Dual boot Frugal Pup on MXLinux PC (kind of solved....)

[trawglodyte]

what would be the most logical way for the someone to provide the proper menuentry?

It would be practical for someone to take it upon themselves to learn all the kernel paramaters people are using, do extensive testing, and create a document listing them w/ explanation of why someone might want to use each one. Do I have to do that too? Or can one of you "high-bar" learners with wet feet pull that off?

[williwaw]

what would be the most logical way for the someone to provide the proper menuentry?

It would be practical for someone to take it upon themselves to learn all the kernel paramaters people are using, do extensive testing, and create a document listing them w/ explanation of why someone might want to use each one. Do I have to do that too? Or can one of you "high-bar" learners with wet feet pull that off?

nobody is asking you to do it, although your contributions are appreciated.

I guess my question rephrased is, where should someone like yourself, a linux user creating a puppy frugal install on an existing linux system for the first time, expect to find the information needed to make an adequate boot stanza with the parameters to suit his need?

[rockedge]

create a document listing them w/ explanation of why someone might want to use each one.

The configuration tools include a help function that will be able to describe most options. Those options that don't have a help description tend to be one of the following:

very new, possibly experimental parts of the kernel (so a help description has not been written yet - feel free to submit a patch to add a suitable description in this case).

technical settings that are determined automatically based on other settings (for example, when you set the CPU type, a whole lot of settings are automatically set according to the features available in that CPU type)

debugging settings that are intended for the developers of a particular driver or other kernel component only - if you need to change these, you should either be one of those developers or at least already contacting them.

The help texts come from the Kconfig files in each sub-directory of the kernel source code.

[trawglodyte]

@williwaw I think I've linked it several times in this thread. Do you all know what a hyperlink is? It's a really important part of the internet.

Anyway, moving on. Here's a cool kernel paramater you can use....

cpufreq.default_governor= (you can tweak your cpu with this). Look in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_available_governors to see what governors you have available. Then look in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor to see which one is currently being used. (the drivers I'm familiar with have a performance governor, but default to something else... powersave or ondemand). Putting cpufreq.default_governor=performance in the kernel line will run the performance governor.

And yah, I tested it to make sure. In my low-bar learning method I don't just cut and paste bad information. I find out for sure.

[williwaw]

@williwaw I think I've linked it several times in this thread. Do you all know what a hyperlink is? It's a really important part of the internet.

I guess you are saying the dev for puppy should provide hyperlinks to your posts at forums?
but yes, lets move on if you cannot contribute without being snarky.

Anyway, moving on. Here's a cool kernel paramater you can use....

cpufreq.default_governor= (you can tweak your cpu with this)

tested in which puppy?

[trawglodyte]

I guess you are saying the dev for puppy should provide hyperlinks to your posts at forums?

I think you should give people the information they need to accomplish what they want to do. I don't know why that's controversial. You are free to take my menuentry's and put them wherever you want. I'm always 100% free and open source. No attribution required.

As far as the cpu tweak, I told you what folders in your directory to look in. If it works the governor will change. That's just scratching the surface of all you can do with cpu tweaking (which for most people will probably only use a bit more electricity without appreciable benefit, but still fun to learn) linux-cpupower is a good .deb package to get to help, I couldn't tell you if it works on Puppy. Go get your feet wet and find out. I'm not going to play 20 questions with you. i have some low-bar learning to do, and you aren't giving me any useful information. Until you can do THAT, I have can't learn from you, no matter how knowledgeable you may be.

[williwaw]

I think you should give people the information they need to accomplish what they want to do. I don't know why that's controversial.

I agree 100% about making information available. Not sure if thats controversial, but sometimes I wish Puppy was more unified. As it is, everyone is welcome to develop and submit for use, via the forum, whatever suits his needs. This lack of unification leaves a comprehensive distro documentation somewhat wanting.
It is what it is, and suggestions made in the forum are perhaps the best we can do.

[geo_c]

cpufreq.default_governor= (you can tweak your cpu with this). Look in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_available_governors to see what governors you have available. Then look in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor to see which one is currently being used. (the drivers I'm familiar with have a performance governor, but default to something else... powersave or ondemand). Putting cpufreq.default_governor=performance in the kernel line will run the performance governor.

And yah, I tested it to make sure. In my low-bar learning method I don't just cut and paste bad information. I find out for sure.

If you install cpupower you can do this all from the command-line, and I have a written some interactive scripts using cpupower.

For instance this script will set the governor to 'schedutil' and grep lines from cpupower frequency-info output to confirm that it's been changed.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

cpupower frequency-set -g schedutil 
echo ""
cpupower frequency-info | grep -e The\ governor -e current\ policy
echo ""
read -n 1 -s -r -p "press any key to close..."

