FrugalPup v44, very flexible Puppy frugal installer, supporting i18n

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 24, DiskPup 24, StickPup 24 and f2StickPup 24 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_24.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-24.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This release to take advanage of the "vfat" "AUTOSAVE" facility (pupmode=66) recently introduced to the "init-experiment" branch of woof-ce.

'StickPup' now makes use of the "AUTOSAVE" facility. This should result in the automatic creation of a save-archive, on first shutdown, of the installed Puppy.
So there should be no dialogs after the "Save/NoSave" dialog.
(Provided that the 'shutdownconfig' file in the installed Puppy includes the latest "AUTOSAVE" patch.)

'DiskPup' also makes use of the "vfat" "AUTOSAVE" facility if the selected install directory is on a "vfat" partition.

If the installed Puppy does not contain support for "vfat" "AUTOSAVE", then the first-shutdown will proceed with the normal savefile dialog's.

NOTE: None of the "todo" items mentioned in the prevous post are addressed by this release.

gyro

[tosim]

Thanks for the "heads-up".

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 25, DiskPup 25, StickPup 25 and f2StickPup 25 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_25.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-25.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This release enhances the "Boot" and "BootCD" facilities in "FrugalPup".

1. Enable updating the main 'grub.cfg' file without installing grub2.

The boot type selection dialog used to look like this:

boot24.png (9.48 KiB) Viewed 2256 times

Now the same dialog looks like this:

boot25.png (19.99 KiB) Viewed 2256 times

The 'uefi', 'mbr' and 'both' options do exactly as they always did, installl grub2 and a new 'grub.cfg'

The 'replace' option does not install grub2, it simply replaces the 'grub.cfg'.
This is useful if you've just changed the installed Puppies using the "Puppy" facility, so all you need is an updated 'grub.cfg' that reflects the current installed Puppies.

The 'append' option does not install grub2, it appends generated boot entries to the existing 'grub.cfg'.
Quite useful if you want to boot Puppies installed in more than one location using a single "fat32" boot partition.
Note: It really does simply append the new entries to the end of 'grub.cfg', it makes no attempt to "clean-up" the resulting 'grub.cfg'.

2. Integrate 'bootgrubcd' into the "BootCD" facility.

The contents of the ISO file depends on what partition you select in the first dialog.
If it's a "fat32" partition, and it contains the file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img' then a 'bootgrubcd' type ISO is produced.
Otherwise it works the way it always did, i.e. produces a Grub2 CD/DVD, that boots the selected Puppy frugal installs.

The advantage of having the CD/DVD chainload Grub2 rather than containing Grub2, is that your Grub2 installation is in a place that can be more easily changed.

[tosim]

Thanks for this update.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 26, DiskPup 26, StickPup 26 and f2StickPup 26 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_26.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-26.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This release enhances the "Boot" facility in "FrugalPup" to support generating a "Windows" boot entry in 'grub.cfg'.
When a new 'grub.cfg' file is being generated, it will include a "Windows" entry, if a Windows" install is found on the computer.

If you select 'uefi', 'mbr', 'both', or 'replace', in the "Boot type" dialog, (see the FrugalPup v25 post for example image),
the system is searched for a "Windows" installation and an appropriate boot entry is generated, if "Windows" is found.

As with all other boot entries generated by FrugalPup, the only searching requested of Grub2, is to find the partition with the specified UUID.

Since DiskPup, StickPup, and f2StickPup use the same "backend" as FrugalPup, they also have this feature.

Note: A little while ago I posted a "todo" for FrugalPup:

1. Support for updating only the 'grub.cfg' file.
2. Support for generating a "Windows" boot entry.
3. Investigate installing Puppy grub2 to the Windows EFI partition (ESP).

Item 1 was addressed by FrugalPup v25.
Item 2 is addressed by this release.
Since item 3 is rabbit-hole, this is likely to be the last "feature" release for quite a while.

[gyrog]

Thanks for this update.

Thanks.

[gyrog]

I've just found a bug in FrugalPup v26.
If you are using the "Boot" facility to write to a drive with a GPT partition table, the "Boot type" dialog is not shown, it should be shown with only 3 options, 'uefi', 'replace' and 'append', with 'uefi' as the default.

FrugalPup supports only 'uefi' booting on drives with GPT partition tables, so it is working correctly in not showing 'mbr' or 'both' in the "Boot type" dialog.

There will be a "bug-fix" release before too long.
So, reporting of any other bugs in FrugalPup v26, would be much appreciated, please.

[gyrog]

There will be a "bug-fix" release before too long.

