interested to maybe have a go. I need to get Vassal installed and that might be a good candidate for a first attempt. Vassal is an online boardgame engine. There's no AI in it. It simply enables players to play an existing hard copy boardgame online as though face to face. It's written in Java, I think, and is available as a Linux tarball. Look here if you want to know more https://vassalengine.org/download.html.

Anyway, thanks again to you and your collaborators for providing the portables. Best regards, Chris

[greengeek]

I think it would have been best to partition the SSD as follows:

Partition 1 FAT32 4GB (or whatever size you require to allow storage or transfer of the files you want to read across all OSes). FAT32 is happily read by either Windows, Mac or Linux. This partition holds bootloader files and data files.

Partition 2 EXT4 Storage for Puppy files and any data files or programmes/utilities/portables you plan to use. Not readable by Windows so don't use this to transfer files between OSes. Can use this for personal files too (or could add a second EXT4 partition for that purpose)

Partition 3 Linux SWAP. If you are using save file or save folder techniques then set this to 1GB - 2GB range. If you are not going to use save file or save folder (ie using personalised sfs or adrv instead of savefile) then make this SWAP partition 20-30GB