How do I re-install Puppy to nvme drive?

[Governor]

I had a regular Puppy setup on my NVME drive which crashed very badly a few days ago, Not only can I NOT boot from the harddrive, I also can't boot from my Puppy USB. I can only boot from my Puppy CD at this point. I had problems when I just booted from the CD, so now I chose the "copy all files to RAM" option.

I know what will happen if I turn off my computer: all of my settings will be gone when I re-boot: screen, language, time zone, keyboard, ROX options, menu items, bookmarks, etc. So even though I hate doing it, I must leave the computer on for as long as possible. However, I know from experience that eventually, the computer will get so slow that I will have to re-boot, just for practical reasons. I wonder if this is because the memory storage gets used up. Is this normal, or is my computer is infected, or could there be another reason?

It is a total drag to have to re-configure my basic setup, so how do I re-install Puppy and keep my configuration settings as they are now?
Luckily I have several portable apps. Learned the hard way, now I keep these apps off the OS partition.

My portable apps do not seem to be affected by re-installing the OS, how can I achieve the same thing with the configuration file(s)?
Can I move the configuration file(s) to a different drive than that which hosts the OS?
Is it possible to choose the configuration on boot?

Thanks!

[d-pupp]

how can I achieve the same thing with the configuration file(s)?

Govenor if you can mount your hard drive you can copy the save file or folder with all your configurations
The file you are looking for is with all the main puppy files and is named something like fossapup64save-xx. Just copy that file to a safe place
Note: you have to reinstall the same version of puppy to reuse a save file or folder. If you install a different version you must make a new save file or folder. You can however copy files from the old save file into your new one. However unless you know what you are doing it's safer to just use the tools in puppy to set stuff up.

[Governor]

how can I achieve the same thing with the configuration file(s)?

Govenor if you can mount your hard drive you can copy the save file or folder with all your configurations
The file you are looking for is with all the main puppy files and is named something like fossapup64save-xx. Just copy that file to a safe place
Note: you have to reinstall the same version of puppy to reuse a save file or folder. If you install a different version you must make a new save file or folder. You can however copy files from the old save file into your new one. However unless you know what you are doing it's safer to just use the tools in puppy to set stuff up.

I found these save folders:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup/fossapup64save-2 (will be erased on a new install)
/mnt/nvme0n1p3/fossapup/fossapup64save-2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.18-07.21
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2023_June
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-June_2023_2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup-save
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/Fossapup-save-2023-08-28
/mnt/nvme0n1p5/pupsave/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.26-14.22

I have no idea how to determine which one to use.
And more importantly: I have no clue as to how to choose any of them on boot.

Drive 2 is the one I use for the Puppy install. It contains only this:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/lost+found
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/Untitled.xcf

Thanks!

[d-pupp]

@Governor A quick search shows

(NVMe) is a specification for accessing SSDs attached through the PCI Express bus

If this is correct then nvme is just a name of the your ssd drive. So /mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup/fossapup64save-2 would be your current setup config. That is the one you want to save some place safe.
Remember if you are going to reformat the drive everything will be wiped. However if you are just reinstalling fossapup all you have to do is
download the iso
mount it by clicking on it and copy the files to a new folder
reboot to another puppy or linux or cd only and copy the new files replacing the old ones
You need theses files
Anything with ending with a .sfs, initrd.gz , isolinux.bin, ucode.cpio , and vmlinz
Reboot and your done. It will use the old save file
If that doesn't work you can replace the save file with one of the backups

[TerryH]

how can I achieve the same thing with the configuration file(s)?

Govenor if you can mount your hard drive you can copy the save file or folder with all your configurations
The file you are looking for is with all the main puppy files and is named something like fossapup64save-xx. Just copy that file to a safe place
Note: you have to reinstall the same version of puppy to reuse a save file or folder. If you install a different version you must make a new save file or folder. You can however copy files from the old save file into your new one. However unless you know what you are doing it's safer to just use the tools in puppy to set stuff up.

I found these save folders:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup/fossapup64save-2 (will be erased on a new install)
/mnt/nvme0n1p3/fossapup/fossapup64save-2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.18-07.21
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2023_June
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-June_2023_2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup-save
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/Fossapup-save-2023-08-28
/mnt/nvme0n1p5/pupsave/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.26-14.22

I have no idea how to determine which one to use.
And more importantly: I have no clue as to how to choose any of them on boot.