So you can name that script whatever you want, put in your executable path and run it with a short name. I use 'cpus'. Or you can have a clickable script that runs the cpus script in a terminal:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

lxterminal -e /root/my-applications/bin/cpus

Or if you like gui's, you can make a gtkdialog version, this one will give you the current governor and cpu speed limits:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
function make_me_pretty {
	printf "<span font='DejaVuSans 8' color='#19EDBB'>$(cpupower frequency-info | grep -e The\ governor -e current\ policy)   </span>"
};export -f make_me_pretty

echo '<window decorated="false" border-width="5">
<text use-markup="true">
  <variable>vTXT</variable>
  <input>make_me_pretty</input>
</text>
<timer>
  <action>refresh:vTXT</action>
</timer>
</window>'|gtkdialog -s --geometry=225x80+175+40 ;

Of course you can tweak the OS configs to make changes, but bottom line is I change the governor a couple times a day, for using pro audio (jack it up to performance), or running a large mksquash (lowering it to powersave as to not overheat my cpu), so with cpupower you can change the governor and clock on the fly.

You can use the cpupower commands in the terminal, but I don't like a lot of typing as my fingers fumble, so I'd rather have a 5 letter script name to type rather than a whole command with options.

Almost forgot, I also run cpupower from the menu with a desktop file and change the governor that way:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=CPU Schedutil Governor
Comment=CPU scheduling command
Icon=utilities-terminal
Terminal=false
Exec=lxterminal -e /root/my-applications/bin/cpus
Categories=ConsoleOnly;System;FileTools;FileManager;Utility;
MimeType=inode/directory;
Keywords=governor;cpu;scheduling;Launcher;
Path=
StartupNotify=false

As you can see, I like to do the same task from lots of different locations. You can also just put the cpupower frequency-set -g schedutil in the Exec= line of the desktop file:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=CPU Schedutil Governor
Comment=CPU scheduling command
Icon=utilities-terminal
Terminal=true
Exec=cpupower frequency-set -g schedutil
Categories=ConsoleOnly;System;FileTools;FileManager;Utility;
MimeType=inode/directory;
Keywords=governor;cpu;scheduling;Launcher; 

[trawglodyte]

@geo_c yep, I guess you are a low-bar learner like me because I also made a little script with a .desktop entry with linux-cpupower, toggles between performance/powersave, tweaks the low frequency and shuts off slowest c-states. Switches between two icons when it does. I actually have a video on it, but it needs updated and I won't post it here because some people really hate that. lol. I guess being able to SEE someone do something on their desktop is horrible. Mine has some extra junk so that it runs 'sudo' without asking for a password on non-Puppy linux, but you can probably get the idea what I did.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

export SUDO_ASKPASS=~/.ssh/it_is.sh
scaling_governor="$(cat "/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor")"

if [ "$scaling_governor" = "powersave" ]; then

    sudo -A cpupower frequency-set -g performance
    sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set --min 1200000
    sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set --max 4600000
    sudo cpupower -c all idle-set -E
    sudo cpupower -c all idle-set -D 201
    sudo rm /usr/share/icons/cpu2.png
    sudo cp /usr/share/icons/cpu-performance.png /usr/share/icons/cpu2.png
    xfce4-panel -r

else

    sudo -A cpupower frequency-set -g powersave
    sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set --min 800000
    sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set --max 4600000
    sudo cpupower -c all idle-set -E
    sudo rm /usr/share/icons/cpu2.png
    sudo cp /usr/share/icons/cpu-powersave.png /usr/share/icons/cpu2.png
    xfce4-panel -r

fi

[geo_c]

@geo_c yep, I guess you are a low-bar learner like me because I also made a little script with a .desktop entry with linux-cpupower,

Well since we're talking low-bar scripts. Here's a little interactive script I made to bring your existing set-up network connections up and down. In other words, it's not to set up a wifi with password, but once your various connections are setup, you can use this to bring them up and down. To setup connections without a proper gui, I use nmtui, which works great to get them running. Then I could type the ip command in this script, but this is much easier, lists all broadcast network connections and you just type the name and go.

netconp (network connect prompt):

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

echo ""
ip a | grep -e ".: " | grep -e "BROADCAST"
echo ""
read -p "type the name of device to connect (eg. eth0, wlan0, etc.) : " NETCON
ip link set $NETCON up ; echo "connecting ""${NETCON}""..." ; sleep 6
echo ""
ip a | grep -e ".: " | grep -e $NETCON | grep -e "BROADCAST"
echo ""
read -n 1 -s -r -p "press any key to close..."

netdisp (network disconnect prompt):

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

echo ""
ip a | grep -e ".: " | grep -e "BROADCAST"
echo ""
read -p "type the name of device to disconnect (eg. eth0, wlan0, etc.) : " NETCON
ip link set $NETCON down ; echo "disconnecting ""${NETCON}""..." ; sleep 6
echo ""
ip a | grep -e ".: " | grep -e $NETCON | grep -e "BROADCAST"
echo ""
read -n 1 -s -r -p "press any key to close..."