Well, given the success of my uefi boot testing, it will most likely be a "feature" release too.
The feature will be support for installing grub2 to the Windows ESP (EFI System Partition), using uefi to dual-boot.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 27, DiskPup 27, StickPup 27 and f2StickPup 27 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_27.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-27.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This release fixes a bug where the "Boot type" dialog was not shown in a uefi only environment.

But the BIG thing is that the red warning message on "FrugalPup->Boot" has been downgraded from "Overwrites existing boot files." to "May overwrite some existing boot files."

This release enhances the "Boot" facility in "FrugalPup" to support installing to an existing ESP (EFI System Partition), no-matter if it's for another Linux distribution or Windows.
Instead of writing the Puppy Linux ".efi" files to '/EFI/boot', it writes them to '/EFI/Puppy' so that it can dual-boot with the installed other system via uefi/BIOS "Boot Menu".
This facility depends on a fully working 'efibootmgr' utility in Puppy to register the "boot" with the uefi/BIOS, this is currently a challange.

If there are no other uefi installs present in the "vfat" partition, then the ".efi" files are written to the default directory, '/EFI/boot', the same as before.
Being in the default location, there is no need for 'efibootmgr' to register the boot, the same as before.
So these changes do not make any difference to 'StickPup' or 'f2StickPup', or when you use a separate "vfat" boot partition just for Puppy.

Of course this only makes a difference if grub2 is being installed, not if only the config file ('grub.cfg') is being changed.

This release also removes the requirement for a vfat boot partition to be the first partition on the drive.
FrugalPup doesn't check any more, so you can do the install.
It should work for uefi, when the ESP is not the first partition. One of my working uefi test situations had an ESP as "sda2".
But it may not always work for non-uefi boots.

Note1: So when does FrugalPup always overwrite?
1. Corresponding files in the '/boot/grub' directory of the boot "vfat" partition, at the worst, this could be replacing one version of grub with another.
2. If it's directed to replace a '/EFI/Puppy' install.

Note2: The ability to share an ESP with another distribution has, by it's nature, has had very limited testing.
I did my testing against an install of Deuvan Beowulf.
So please proceed with caution when testing it, i.e. make sure you have a backup of the ESP, (it's just a small "vfat" partition).

It might be a good idea to hold-off on uploading this version to woof-ce, just yet.
Perhaps best to treat this as an "beta" release, I expect there will be a bug-fix v28 release before too long.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 28, DiskPup 28, StickPup 28 and f2StickPup 28 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_28.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-28.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

The FrugalPup scripts now handle symbolic links when copying Puppy files to an install directory,
this is particularly useful when the selected source is a directory on a Linux partition, rather than a ".iso" or ".zip" file.

It uses the "-L" option on the "cp" command to copy the target of any symbolic links in the source install directory to the destination directory.
If the target file actually resides in the source install directory, then the destination directory ends up with 2 copies of the same file.
so the file with the target filename is deleted, leaving only the file with the symbolic link filename.
This gives a working result, even if the destination directory is on a fat32 partition.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 29, DiskPup 29, StickPup 29 and f2StickPup 29 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_29.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-29.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This is a release to support the existence of grub2 binaries within woof-ce, and hence within a generated Puppy.

If you install 'frugalpup-29.pet', a 'pinstall' script will delete the grub2 binaries from FrugalPup if they already exist in Puppy.

FrugalPup has been patched to use the grub2 binaries from within Puppy in preference to the ones within itself.

Note: It has had minimal testing.

[mikeslr]

Hi gyrog. Thanks for the update.

While frugalpup is still echoing in your mind, perhaps you might take this opportunity to reflect about the problem I mentioned here, viewtopic.php?p=21985#p21985. No rush; back-burner stuff. But at least for me occasionally while working on a tangential problem the solution to a problem I've assigned to my back-burner will percolate to the surface.
When dd'd to a USB-Key, EasyOS's structure looks like this this:

EasyOS boot-structure.png (44.65 KiB) Viewed 2168 times

I think EasyOS installed to a USB uses refind.conf*. But it might be using syslinux.cfg. Both syslinux.cfg and refind.conf provide menu entries are shown by the following:

refind.conf.png (44.79 KiB) Viewed 2168 times

I think just manually adding EasyOS to frugalpup's grub.cfg would result in the loss of EasyOS's boot options. I want frugalpup's grub.cfg to remain the the primary boot-loader = don't want the installation of EasyOS to supersede that. AFAIK, either/both syslinux.cfg or refind.conf can be located anywhere.
But how can Frugalpup make use of it/them?

