Bug: USB port designations keep incrementing (Fossapup64 9.5)

[geo_c]

Ok, I removed the USB hub and tried booting from the fossapup thumb drive and it booted! But there were no drives plugged into it the hub at boot. What could that possibly mean? I had a choice of two different saves to use, and I am guessing #2 is the newest, so I chose that.

So all is not lost, and there is still hope for the future.

This is not surprising.

If I have various hubs or drives plugged in that are not setup or interacting quite right, the boot hangs at a black screen. For instance I have my bios setup to boot legacy, searching USB first, so if I plug in an EFI formatted USB drive, it tries to boot that, but hangs, unplugging it of course results in a normal boot from the internal drive.

Unfortunately, with as many variables as you have, the hubs, the external drives, the internal drive, and the thumbdrive, the only way to make sense of troubleshooting is starting from what you know and adding one piece at a time, which requires a lot of rebooting, reconfiguring, and rebooting until all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

So you kind of have to take inventory of what you know and build from there.

You know that the thumb drive plugged straight into the laptop socket boots. Now I would check where those two savefiles are located. Look at their names on the boot menu, and then go find them. Are they on the USB thumb boot, or on the nvme?

After that, maybe try plugging the hub in and booting ONLY the thumb drive from it, with no other drives in the hub. Check those results.

The next steps would involve adding one of your other external drives into the mix. It's a process of elimination.

[Trapster]

I had a choice of two different saves to use, and I am guessing #2 is the newest, so I chose that.

It has been suggested (many times in all your other threads) to name your save files to something specific so you know what you're booting into.
WHY haven't you taken this advise?

[Governor]

I had a choice of two different saves to use, and I am guessing #2 is the newest, so I chose that.

It has been suggested (many times in all your other threads) to name your save files to something specific so you know what you're booting into.
WHY haven't you taken this advice?

I had tried using the Udev_Rules-1.1-noarch before, am I'm not sure how it worked because I was distracted by something else and I ended up re-booting. I was in RAM-only at the time. Long story short. I did not know that it was forbidden to have save folders or save files on a different drives, if one wanted to actually boot from the CD. For an entire year, I thought I was booting from the CD, but in reality was booting from some other place. It is only very recently that I am able to save settings because I deleted or eliminated all puppy files not on the CD I was booting from.

Here is my blkid with the fossapup boot USB plugged into a USB 2.0 slot on my laptop.

Code: Select all

/dev/sda1: LABEL_FATBOOT="dosd992288c" LABEL="dosd992288c" UUID="8FB0-0686" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="d992288c-01"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="lind992288c" UUID="bb0ff474-57ff-4e7a-84b3-17c2ffb8a21e" TYPE="ext3" PARTUUID="d992288c-02"

I entered this:

Code: Select all

root#  ./mkrule /dev/sda1 fossapup1
root# ./mkrule /dev/sda2 fossapup2

I see no difference in Pmount. It still says sda1 and sda2. Will it show if I reboot?
Thanks.

[mikewalsh]

As I remember it, when laptops first came out, they had less power and fewer features than desktops, and they were more expensive.
Now it is the opposite, and desktops have less power and fewer features. Laptops are small, they take little space.

Heh. There's some pretty small "desktops" around, too. But you've got that in a nutshell.

"Laptops are small, they take little space". Yup.....and limited space means a limit to just what you can cram inside them. The laws of physics still apply here, y'know!

Small MAY "be beautiful", but one thing you cannot deny. The traditional desktop tower/ATX/mini-ATX combo did - and still does - have one big thing going for it. Lots of room to expand and add new items of hardware to your heart's content......AND plenty of space for cool air to circulate around. The modern laptop 'form factor' - small and super-slim, where everything is glued-together & soldered in place - doesn't exactly encourage tinkerers and hardware enthusiasts to get creative and enjoy themselves.