[trawglodyte]

Since kernel boot parameters was a big item and @williwaw is very worried that someone might lower the bar around here by helping people get their operating systems installed very effectively. I decided to do some homework, and refresh my memory on how the FrugalPup Installer handles this. The first thing I see is a web-page link. I may have clicked this one time in the many installs I did w/ FrugalPup Installer. I already knew the parameters I wanted.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.19/a ... eters.html

Wow, what a great link. Maybe someone who thinks parameters are super-important and we're lowering the bar if we don't fully discuss them would want to keep that link handy to share!! That would be useful information for others who want to learn about kernel parameters. One could also go through them and find the ones others have found most applicable to Puppy. (HINT- the first ones on your list should match the alternate boot parameters the devs have in their grub.cfg below)

If you do not select "Kernel boot parameters" or "Pfix boot parameters" FrugalPup installer does nothing about parameters. If you do select "Kernel boot parameters" you will get a dialogue later which lets you select whichever of those that are entered in the first box (you can add more if you want). Then it will save them as "extra_boot_parameters.txt" in your frugal directory.

Selecting "Pfix boot parameter" will give 5 choices in a dialogue box later.

I think what happens if you don't select and FrugalPup Installer does nothing about boot parameters is up to the distro. In the case of BookwormPup64_10.0.6, I see two grub.cfg files in the .iso that shed some light on the matter.

Code: Select all

loadfont /boot/grub/font.pf2
set gfxmode=800x600
set gfxpayload=keep

insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga

insmod all_video
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_cirrus
insmod gfxterm
insmod png
insmod jpeg
terminal_output gfxterm

insmod ext2
insmod f2fs
insmod ntfs
insmod exfat

insmod loopback
insmod iso9660
insmod udf

background_image /boot/splash.png
set timeout=10

# https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Displays
color_normal=cyan/black
#menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
menu_color_highlight=yellow/red
menu_color_normal=light-gray/black

if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
  ucode_parm="/ucode.cpio"
else
  ucode_parm=
fi

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - Copy SFS files to RAM" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,copy 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - Don't copy SFS files to RAM" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,nocopy 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - No X. Try 'xorgwizard' after bootup" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,nox 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - Safe mode, no X" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,ram,nox 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - RAM only - no pupsave" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,ram 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "BookwormPup64 10.0.6 - Ram Disk Shell" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,fsckp,rdsh 
    echo "Loading ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz"
    initrd ${ucode_parm} /initrd.gz
}

menuentry "Shutdown" {
	halt
}

menuentry "Reboot" {
	reboot
}

And from F96-CE_4

Code: Select all

loadfont /boot/grub/font.pf2
set gfxmode=800x600
set gfxpayload=keep

insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga

insmod all_video
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_cirrus
insmod gfxterm
insmod png
insmod jpeg
terminal_output gfxterm

insmod ext2
insmod f2fs
insmod ntfs
insmod exfat

insmod loopback
insmod iso9660
insmod udf

background_image /boot/splash.png
set timeout=10

# https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Displays
color_normal=cyan/black
#menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
menu_color_highlight=yellow/red
menu_color_normal=light-gray/black

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - Copy SFS files to RAM" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,copy 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - Don't copy SFS files to RAM" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=fsck,nocopy 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - No X. Try 'xorgwizard' after bootup" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=nox,fsck 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - Safe mode, no X" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=ram,nox,fsck 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - RAM only - no pupsave" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=ram,fsck 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "fossapup64 9.6 - Ram Disk Shell" {
    linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=rdsh 
    if [ -e /ucode.cpio ]; then
      initrd /ucode.cpio /initrd.gz
    else
      initrd /initrd.gz
    fi
}

menuentry "Shutdown" {
	halt
}

menuentry "Reboot" {
	reboot
}

And then there's my "low-bar" menu entry template.

menuentry "<folder name>" {
insmod ext2
insmod part_gpt
search --set=root --fs-uuid 49ba2b38-cc9b-4d48-b9b5-f48b43845b7f
linux /<folder name>/vmlinuz acpi_osi=Linux net.ifnames=0 pmedia=atahd pdrv=<partition label> psubdir=/<folder name> pfix=fsck,fsckp
initrd /<folder name>/initrd.gz
}

You may notice I changed pmedia=cd to pmedia=atahd since @bigpup info suggests it may save someone a few seconds on their first boot. (despite the BookwormPup and F96-CE_4 devs using pmedia=cd as the default). You may also notice my menuentry template is approximately the same defaults with a couple bits from FrugalPup Installer and a couple bits from the BookwormPup/F96-CE_4 defaults.

So, I suppose, rather than telling people they should "do their homework" on additional parameters, I can give the link to the list on kernel.org like the clever person who made the FrugalPup Installer. Until someone can GIVE ME something better, everyone should be perfectly happy with that. If this information is too "low-bar" for anyone, I suggest they get their feet wet and show me how to do it better.

[bigpup]

Again the boot loader config files provided in the Puppy version ISO are for the boot loader provided in the ISO.