Note that the frequency in the above of "I think" and AFAIK indicates that I am envisioning a problem 'far above my pay-grade'. Don't take anything for granted. And don't feel obliged to consider any solution outside of the parameters the above might suggest.

=-=-=-=-=--
* I don't understand refind, at all. It's Web-site lost me at the very beginning where it said refind was a boot-manager and not a boot-loader.

[bigpup]

EasyOS is not Puppy Linux.
It does not work the same as a normal Puppy Linux.
It is as simple as that.
As I understand.
Frugalpup Installer is designed for Puppy Linux and how it works.

[gyrog]

@mikeslr,
Sorry, @bigpup has got it in one.

To be even more precise, my interest is in Puppy Linux itself, particularly frugal installs on Linux partitions, and vfat partitions, on rewritable devices like HD's and usb sticks etc....

[gyrog]

I have uploaded 'grub2-202002.pet' to https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup.
It's really just a name change to 'grub2_frugalpup-20.pet' to make it clear that the archive files included are still the latest versions of these grub2 archive files, and are still the ones used in all the later FrugalPup's.
The reference to 'frugalpup-20' in the filename, could give the wrong impression that they are relevant to only FrugalPup v20,
it was simply there to indicate the source of the archive files.

Note: If you simply rename a ".pet" file, it won't install.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 30, DiskPup 30, StickPup 30 and f2StickPup 30 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_30.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-30.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (3 MiB).

This release is to support AUTOSAVE within the FrugalPup utility itself, AUTOSAVE support is already present in StickPup, f2StickPup, and DiskPup.

"FrugalPup->Settings" now has a new field, "Use AUTOSAVE".
If this is checked, FrugalPup will create an AUTOSAVE file in the save directory,
if the save loaction is on a "vfat" partition or a Linux partition.
Provided the 'shutdownconfig' of the installed Puppy supports AUTOSAVE, this should result in the automatic creation of a savefolder on Linux partition,
and a save archive (pupmode=66) on a "vfat" partition, during first-shutdown.
If 'shutdownconfig' does not support AUTOSAVE, first-shutdown should proceed as normal.

This release also contains a change to the way binary settings are stored in '$HOME/.config/frugal.conf'.
They used to be stored as 'yes' and '', now they are stored as 'yes' and 'no'.
If you upgrade to v30 or downgrade from v30, it's probably a good idea to check that "FrugalPup->Settings" still represents what you want.

There are also a few changes to the "Help" pages to clarify a few things.

[gyrog]

@mikeslr,
One approach you could take is to find out what constitutes a Grub2 boot entry for EasyOS, and manualy edit that into the 'grub.cfg'.
If you can't find anyone who has booted EasyOS using Grub2, then try to find someone who has booted EasyOS with grub4dos, it's fairly easy to translate a grub4dos entry to a Grub2 entry.

FrugalPup generates things like boot parameters and files like SAVEMARK...etc based on knowing the 'init' script of woof-ce Puppy Linux. I have no plans to extend FrugalPup to generate boot-entries for anything other than Puppy.
But, if anyone wants to create a patch for '/usr/local/frugalpup/frugalpup-bootentry' then by all means let me know.
It would need to contain code to recognise that the current install directory contains an EasyOS installation, and code to produce a Grub2 boot-entry for it.

[BarryK]

@mikeslr,
One approach you could take is to find out what constitutes a Grub2 boot entry for EasyOS, and manualy edit that into the 'grub.cfg'.
If you can't find anyone who has booted EasyOS using Grub2, then try to find someone who has booted EasyOS with grub4dos, it's fairly easy to translate a grub4dos entry to a Grub2 entry.

FrugalPup generates things like boot parameters and files like SAVEMARK...etc based on knowing the 'init' script of woof-ce Puppy Linux. I have no plans to extend FrugalPup to generate boot-entries for anything other than Puppy.
But, if anyone wants to create a patch for '/usr/local/frugalpup/frugalpup-bootentry' then by all means let me know.
It would need to contain code to recognise that the current install directory contains an EasyOS installation, and code to produce a Grub2 boot-entry for it.

I myself haven't used grub2, only grub4dos and refind. However, Clemens sent me an email, showing all steps he followed for a frugal install of EasyOS with grub2:

https://easyos.org/install/files/clemen ... nstall.txt

...those steps work when running any Linux distro.

...note, that path he used '/boot/EasyOS' is entirely his choice, it can be anything, and any depth. You could for example have /frugalpups/easyos/dunfell/boot for booting (containing vmlinuz, initrd and easy.sfs) and say /frugalpups/easyos/dunfell/working for the working files after bootup. Or you could have just one folder for both boot and working. It is entirely your choice.