Drive 2 is the one I use for the Puppy install. It contains only this:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/lost+found
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/Untitled.xcf

Thanks!

To save yourself a lot of aggravation, if you know one of the save folders (maybe the one on nvme0n1p2) contains what you need, I would just delete the others. If you don't want to do that, pick one and boot using that, then move all the others to a single directory rather than having them spread all over the place. You can them mount them to view what they contain and decide what you want to do with them. But I would suggest keeping them all is only going to have you continue on this same path.

[williwaw]

how can I achieve the same thing with the configuration file(s)?

Govenor if you can mount your hard drive you can copy the save file or folder with all your configurations
The file you are looking for is with all the main puppy files and is named something like fossapup64save-xx. Just copy that file to a safe place
Note: you have to reinstall the same version of puppy to reuse a save file or folder. If you install a different version you must make a new save file or folder. You can however copy files from the old save file into your new one. However unless you know what you are doing it's safer to just use the tools in puppy to set stuff up.

I found these save folders:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup/fossapup64save-2 (will be erased on a new install)
/mnt/nvme0n1p3/fossapup/fossapup64save-2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.18-07.21
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-2023_June
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup64save-June_2023_2
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/fossapup-save
/mnt/nvme0n1p4/Fossapup-save-2023-08-28
/mnt/nvme0n1p5/pupsave/fossapup64save-2.BKP-2023.06.26-14.22

I have no idea how to determine which one to use.
And more importantly: I have no clue as to how to choose any of them on boot. :?

Drive 2 is the one I use for the Puppy install. It contains only this:
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/fossapup
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/lost+found
/mnt/nvme0n1p2/Untitled.xcf

Thanks!

you should see the choices when you boot.
put the saves in the same folder as the frugal you boot from

[Governor]

you should see the choices when you boot.
put the saves in the same folder as the frugal you boot from

I do not know about the frugal folder. I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg. I was not using grub because I had problems before getting it to work. I have been using limine.cfg on the first partition of the NVMe drive.

I can only boot with the CD at this point. On boot, I chose to copy all files to RAM, but that may be incorrect because the CD is still accessed, although seldomly, which means it possibly may not be safe to remove the CD drive. Hmm. On second thought, it may be just the USB controller is reassessing the USB ports every time something is plugged in or out. Anyway, I also can't boot from my Puppy thumb drive.

Thanks!

PS. I just discovered that hundreds of files that I had downloaded previously are in the various save folders under /root/downloads. That means files I thought I was saving to a HDD, are only saved temporarily in this location (several places). Very weird. If I had known this earlier, I would not have deleted several "save" folders, but I was not informed. I gather there is no undelete function in Puppy?

The good news is now that I discovered this, I can try and save the files to a stable location. There are a lot of files I do not want to lose. I am waiting for delivery of a 2TB SDD USB drive. I plan to copy all folders with desired files to the new drive, take it to a Windows computer and sort them out there. Some files may be different with the same name, and some files may be the same with different names. I can't see a way to do any of this in Puppy. I see only a possibility to overwrite older files with newer, but that assumes the newer file is an updated version of the older file, and that kind of logic will fail and overwrite files, or leave files not copied to the desired destination.

Cheers!

[bigpup]

All browsers have an option in their settings for how you want them to handle downloads.

Most by default are set to download to the system download directory, which in Puppy is usually /root/downloads

Go into the browser settings download options and change it to always ask where to download.

Then you can tell it each time exactly where to download to.

Example:
Firefox settings

Screenshot(1).jpg (48.2 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

[bigpup]

I have been using limine.cfg on the first partition of the NVMe drive.

Try reinstalling the limine boot loader.

By what you are saying it seems to not be there or is broken.

[bigpup]

I just discovered that hundreds of files that I had downloaded previously are in the various save folders under /root/downloads. That means files I thought I was saving to a HDD, are only saved temporarily in this location

The save folder is just as permanent a location as any other location, as long as the save gets updated.

If you found these files in a old save, they are permanent as long as you do not delete the save.

[Governor]

I just discovered that hundreds of files that I had downloaded previously are in the various save folders under /root/downloads. That means files I thought I was saving to a HDD, are only saved temporarily in this location

The save folder is just as permanent a location as any other location, as long as the save gets updated.