A live install for burning the ISO image to a CD/DVD.
All the Puppy files and a boot loader to boot it.
The boot loader config needs to be correct for booting from a CD/DVD, because after burning it to the CD/DVD.
The CD/DVD is a read only format. You cannot edit it.

The pmedia=cd is for booting from a CD/DVD install.
The boot process for booting from a CD/DVD.

If you do a frugal install or a live install to any other type drive.
The boot loader config file on the drive needs to use different pmedia=

Making a general basic boot loader config entry is not so simple to work in all conditions.

The most general one to use for internal drive installs is pmedia=atahd for an internal drive.

But some installs on a USB stick will boot better if you use pmedia=usbflash.
In fact will only correctly boot.

Understand that the boot process is not the same in all versions of Puppy.
Tweaking has been done over the years.
So the Puppy version being used can affect this.

May be better to provide the general basic boot menu entry.
With info about having to make the pmedia=
Specific for the type drive installed on.

[geo_c]

So, I suppose, rather than telling people they should "do their homework" on additional parameters, I can give the link to the list on kernel.org like the clever person who made the FrugalPup Installer. Until someone can GIVE ME something better, everyone should be perfectly happy with that. If this information is too "low-bar" for anyone, I suggest they get their feet wet and show me how to do it better.

I understand your frustration with the way information flow is handled, and the way things are often said on the forum. But I think sometimes good things come from frustration.

By that I mean this last post of yours is extremely informative, and I think it would make a good topic of it's own.

Not sure which section of the forum it should go. But it seems maybe @rockedge could put it in the Getting Started section, similar to Boot Parameters, a topic called Adavanced Kernel Boot Parameters or something like that.

It would need to be rewritten to flow a little more like documentation, and maybe one of us will step up for that.

The information about the Frugal Pup installer is particularly relevant.

And like I said, I understand your frustration. As I read through the thread, I tend to see some of the comments being more or less aimed at the same goal in the end, that being getting a sound sense of where and how to find information.

@bigpup is a great resource for direction in that area.

I personally didn't read close and kind of hijcked the whole thread with my cpupower posts. Sorry about that.

[trawglodyte]

@bigpup
I changed my menuentry to pmedia=atahd.

Now, what I know from experience, from having done dozens of frugal installs of Puppy Linux in the past few years with interest in this very thing... Is that whether you use pmedia=cd or pmedia=atahd (and I believe pmedia=usbflash for that matter). on the first boot, you may as well just hit reboot and get prompted to make a save file. Because until you load a save file on boot, none of your changes will get saved. This is consistent with the information you are posting that they first boot in pupmode5.

You claim pmedia=cd might spend additional time searching on boot than pmedia=atahd. I don't think that's true in regards to my menuentry because it looks for the UUID and directory specified in the menuentry. Frankly, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. I'm just changing it to pmedia=atahd to try to make everybody happy, I'm sick of wasting my time talking about a very unimportant detail, and because I searched the forum and that option is dicussed more.

So just take "yes" for an answer one time.

If you want to give people information that actually helps them, I'd suggest telling them on initial boot to just reboot and make their first save. That's actually important, because if they go through the settings and start tweaking their desktop, they'll just have to do it over again.

[geo_c]

I'm sick of wasting my time talking about a very unimportant detail, and because I searched the forum and that option is dicussed more.

I can tell you this, that when booting as if it's a CD boot, every accessible location will be searched for system and save files, and it's very possible that if this is not the user's very 1st boot attempt or save attempt, that files will be loaded from various locations, and not from the single install they are attempting to boot. That can actually be extremely confusing even when one knows it might be possibly be happening.

Imagine how much of a wrench that occurence throws into the boot difficulties of a very new user.

If you don't think it happens, I can tell you positively that there are people here who went up to a year not knowing what save file they were booting into, where it was located, or what sfs system files were being loaded and from where.

So all that to say. It actually is a significant parameter.

Greatly appreciate the info you've added.

[trawglodyte]

I just made 2 test installs of FC96-CE_4, one with pmedia=cd, and one with pmedia=atahd. The boot logs show no difference, and the user experience on my machine is no different.

pmedia=cd boot log

boot-cd.txt

(86.88 KiB) Downloaded 6 times

pmedia=atahd boot log

boot-atahd.txt

(86.89 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

I do have a bit of egg on my face though, because I made a few changes on both, and they did save when I exited. (When I booted back in the changes were still there and I didn't have to do them over). I dunno if this is an improvement in F96-CE_4, if it's because I selected "save_folder" instead of "save_file" or what? I still don't think my general advice of rebooting and getting first save file in place before spending time configuring the desktop is bad, because that was the case on many Puppy Linux distros I installed, and as @bigpup has described it. You are probably in pupmode5 on first boot. On the second boot, you should be confident you are in the pupmode you wanted, and your experience will reflect that.