I mean, look at your set-up. Ya might be using a laptop, but you're plugging in every bit as much junk as the average desktop has attached to it. You're not so different, at the end of the day. You might just as well get one of these small form-factor (SFF) desktops and be done with it!

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[geo_c]

@Governor, what I'm stil scratching my head about is, "Why still booting primarily from a thumb drive and trying to troubleshoot the hubs when you could be figuring out the internal drive on this machine?"

If you could get that squared away, you could boot up your OS with no external drives attached, get your savefiles setup and located in the OS directory, let the hubs take care of the keyboards and all that, and then mess with your external drives after everything else is working smoothly.

Then you could even use the laptop like a laptop and carry it with you out of the house. Maybe plug in a single logitech dongle to run both the keyboard and the mouse. I'm typing on $25 logitech usb wireless keyboard and mouse combo, with the dongle preconfigured to run both, takes one port.

You can always keep the the thumb drive boot as a backup, and use pupsave backup to put all your settings in a backupsave on the USB thumb anytime you want, 5 times a day even.

[Governor]

@Governor, what I'm stil scratching my head about is, "Why still booting primarily from a thumb drive and trying to troubleshoot the hubs when you could be figuring out the internal drive on this machine?"

If you could get that squared away, you could boot up your OS with no external drives attached, get your savefiles setup and located in the OS directory, let the hubs take care of the keyboards and all that, and then mess with your external drives after everything else is working smoothly.

Then you could even use the laptop like a laptop and carry it with you out of the house. Maybe plug in a single logitech dongle to run both the keyboard and the mouse. I'm typing on $25 logitech usb wireless keyboard and mouse combo, with the dongle preconfigured to run both, takes one port.

You can always keep the the thumb drive boot as a backup, and use pupsave backup to put all your settings in a backupsave on the USB thumb anytime you want, 5 times a day even.

Sounds good to me. My idea was to get a both a fossapup boot thumb and bookworm boot thumb, so I can decide which OS to use on the NVMe. I have noticed several improvements in the bookworm GUI compared with fossapup so I'll probably end up with bookworm.

I followed your suggestion and ran chkdsk on the external hd drives on a Windows computer, and no errors were found on them. I don't get how a hub could cause problems with the operation of the OS.

I waited until the OS was running before turning on the external drives. Only the vfat drive doesn't have a lock.

Pmount shows locked external drives 2024-06-12.png (342.86 KiB) Viewed 1288 times

A strange thing happened. When I closed the lid on my laptop, fossapup turned off my computer! That never happened before with fossapup. How can I fix it?

[Governor]

@Governor :-

You haven't done that properly. And I can tell you where you've gone wrong, too. You've named your drive

Code: Select all

MAIN_USB

.....and the mkrule script very clearly tells you NOT to "use spaces, slashes, asterisks or other weird characters". So you immediately ignore the instructions!

Code: Select all

 ./mkrule

Usage: ./mkrule /dev/sdX <Convenient USB Device Name i.e.: WD1600z> 

Do NOT use spaces, slashes, asterisks, or other weird characters 
in device name. 
 

Underscore is not mentioned in the instructions. I have been using underscore in Volume Labels for 30 years, I would never have considered it to be a weird character.

As for sdz1 to sdab1? That's just gone UP another mount-point. You're NOT following instructions.......and then you wonder why things don't work?

[geo_c]

[Sounds good to me. My idea was to get a both a fossapup boot thumb and bookworm boot thumb, so I can decide which OS to use on the NVMe. I have noticed several improvements in the bookworm GUI compared with fossapup so I'll probably end up with bookworm.

You really don't need to wait. If you partiion your nvme with a single bootloader partition and a very large ext partition, then you can install both on the ext partition.

I would start by removing all external drives, booting your USB bookworm and using it's installer to install a bootloader on the boot partition, and a bookworm install on the ext partition. You'll have to make sure the format of the boot partition is correct, probably fat32 if it's grub2. The boot stanza should be written correctly by the installer, so shutdown and do not plug in any external drives, then boot bookworm from the nvme.