If you found these files in a old save, they are permanent as long as you do not delete the save.

Yes, I have been told to go ahead and delete the saves, but as I pointed out, I would like to check if these files exist elsewhere.

How about the files here: / or /root or /root/Downloads on the currently running Puppy. I don't see a drive designation. I see ~/Downloads.

So where are these files located?

If the OS goes haywire, which judging from experience it probably will, I want to be sure I don't lose files. If I suddenly have to re-install the OS, where will I find the files in these folders (such as ~/Downloads) after I re-install? I am guessing these files will be lost. Is that correct or incorrect?

I have learned from experience never to store any files which I want to keep, on the same drive as the OS files.

I have been told to place the save folder in the fossapup folder where the OS resides, but that seems like a gamble, because if something goes wrong the save folder may be lost. One example: suppose the drive gets corrupted and must be re-formatted - what happens to your savefolder?

Thanks!

[Governor]

All browsers have an option in their settings for how you want them to handle downloads.

Most by default are set to download to the system download directory, which in Puppy is usually /root/downloads

Go into the browser settings download options and change it to always ask where to download.

Then you can tell it each time exactly where to download to.

Example:
Firefox settings
Screenshot(1).jpg

Yes, I try to always point the downloads in Firefox to a drive that is not the same as the OS, which I consider to be temporary (due to the OS). I consider the other partitions on my NVMe drive, to be impermanent storage, because if the computer decides not to boot anymore for any reason, I can no longer access any of the files on any of the partitions on the disk. I have experienced this more than once. I am not a computer technician, so I prefer not to have this type of problem. I use the laptop disk as a workspace because is so much faster than the external drives, and I try to copy the files to an external disk for safe keeping, at regular intervals. However, since I am low on external disk space, I have been accumulating files on the laptop disk.

I had set the download folder in Firefox to a specific location, but at some point I noticed the downloads were going to the default download folder, which I don't believe to be permanent. I think it may have been a plugin that changed the download location. When the computer crashes in this situation, I suspect that the files in the default download folder may be lost. If not, where would they be?

Thanks!

[williwaw]

you should see the choices when you boot.
put the saves in the same folder as the frugal you boot from

I was not using grub because I had problems before getting it to work. I have been using limine.cfg on the first partition of the NVMe drive.I do not know about the frugal folder. I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

I can only boot with the CD at this point. On boot, I chose to copy all files to RAM, but that may be incorrect because the CD is still accessed, although seldomly, which means it possibly may not be safe to remove the CD drive. Hmm. On second thought, it may be just the USB controller is reassessing the USB ports every time something is plugged in or out. Anyway, I also can't boot from my Puppy thumb drive.

Thanks!

PS. I just discovered that hundreds of files that I had downloaded previously are in the various save folders under /root/downloads. That means files I thought I was saving to a HDD, are only saved temporarily in this location (several places). Very weird. If I had known this earlier, I would not have deleted several "save" folders, but I was not informed. I gather there is no undelete function in Puppy?

The good news is now that I discovered this, I can try and save the files to a stable location. There are a lot of files I do not want to lose. I am waiting for delivery of a 2TB SDD USB drive. I plan to copy all folders with desired files to the new drive, take it to a Windows computer and sort them out there. Some files may be different with the same name, and some files may be the same with different names. I can't see a way to do any of this in Puppy. I see only a possibility to overwrite older files with newer, but that assumes the newer file is an updated version of the older file, and that kind of logic will fail and overwrite files, or leave files not copied to the desired destination.

Cheers!

I do not know about the frugal folder. I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

with puppy, the OS is installed in a folder. your concerns about keeping the save folder and the puppy install folder on the same drive or partition become unwarranted once you understand that a reinstall is just adding a folder on a partition, and does not require a reformat of the drive.