And anyone who followed my intitial instructions that everyone is worried are not sufficient would have their frugal installed and be in pupmode12, a pretty good situation to be in. They would have accomplished that in less than 1/2 hour without knowing much of anything by following my very simple step-by-step instructions. Likely the same result with my revised instructions, now with pmedia=atahd and a link to https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.19/a ... eters.html, a good place to learn about additional kernel paramaters to consider (in lieu of the person who thinks this is super-important creating a better document I can link them too). Someone who did that might want to click their browser in their freshly installed Puppy OS, come to the Puppy Linux forum, and be very happy about their experience. That seems like a good thing to me. That should serve the interests of everyone here quite well.

[geo_c]

I just made 2 test installs of FC96-CE_4, one with pmedia=cd, and one with pmedia=atahd. The boot logs show no difference, and the user experience on my machine is no different.

pmedia=cd boot log
boot-cd.txt

pmedia=atahd boot log
boot-atahd.txt

I do have a bit of egg on my face though, because I made a few changes on both, and they did save when I exited. (When I booted back in the changes were still there and I didn't have to do them over). I dunno if this is an improvement in F96-CE_4, if it's because I selected "save_folder" instead of "save_file" or what? I still don't think my general advice of rebooting and getting first save file in place before spending time configuring the desktop is bad, because that was the case on many Puppy Linux distros I installed, and as @bigpup has described it. You are probably in pupmode5 on first boot. On the second boot, you should be confident you are in the pupmode you wanted, and your experience will reflect that.

And anyone who followed my intitial instructions that everyone is worried are not sufficient would have their frugal installed and be in pupmode12, a pretty good situation to be in. They would have accomplished that in less than 1/2 hour without knowing much of anything by following my very simple step-by-step instructions. Likely the same result with my revised instructions, now with pmedia=atahd and a link to https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.19/a ... eters.html, a good place to learn about additional kernel paramaters to consider (in lieu of the person who thinks this is super-important creating a better document I can link them too). Someone who did that might want to click their browser in their freshly installed Puppy OS, come to the Puppy Linux forum, and be very happy about their experience. That seems like a good thing to me. That should serve the interests of everyone here quite well.

Since you set up the test directory, try it this way. Throw some of the F96 sfs files on the nvme and some other drives and partitions attached to the machine Copy a couple of save of files around on those partitions, and take out the any of the psubdir= psave= parameters from your grub.cfg, and then try the two different boots again. I don't know if F96 using pmedia=CD is going to do what I've seen fossapup64_9.5 do, but if it does, one or two of those other drives might become locked, because the boot routine loaded files from them. It's happened to me before.

And I know that's not what your template is designed for, but it's the kind of stuff people do in the real world, and I have first hand experience with such scenarios. So as long whoever uses your dual boot stanza doesn't try and modify it any way, your advice is 100% effective, KUDOS!

Yet, if for any reason that person decides something in grub.cfg needs a tweak, and they try to install in different locations on that same machine, then the pmedia= parameter MIGHT, and I say COULD POSSIBLY become an issue.

And people who are setting up dual linux boots are the very kind of people who will tinker with whatever you gave them. So might as well give them the correct parameter, know what I mean?

Just my two cents, not making an issue of it. I don't think there is a person here who hasn't done the bulk of their learning on how to set up boot systems without trial and error, so every turn key linux solution, especially in the frugal install ecosystem, is never turn key when real people get their hands on it. After all, since it's completely portable, and can boot from basically anywhere, load files from anywhere when configured properly, there are too many variables involved to for it to be foolproof.

[trawglodyte]

I don't know if F96 using pmedia=CD is going to do what I've seen fossapup64_9.5 do, but if it does, one or two of those other drives might become locked, because the boot routine loaded files from them. It's happened to me before.

So might as well give them the correct parameter, know what I mean?

My template has already been changed to pmedia=atahd. So, if you think pmedia=cd is a big problem, you need to take it up with the Bookworm and F96 devs. It's their default, not mine. That's what the options in their puppy grub use when you use their included installers. I don't think it's worth wasting their time personally. But if you've had problems you are sure were caused by it, then maybe you do.

[williwaw]

I tend to see some of the comments being more or less aimed at the same goal in the end, that being getting a sound sense of where and how to find information.

I agree.
There was a time when boot disks and machine Bios did not often play well together, and Puppy boot parameters were much more complex and fiddly if one wanted to boot from a disk rather than a CD. And this was just to get the machine to boot the first time. And also why "burn a CD and make your install from it" was the easiest way forward for most users. The CD "live" boot instance was also a portal for the documentation and links to the Wiki, forum, etc.

Times change, people have left CDs behind, and the "write it to a USB" has become ubiquitous.
This has come not without its own headaches, as many common tools some use for "live" installs cannot properly install Puppy to a USB. Installing from a CD still has merit.

FatDog has some nice help pages available on first boot.
https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/faq.html
perhaps something like this is needed for puppy?
Of course, when the first boot fails, one has to look elsewhere for info..............

... there is a need for simple, step-by-step, fool-proof instructions. For people with an existing Linux OS and a UEFI system...