Run it, examine the nvme in a file manager and look at where everything is, the bootloader, the OS. Set some of the basic OS settings, then shutdown making a save folder on the nvme in the Bookworm directory.

Still, don't plug any external drives in,

Reboot, see if your settings are there, notice on boot whether the verbose output mentioned loading the save folder.

If everything is normal without external drives, and you have Bookworm running from nvme, I can show you how to install fossapup manually, and you will have a better understanding of what the installer does, and actually how simple a pup install is. The hardest part is formatting your drives properly, and making sure you have a working grub.cfg. Copying the OS files is a very straight and simple task.

I followed your suggestion and ran chkdsk on the external hd drives on a Windows computer, and no errors were found on them. I don't get how a hub could cause problems with the operation of the OS.

I waited until the OS was running before turning on the external drives. Only the vfat drive doesn't have a lock.
Pmount shows locked external drives 2024-06-12.png

I'm going to assume it's not windows leaving a lock on the drives for now. And I'm curious as to how you had them unlocked previously, if I remember correctly it was while running Bookworm. by installing both OS's on nvme, we can add one external drive at a time (which you could have done anyway this time around) but for now, don't worry about those yet.

Set yourself up to be able to troubleshoot the external drive/hub situation without having to use it in the boot process.

[Clarity]

Hello @Governor Just got back.

OK, your problem(s) are in your HUBs and your PC's timing during POST (Power On Self Test).

@bigpup has published often about problems in having multiple USBs during boot time which highlight this PC-USB connection issues.

I have solved my issue with booting to get around the issues of POST timings. But you may/may-not like my method as you may find it TOO simple. (I have been using a simple system that gets around the pesky issues in booting forum distros.)

On the other issue you are seeing this is related to your disconnections/reconnections that you are seeing. Couple observations:

• you may be doing a disconnect while there is still data sitting in the I/O buffer for a 'lazy' USB connection. This can happen unknowingly. My advice is:
  ALWAYS do a "sync;sync" command in a terminal after issuing a "umount ..." command for the USB. In some cases you may have to do a "umount -l ..." if you get a message that indicates a stubborn/hidden app in holding on. This will guarantee the I/O buffer is flushed completely to the USB. Then turn-off or unplug the USB stick.

• Your HUBs have different timing issues and each appears to behave differently with your laptop depending on which ports they are connected to. So for a better picture (a tireless effort) you will have to run some tests to determine the HUB behaviors and the USB behaviors. This is a 'headachey' lab type of testings and note-taking as you work thru the varied connections options that are possible.

Questions of other devices connecting to your laptop:

• Do you have external mice-keyboard connected?

• Do you use an external HDMI/DP monitor/TV connected?

Future
In your future, you 'may' want to have a home NAS as having all your external storage in a NAS avoids the current clutter and USB issues you are seeing. They are pretty simple to set up in the home...even in the vicinity of your laptop. This would accommodate your diverse connect/disconnect issue as it would reduce to a mere mount/umount in the laptop's OS. All of the quality forum distros have SAMBA (NAS services) built-in just for this common purpose. Further, this can be a means to reduce the potential for data loss.

Thus, this would eliminate the issues you are see, currently.

You may already have this ability in your home ISP's (or your own) router. If so, you will have to do very little to use it with your externals.

[Governor]

I had a choice of two different saves to use, and I am guessing #2 is the newest, so I chose that.

It has been suggested (many times in all your other threads) to name your save files to something specific so you know what you're booting into.
WHY haven't you taken this advise?

I do not yet understand what is happening with the saves. Most people recommend using save folders, so I am doing that. I thought that every time I do a save, there would be a new choice of which saved session to use on boot. However, regardless of how many saves I make, I am still only given 2 choices on boot (and one of them is the backup). So instead of the save folder containing separate sessions, it appears to contain only one session which is overwritten each time. Presumably, a save overwrites the newest or last used pre-existing folder? After a closer inspection, the contents of the folder save and the backup save look quite different from each other. The save folder is on the left and the backup is on the right.