Post a screenshot of gparted showing the latout of the drive you wish to reinstall puppy on.
Post a picture of the entire screen with the message complaining about grub.cfg

[TerryH]

@Governor maybe this will help.
The tilde ( ~ ) character is an abbreviation which is used to indicate the users Home directory. In the example of being the user root, /root can be subsituted with ~. Where a non-root user is the user the tilde would substitute for '/home/username'. So, ~/Downloads is indicating the the Downloads folder for root, similarlyfor spot, ~/Downloads would be /home/spot/Downloads

A basic example of substituting in a terminal:

Code: Select all

# pwd              ##### present working directory
/root
# cd /mnt/sda2
# pwd
/mnt/sda2
# cd ~             #####  this returns to the home directory for root
# pwd
/root

[d-pupp]

@Governor a Frugal Puppy install is just a bunch of folders and files.
The ones I mentioned in my post above

Anything ending with a .sfs, initrd.gz , isolinux.bin, ucode.cpio , and vmlinz

.
That is the whole operating system.
Any changed you make to puppy, downloads, documents, etc are saved in your save file or folder
At boot time puppy finds all these files and layers them one on top of the other to make it look like they are one file system. The save file is the last layer as it contains all your changes, downloads etc.

From you post above you have 4 separate installed of fossapup plus a CD and some usbs. That is a lot to keep strait. I would recommend keeping all your files in one place.

Here is my setup
one internal hard drive with 3 partitions
sda1= frugal puppy installs
sda2= all my data files
sda3= swap file (Note this never seems to get used with this desktop pc)

[bigpup]

Yes, I have been told to go ahead and delete the saves, but as I pointed out, I would like to check if these files exist elsewhere.

How about the files here: / or /root or /root/Downloads on the currently running Puppy. I don't see a drive designation. I see ~/Downloads.

If the old saves have stuff in them you want to keep DO NOT DELETE THEM until you take out what you want to keep.

The save file/folder is a container, that inside is a normal file system.
But it only has the file system directories etc... that have changes that have been made to the operating file system.
Example:
In the running Puppy file system add something to /root/downloads.
Inside the save will be /root/downloads with inside it what you added.

You can left click on any save file/folder and Rox will open showing it's contents.
Ir will look like a file system you can navigate around in.
So go to the locations in this file system and move copy etc... stuff you want to keep to location outside of the save.

Best to do this when the save is not being used.

Keep in mind, any changes you make in the operating file system, will be in the file system inside the save, you are using when running Puppy Linux.

[Governor]

you should see the choices when you boot.
put the saves in the same folder as the frugal you boot from

I was not using grub because I had problems before getting it to work. I have been using limine.cfg on the first partition of the NVMe drive.I do not know about the frugal folder. I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

I can only boot with the CD at this point. On boot, I chose to copy all files to RAM, but that may be incorrect because the CD is still accessed, although seldomly, which means it possibly may not be safe to remove the CD drive. Hmm. On second thought, it may be just the USB controller is reassessing the USB ports every time something is plugged in or out. Anyway, I also can't boot from my Puppy thumb drive.

Thanks!

PS. I just discovered that hundreds of files that I had downloaded previously are in the various save folders under /root/downloads. That means files I thought I was saving to a HDD, are only saved temporarily in this location (several places). Very weird. If I had known this earlier, I would not have deleted several "save" folders, but I was not informed. I gather there is no undelete function in Puppy?

The good news is now that I discovered this, I can try and save the files to a stable location. There are a lot of files I do not want to lose. I am waiting for delivery of a 2TB SDD USB drive. I plan to copy all folders with desired files to the new drive, take it to a Windows computer and sort them out there. Some files may be different with the same name, and some files may be the same with different names. I can't see a way to do any of this in Puppy. I see only a possibility to overwrite older files with newer, but that assumes the newer file is an updated version of the older file, and that kind of logic will fail and overwrite files, or leave files not copied to the desired destination.

Cheers!

I do not know about the frugal folder. I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

with puppy, the OS is installed in a folder. your concerns about keeping the save folder and the puppy install folder on the same drive or partition become unwarranted once you understand that a reinstall is just adding a folder on a partition, and does not require a reformat of the drive.

Post a screenshot of gparted showing the latout of the drive you wish to reinstall puppy on.
Post a picture of the entire screen with the message complaining about grub.cfg

I would like Puppy to be installed on nvme0n1p2
Gparted:

I don't yet have a screenshot of the grub.cfg message, but is was only 3 or 4 words.