+1
proof of the pudding is in the eating
for all the helpful advice I was getting here,
it wasn't until I followed @trawglodyte video that I ended up (easily) with frugal Puppy that was booting successfully on my MXLinux PC

I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether his instructions can be improved..........

Its nice that trawg was able to help bambuko upthread. His instructions in bambukos case need no improvement as getting booted is the mission, and "mission accomplished".

My question at that point was where is the best place that puppy could locate the simple step by step foolproof instructions if the user cannot get booted? Perhaps in a README alongside the download at the mirror as Fatdog has done?

trawg, my apologies to you are in order if you feel like I was somehow "raising the bar" or putting down your help to bambuko or dissing your suggestions to others. It was not my intent.

As an aside, the puppy boot parameters often serve an ancillary purpose to getting booted with your hardware. Save methodologies, developed specific for flash storage vs spinning disks, have become preferred usage by some users, and the pmedia= kernel line parameter has become a proxy for specifying the users prefered pupmode in the bootloader. Save on demand using the save icon, along with the default nosave at shutdown works well for me as I can install a new app or make a configuration change immediately after booting and effectively run in ram for the remainder of the session.

https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=258

other new pupmodes are being explored by gyrog who wrote the frugalpup installer, and I imagine would be added to the initrd, if adopted, with a new pmedia option.

[bambuko]

...wrote the frugalpup installer...

I have persevered with the installer, and would have preferred for it to be successful,
but either because I didn't understand or didn't follow the instructions,
it wasn't working for me.

Correct or not (you guys can carry on discussing it, I am not knowledgeable enough to contribute),
@trawglodyte instructions were (to me) an example of precision and clarity,
that even an idiot like myself found easy to follow.

I will try to experiment more with the installer to try and see what I was doing wrong...

[trawglodyte]

where is the best place that puppy could locate the simple step by step foolproof instructions if the user cannot get booted? Perhaps in a README alongside the download at the mirror as Fatdog has done?

A cloud drive makes sense to me, because if people are willing to take responsibility for one topic or another, they can update/revise as needed. The information will always be current and accurate, even on old threads with the link. You wouldn't have to rush it or make it complete. Just a bit here and there on the topics some person or another finds important enough to do some work on. In a couple years time you'd have a pretty nice library together. A Google Drive freebie would probably suffice. I think that would give someone the ability to grant/revoke write permissions. And it would give every single one of you the opportunity set that bar just as high as you want it. right? You wanna be the guy who writes the documents on a particular topic? Go for it. Then you can be the guy to field everyone's concerns and suggestions on how you should have done it better.

[trawglodyte]

I don't know if F96 using pmedia=CD is going to do what I've seen fossapup64_9.5 do, but if it does, one or two of those other drives might become locked, because the boot routine loaded files from them. It's happened to me before.

And I know that's not what your template is designed for, but it's the kind of stuff people do in the real world, and I have first hand experience with such scenarios. So as long whoever uses your dual boot stanza doesn't try and modify it any way, your advice is 100% effective, KUDOS!

I was puzzling over this a bit, trying to think of how the kernel paramater pmedia=cd could possibly cause this. Why putting it on one frugal would work fine, but doing more installs would be an issue. I think whatever issue you experienced is related to writing something to the EFI. Or having multiple installations write to the EFI. The method I describe writes nothing to the EFI, and I'm fairly certain nothing like that can happen this way. The only thing I need in the EFI to boot these frugals is from the existing OS which runs the grub. Then the menuentry tells it which partition and directory to find vmlinuz and initrd.gz. So, I don't think those issues @bigpup was speaking of regarding "searching" apply either.

This is something I've studied quite a bit. I don't think I have it mastered yet. But there's some interesting possibilities. You could have essentially a "dummy" Linux just to give you a grub. From a Puppy frugal you could edit it's /boot/grub/custom.cfg and install another frugal. I'm also certain you could write some scripts or small apps that could take an .iso and install it for you this way with only a couple prompts. Find the UUID for you, write the menuentry in the custom.cfg. I have to learn a few more things to write something like that, but it's something that would be child's play for a real dev. Could be other scripts or programs for making backups and managing your frugal installs. While they have good options for backing up already, it only takes a few seconds to backup the whole frugal folder (if there's no encryption). I'm not sure yet on the one's with encryption if you can tar them and make a backup or not. I gotta try that. The unencrypted you can just cp.

It's also interesting to me to realize if a dev doesn't need all the boot stuff in their .iso it would make developing a Puppy Linux distro significantly easier. I'm not sure if that's practical for your top distros though, as people want to use the .iso in a variety of ways. Anyway, there's a lot of unexplored territory there. The various ways which involve writing to EFI are all interesting too.

EDIT - I'm not suggesting or telling the Puppy devs what to do. no, no, no.... I've been accused of that so I have to clarify. They should do whatever they think is best. I'm just saying these possibilities are interesting to me. In general, what the Puppy .iso's include is very practical for the wide variety of ways people use them.