But, working folder must be in a Linux filesystem, and strongly recommend ext4.

[gyrog]

@BarryK,
It looks like the important part of all that is the Grub2 boot entry, that's supposed to be added to '/etc/grub.d/40_custom'.

If I were to boot EasyOs with the Grub2 installed by FrugalPup right now, I would create an 'EasyOs-grub2.cfg' file that contained an appropriate boot entry based on the one outlined.
Then every time I used FrugalPup to generate a new 'grub.cfg' in the "vfat" boot partition, I would simply add the contents of 'EasyOs-grub2.cfg' to the FrugalPup generated 'grub.cfg' with a text editor.

I don't see a need for FrugalPup to actually generate non-woof-ce Puppy Linux grub2 boot entries.

I do see a possible need for a FrugalPup facility to include a "foreign" grub2 entries file, which could even be '/etc/grub.d/40_custom'.
hmmm... OR
Could have FrugalPup use '/etc/grub.d/' to generate it's own 'grub.cfg'.
It could generate '/etc/grub.d/00_frugalpup' and '/etc/grub.d/99_frugalpup' and possibly an '/etc/grub.d/10_windows',
but then process all files in '/etc/grub.d/' in sorted order.

[BarryK]

I myself haven't used grub2, only grub4dos and refind. However, Clemens sent me an email, showing all steps he followed for a frugal install of EasyOS with grub2:

https://easyos.org/install/files/clemen ... nstall.txt

Clemens has done it to suit his system. His grub2 configuration:

Code: Select all

menuentry "boot easyOS from boot -subfolder on sdc3" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
insmod search_fs_uuid
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root b80c1ef6-51a8-4c34-a992-62062a1a83c4
linux /boot/easyOS/vmlinuz ro rd.plymouth=0 plymouth.enable=0 vt.default_utf8=1 acpi=strict loglevel=3 \
root=UUID=b80c1ef6-51a8-4c34-a992-62062a1a83c4 rootfstype=ext4 noresume
initrd /boot/easyOS/initrd
}

But that "linux ..." could be cut right down:

Code: Select all

menuentry "boot easyOS from boot -subfolder on sdc3" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
insmod search_fs_uuid
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root b80c1ef6-51a8-4c34-a992-62062a1a83c4
linux /boot/easyOS/vmlinuz rw
initrd /boot/easyOS/initrd
}

There is no need to specify "root=..." and "rootfstype=...", they are really only needed for a installation without an initrd.

[gyrog]

But that "linux ..." could be cut right down:

Code: Select all

menuentry "boot easyOS from boot -subfolder on sdc3" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
insmod search_fs_uuid
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root b80c1ef6-51a8-4c34-a992-62062a1a83c4
linux /boot/easyOS/vmlinuz rw
initrd /boot/easyOS/initrd
}

There is no need to specify "root=..." and "rootfstype=...", they are really only needed for a installation without an initrd.

For a FrugalPup Grub2 installation it could be simplified a little more, 'EasyOS-grub2.cfg' could contain:

Code: Select all

menuentry "boot easyOS from boot -subfolder on sdc3" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root b80c1ef6-51a8-4c34-a992-62062a1a83c4
  linux /boot/easyOS/vmlinuz rw
  initrd /boot/easyOS/initrd
}

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 31, DiskPup 31, StickPup 31 and f2StickPup 31 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_31.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-31.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (3 MiB).

This release is to support the '/etc/grub.d/' directory, (thanks to @mikeslr for prompting this).
Whenever FrugalPup is used to replace (or create) the 'grub.cfg' file, after generating the Puppy boot-entries, but before appending any Windows entry, FrugalPup now processes each file found in '/etc/grub.d', sorted into filename order.
Each file is appended to the new 'grub.cfg' file, assuming that it contains one or more Grub2 boot entries to boot OS's other than woof-ce Puppy frugal installs.

This means that you can intermix Puppy frugal installs and other frugal installs and use FrugalPup to install and manage Grub2.
But, for the non woof-ce Puppy installs you still need to generate the actual boot entries as text files, and make them available to FrugalPup via the '/etc/grub.d/' directory.