[williwaw]

I would like Puppy to be installed on nvme0n1p2

click on the icon in the lower left for nvme0n1p2 and post a screenshot of the entire rox window that opens

click on the icon in the lower left for nvme0n1p1 and post a screenshot of the entire rox window that opens

I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

I don't yet have a screenshot of the grub.cfg message, but is was only 3 or 4 words.

after setting bios to default, you should re-establish your desired boot order in bios setup.

cd first
usb hdd second
your nvme third

would be a good place to start, you may have to have a cd in the tray, a USB drive plugged directly into the machines USB port and the nvme on board in the internal slot for your bios to offer the correct choices

you should also be able to bring up a boot disk selector menu at boot time for one time selection of bootable disks. again the discs will have to be in their respective places for the choices to be listed

[Governor]

I would like Puppy to be installed on nvme0n1p2

click on the icon in the lower left for nvme0n1p2 and post a screenshot of the entire rox window that opens

click on the icon in the lower left for nvme0n1p1 and post a screenshot of the entire rox window that opens

I tried booting from my NVMe drive again after setting BIOS to default. The message says it can't find grub.cfg.

I don't yet have a screenshot of the grub.cfg message, but is was only 3 or 4 words.

after setting bios to default, you should re-establish your desired boot order in bios setup.

cd first
usb hdd second
your nvme third

would be a good place to start, you may have to have a cd in the tray, a USB drive plugged directly into the machines USB port and the nvme on board in the internal slot for your bios to offer the correct choices

you should also be able to bring up a boot disk selector menu at boot time for one time selection of bootable disks. again the discs will have to be in their respective places for the choices to be listed

Partition 1 & 2:

I could not boot "hands free" the last 4 times I tried - I got a blank screen. I found a boot trick on the Lenovo website that worked. Immediately after pressing the power button, I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

Quick question: Why are the paths at the top in the file manager usually grayed out? It is both illogical and impractical. How can that be fixed? It serves no purpose that I must click on the top field just to see what the path is.

[williwaw]

I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

this "BIOS" is a selector screen? you are simply making a one time selection? if so, you can modify your bios set up later and establish a permanent boot order.

fossapup boots when you choose nvme?
with what bootloader? grub or limine?
does it load a save?

if you are now booting with limine, please post an entire copy of Limine.cfg

open the fossapup folder on partition 2 and post a screenshot of it also please.

[Governor]

I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

this "BIOS" is a selector screen? you are simply making a one time selection? if so, you can modify your bios set up later and establish a permanent boot order.

fossapup boots when you choose nvme?
with what bootloader? grub or limine?
does it load a save?

if you are now booting with limine, please post an entire copy of Limine.cfg

open the fossapup folder on partition 2 and post a screenshot of it also please.

I have selected a permanent boot order in the actual BIOS setup wich is: CD, USB, nvme.

fossapup folder:

limine.cfg:

Code: Select all

QUIET=no
TIMEOUT=10
GRAPHICS=no
DEFAULT_ENTRY=2
EDITOR_ENABLED=yes
INTERFACE_BRANDING=EasyOS Limine Boot Manager


:Puppy Linux fossapup64 (partition nvme0n1p2, path fossapup)
    PROTOCOL=linux
    KERNEL_CMDLINE=psubdir=fossapup pmedia=atahd
    KERNEL_PATH=guid://e9b97f54-0ba4-4ff9-9e06-730900b8f08b/fossapup/vmlinuz
    MODULE_PATH=guid://e9b97f54-0ba4-4ff9-9e06-730900b8f08b/fossapup/initrd.gz

I am booting from a Puppy CD with the "RAM only" option, so not currently using limine.cfg, but was using it before the last big crash.

After max 2 days, the computer get so slow, that I must reboot and reconfigure my settings once again. It is tedious. How can I avoid it? The added menu entries are gone, as well as all file manager settings, keyboard and screen settings, etc.

Thanks!

[williwaw]

I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

does this solve your problem?

[Governor]

I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

does this solve your problem?

Nothing has changed. I still cannot boot from anything else but the puppy CD.

Thanks!

[williwaw]

lets back up a bit.....

Please read http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

take a moment to explain the contradiction

I press the F2 key 5 to 10 times in succession. This enables me to get to the BIOS where I can choose which drive to boot from. So choosing the boot device is not a problem.

Nothing has changed. I still cannot boot from anything else but the puppy CD.
Thanks!

and anwser all the questions asked in viewtopic.php?p=98252#p98252