[williwaw]

I have persevered with the installer, and would have preferred for it to be successful,

e3StickPup is drop dead simple. two screens and about as many clicks, unfortunately it does not show internal drives as candidates. (and is only for use if you wish to reformat the entire drive)
If @gyrog is following, perhaps a quick and simple universal, preconfigured e3drivepup would be a nice addition to v42

[trawglodyte]

The only installer I have experience with is FrugalPup Installer. The reason that's the only one is because it worked perfectly for me every time. If you have a windows machine and want Puppy Linux on hard drive, you put the .iso on a usb, Puppy has gParted and FrugalPup Installer, you're set. The only reason manual frugal is so easy, is because you do it from an existing Linux OS. It doesn't have to have everything the Puppy Installers have, you don't have to write anything to the EFI, and you don't need a usb or going into the BIOS or anything. You just extract the .iso, put the folder on the partition, and make a menuentry to boot it.

[geo_c]

I was puzzling over this a bit, trying to think of how the kernel paramater pmedia=cd could possibly cause this. Why putting it on one frugal would work fine, but doing more installs would be an issue. ... I'm fairly certain nothing like that can happen this way.

As you said subsequently to this quote, you have put the boot locations in the stanza, and of course that works. A cd would have a "stock" bootloader already written on it, with no locations other than it's own. Now I'm no expert, and maybe since many are using iso's in place of cd, then the cd parameter is the logical choice to boot an iso, but when it comes to booting USB or internal hard drive, a cd parameter also works as long as the directory and partition locations are specified correctly in grub, then of course it's probably fine, and this is what you have done, which is why I mentioned that it's the point of your template to do exactly that, specifiy the boot locations.

So that was extremely helpful of you.

What I'm pointing to in terms of having that parameter in the stanza for perpertuity, is that if the stanza is changed so that it's searching for save and boot locations rather than being pointed directly to them, then I think the parameter becomes dicey.

That's all I'm saying. If someone fiddles with the stanza and has that parameter, they might get a "hybrid" boot of files from different locations if they have drives with puppy files attached to their system while booting.

And it happens.

It happened to me when I had setup a boot on an sd card, and also had a hard drive install, and a usb install inserted. I got files loaded from different drives. I was puzzled, but then it all made sense when I thought about it. Again I was running F95 and not F96 or Bookworm or newer. So I can not vouch that things haven't changed since F95. (edit: this is back when my understanding of boot stanzas was still very weak, so I probably had them written all goofy.)

Being that you are setting some one up for a first boot, the cd parameter is probably not much of a risk, but it makes sense to change it if you aren't actually booting a cd or iso, but instead booting from some other medium.

Like I said, it's not a big issue, but when you can change a line here or there to "clean it up" even more, it doesn't hurt to consider it.

This is something I've studied quite a bit. I don't think I have it mastered yet. But there's some interesting possibilities. You could have essentially a "dummy" Linux just to give you a grub. From a Puppy frugal you could edit it's /boot/grub/custom.cfg and install another frugal. I'm also certain you could write some scripts or small apps that could take an .iso and install it for you this way with only a couple prompts. Find the UUID for you, write the menuentry in the custom.cfg.

This method is in fact how I do all my installs. I load a boot loader with any linux installed so the bootloader writes a config, or menu.lst, a grub or a grub2, doesn't matter. Once it's there, you just copy more OSs to directories and paste the boot stanzas into it and type or paste the UUIDs of your drives and partitions, type in the path, and that's all it takes.

My grub configs don't have any of the original stanzas written to them when the bootloader was first installed. I delete entire OSs and copy in new OS directories to the drives and re-write the stanzas. So in other words, my bootloader was loaded like 7 years ago or something, none of the original OSs or files are still on the hard drive except the bootloater. The grub entries are entirely new. I suppose it depends on the tool you use to load grub as to what it would need to see to consider an OS being there. I'm not knowledgeable enough about it to know, maybe a vmlinuz, somekind of initrd, and?

Kennel Linux, KLV, KLA, KLU, has a script similar to what you describe, called wd_grubconfig, you run it from the OS directory and it gives you the stanzas to boot that OS, grub or grub2, either by UUID or by drive/path. They work everytime. But they're all basically the same, so I often don't run it. I just copy a stanza and change the name of the OS and location in the stanza.

So if you took a script like that, and just put a mount iso and copy files section in front that copies to a prompted location, then run the config boot stanza section, it could even insert it into the grub config, but I would lean toward just manually copying it in, as my rewrite file insertion scripting skills are pretty weak.

It's also interesting to me to realize if a dev doesn't need all the boot stuff in their .iso it would make developing a Puppy Linux distro significantly easier. I'm not sure if that's practical for your top distros though, as people want to use the .iso in a variety of ways. Anyway, there's a lot of unexplored territory there. The various ways which involve writing to EFI are all interesting too.

Devs and forum members spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with all the available methods to boot. There are so many. Again I think the KL script giving you stanzas makes a lot of sense. They also try to make sure the iso's boot from iso booters. But I don't mess with those. I like bare metal installs.