An example:
You have an ext4 partition that contains 3 frugal installs, '/frugals/slacko64', '/frugals/UPupHH+D' and '/frugals/easyOS'.
When FrugalPup is run to install Grub2 on the boot partition, it will generate boot-entries for '/frugals/slacko64' and '/frugals/UPupHH+D', but will ignore '/frugals/easyOS' because it does not contain a 'puppy_*.sfs' file.
However if you create a text file called '/etc/grub.d/40_custom' (or '/etc/grub.d/10_easyos'), containing something like:

Code: Select all

menuentry "boot easyOS" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root nnnnnnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnn
  linux /frugals/easyOS/vmlinuz rw
  initrd /frugals/easyOS/initrd
}

and then run "FrugalPup->Boot" to replace the 'grub.cfg' file,
the "boot easyOS" entry should appear in the Grub2 menu, and selecting it should work.
"nnnnnnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnn" is the UUID of the ext4 partition.

The "quick and simple" installers, DiskPup, StickPup and f2StickPup, do not do this, and they no-longer generate a Windows boot-entry.
Of course, "FrugalPup->Boot" can always be used afterwards to replace the installed 'grub.cfg' on the boot partition.

[gyrog]

I plan to release a FrugalPup v32, before too long without the current code for doing "Windows" entries, it will depend on getting this from '/etc/grub.d/40_custom'.
I'm stilll not sure if it will contain the '/etc/grub.d/40_custom' generation code that is currently in a separate utlity "OtherInstalls", or leave that as an independent utility.

It will fix the spelling error on the "FrugalPup->Settings" page.

It will also have a trial debugging technique in the begining of each script:

Code: Select all

myName="${0##*/}"
[ -e "/tmp/${myName}_debug_flag" ] && set -x && exec &> "/tmp/${myName}_$$.log"

I have borrowed the use of "set -x; exec &> "/tmp/${myName}_$$.log", but I've always seen it and used it as a commented out line at the beginning of a script. My idea is to have the tracing activated by the presence of a flag file, so we can ask a user to:

Code: Select all

touch /tmp/frugalpup-puppyfiles_debug_flag

then run "FrugalPup->Puppy" and report the contents of the resultant '/tmp/frugalpup-puppyfiles_....log' file.
Or something similar for whichever script we might think the problem resides in.

Note: I'm sorry but I can't remember which script it was in, or who was responsible for the line, but I have found that generating a trace file in this manner, a very valuable debugging tool.

[gyrog]

FrugalPup 32, DiskPup 32, StickPup 32 and f2StickPup 32 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_32.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-32.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (3 MiB).

1.
This release enhances the support the '/etc/grub.d/' directory, by the removal of the previous code in FrugalPup to generate "Windows" boot entries.
The "Windows" boot entries are now generted into '/etc/grub.d/40_custom' by the "OtherInstalls" utility.

Perhaps "OtherInstalls" functionality should be included in FrugalPup, as an extra facility,
or simply include it in the FrugalPup distribution as a separate utility.
(This decision will become apparent in a future release of FrugalPup.)

2.
All FrugalPup scripts now include a debugging aid, that is activated by the presence of a file called '/tmp/<frugalpup-script-name>_debug_flag'.
Where <frugalpup-script-name> is replaced by the filename of an actual FrugalPup script.
This will activate "-x" tracing which will be written to a '/tmp/<frugalpup-script-name>_nnn.log' file, where "nnn" is the process PID.
When read along with the source code of the script, this can be a very powerful debugging tool.
The FrugalPup scripts all reside in the '/usr/local/frugalpup/' directory.

3.
The "Help" page has been updated to reflect the use of the '/etc/grub.d/' directory, (should have been done for v31).

4.
And most important of all, the spelling error in the "Settings" dialog has been fixed.
(It's been there for a while, but I did not spot it, so thanks to the one who did.)

[tosim]

Thanks for the update.

[gyrog]

Thanks for the update.

You are welcome.

[gyrog]

I have been granted "authorship" of this topic and have edited the first post accordingly,
so from now, information on the latest release will always be in the first post.
Thankyou, @rockedge and @mikeslr.

[bigpup]

Thanks for trying to make this better and better!
I remember the first time you offered Frugalpup Installer.
A lot has changed for the good!
I think we dragged you into making it work for UEFI secure booting!

It has come a long way, in being the go to program, for doing Puppy installs!
I use it as the only installer program.

Nice to see it offered as a pet package or an SFS package.

Thanks!!

[gyrog]

@bigpup,
Thanks for your support for this project.

[mikeslr]

Hi gyrog,

About what's left of my OP at the beginning of this thread, just delete it. Or replace it with whatever you think may be appropriate.
I started the thread at a time you were still MIA. As this was now to be Puppy's principal forum and your work was essential and would often be brought to the attention of newbies, I thought an easy way to find it would save a lot of time.