[trawglodyte]

I had to refresh my memory for a second. You guys are causing me to think about some important things. Let's look at this menu-entry again.

1. menuentry "<folder name>" {
2. insmod ext2
3. insmod part_gpt
4. search --set=root --fs-uuid 49ba2b38-cc9b-4d48-b9b5-f48b43845b7f
5. linux /<folder name>/vmlinuz acpi_osi=Linux net.ifnames=0 pmedia=atahd pdrv=<partition label> psubdir=/<folder name> pfix=fsck,fsckp
6. initrd /<folder name>/initrd.gz
}

(numbers just added for reference)
Line 1 just tells it what to display on the grub screen, you can add a couple things if you want an icon and your grub theme has icons.
Line 2 and 3 make sure modules are loaded for ext4 (ext2 supports ext3 and ext4 too) and a gpt partion. This probably isn't needed, it's probably already in the kernel, but can't hurt.
Line 3 is where "searching" happens. It needs to find the partition. You can add --no-floppy to this line. Somewhere along the lines I took that out. Depending on the machine, and possibly BIOS settings it could spend some time searching connected flash drives/devices before finding the partition. I'll add --no-floppy back, even though it's no issue on my machine. I think it could only make booting faster. I may have taken it out thinking it could cause problems if someone wound up using this template on a usb for some reason.

Line4, okay now it already found the partition. If it doesn't find the parition, I don't think you get to Line4. I think you get an error. I could be wrong though, perhaps if it doesn't find the partition it launches into some sort of "searching" after finding the kernel parameters? What I'm getting at here, is under normal circumstances "searching" is over with before it gets to kernel parameters. By the time it gets there it already found the partition and directory.

Line5, assuming kernel loads, then initial ram disk.

you can add echo lines. I sometimes put something funny like "pull the anchor" and "hoist the mainsails". If something goes wrong that can be helpful. Knowing whether none, one, or both displayed let's you know how far it got. But usually it just zips by so fast on modern machines, IDK. For my purposes, less items, easier to explain, less confusing, and of course people can add more later. If you got an SSD and wanna add trim, put pfix=fsck,fsckp,trim this will potentially increase the life of your drive a bit, or so I'm told.

[geo_c]

Line4, okay now it already found the partition. If it doesn't find the parition, I don't think you get to Line4. I think you get an error. I could be wrong though, perhaps if it doesn't find the partition it launches into some sort of "searching" after finding the kernel parameters? What I'm getting at here, is under normal circumstances "searching" is over with before it gets to kernel parameters. By the time it gets there it already found the partition and directory.

This is correct. But the kernel parameters are for the kernel, and I believe, though I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, that the pmedia=atahd pdrv=<partition label> psubdir=/<folder name> and initrd /<folder name>/initrd.gz are what loads Puppy. In other words, these parameters I think are passed to the initrd, which is going to layer the filesystem.

Again, as you have specified precisely where these directories are to be found in the stanza, they'll be loaded and layered from those locations, but traditionally a pup cd not having these locations will search for those files on accessible drive partitions.

With pmedia=cd, all I'm saying is that without the other pdrv, psubdir specified, the initrd will try to grab these files by searching.

The logic behind this behavior to my understanding, is that back in the day of puppy being the kind of OS you could run from a CD (which I did many times), and CD's being very slow, if you located files on other drives, you could speed up your access time without actually installing the OS to those other drives. Pretty genius if you think about it. Put in a CD, boot it because you have windows installed on the hard drive and don't want to mess with that drive, but put puppy system files on a fast usb stick, and the CD boot will grab those filesystems and mount them, layer them into the stack and run from them. This includes the save file of course, which by definition has to be located somewhere else besides the CD.

These days there's no need for that. No one has CD readers hardly, and it's not ideal anyway, even though it works.

Do pups from the last 2 or 3 years have those same capabilites, I'm not sure. But that's one of the reasons the pmedia=cd parameter is there. Probably it's a good choice for an iso which will have to locate the save outside the iso filesystem. But for any other type of install it might not be ideal.

[trawglodyte]

The logic behind this behavior to my understanding, is that back in the day of puppy being the kind of OS you could run from a CD (which I did many times), and CD's being very slow, if you located files on other drives, you could speed up your access time without actually installing the OS to those other drives. Pretty genius if you think about it. Put in a CD, boot it because you have windows installed on the hard drive and don't want to mess with that drive, but put puppy system files on a fast usb stick, and the CD boot will grab those filesystems and mount them, layer them into the stack and run from them. This includes the save file of course, which by definition has to be located somewhere else besides the CD.

These days there's no need for that. No one has CD readers hardly, and it's not ideal anyway, even though it works.

gotcha. I removed the optical drive on my machine and put a thing with 7 usb ports in it's place. I was doing Windows in the cd install era. I always see tons of cd/dvd burner apps w/ different Linux distros and in the repositories. It must have been a huge thing. It seems good to use atahd, I know there's a lot more posts on your forum referring to that paramater, so people should be able to get info.