/mnt/home/pups/fossapup64/fossapup64save-mntsda2pupsfossapup642024_06_11
/mnt/home/pups/fossapup64/fossapup64save-mntsda2pupsfossapup642024_06_11.BKP-2024.06.12-07.24

Why are the save folder and backup different in contents.png (156.39 KiB) Viewed 1193 times

[Governor]

Hello @Governor Just got back.

OK, your problem(s) are in your HUBs and your PC's timing during POST (Power On Self Test).

@bigpup has published often about problems in having multiple USBs during boot time which highlight this PC-USB connection issues.

I have solved my issue with booting to get around the issues of POST timings. But you may/may-not like my method as you may find it TOO simple. (I have been using a simple system that gets around the pesky issues in booting forum distros.)

On the other issue you are seeing this is related to your disconnections/reconnections that you are seeing. Couple observations:

• you may be doing a disconnect while there is still data sitting in the I/O buffer for a 'lazy' USB connection. This can happen unknowingly. My advice is:
  ALWAYS do a "sync;sync" command in a terminal after issuing a "umount ..." command for the USB. In some cases you may have to do a "umount -l ..." if you get a message that indicates a stubborn/hidden app in holding on. This will guarantee the I/O buffer is flushed completely to the USB. Then turn-off or unplug the USB stick.

• Your HUBs have different timing issues and each appears to behave differently with your laptop depending on which ports they are connected to. So for a better picture (a tireless effort) you will have to run some tests to determine the HUB behaviors and the USB behaviors. This is a 'headachey' lab type of testings and note-taking as you work thru the varied connections options that are possible.

Questions of other devices connecting to your laptop:

• Do you have external mice-keyboard connected?

• Do you use an external HDMI/DP monitor/TV connected?

Future
In your future, you 'may' want to have a home NAS as having all your external storage in a NAS avoids the current clutter and USB issues you are seeing. They are pretty simple to set up in the home...even in the vicinity of your laptop. This would accommodate your diverse connect/disconnect issue as it would reduce to a mere mount/umount in the laptop's OS. All of the quality forum distros have SAMBA (NAS services) built-in just for this common purpose. Further, this can be a means to reduce the potential for data loss.

Thus, this would eliminate the issues you are see, currently.

You may already have this ability in your home ISP's (or your own) router. If so, you will have to do very little to use it with your externals.

I will have to look into the sync command and find instructions for use.

I use a USB mouse and USB keyboard, and I have a desktop monitor on the HDMI port.
The puppy boot USB stick is plugged into the USB-2 slot on the laptop.
The Logilink powered hub is usually plugged into a USB 3 slot on the laptop.
The Deltaco non-powered hub is usually plugged into the Logilink hub.
External drives are usually plugged into the Logilink hub, which has an on/off switch for each connection.
USB Ethernet is usually plugged into the Logilink hub.

NAS sounds like the best solution to me. My partner and I both work on the same files, and exchange them via a USB drive or e-mail. When there are several versions of the same files, it is troublesome and often problematic. I take it that a NAS would also allow two different computers relatively close to the NAS (one 6 meters away and the other 3 meters away). Can the computers connected to NAS do automatic backups, and if one person is working on a file, would be locked for others on the network?
Thanks.

[geo_c]

I do not yet understand what is happening with the saves.
/mnt/home/pups/fossapup64/fossapup64save-mntsda2pupsfossapup642024_06_11
/mnt/home/pups/fossapup64/fossapup64save-mntsda2pupsfossapup642024_06_11.BKP-2024.06.12-07.24
Why are the save folder and backup different in contents.png

When you make a save and have a save icon on your desktop, using that icon saves the changes you have made which are sitting in ram to the save you booted into. If you want to make a separate save and have a choice, you need to make a backup of that running save, which will have the BKP designation and a timestamp. After making it, you will get a choice to use it at boot. So you made one backup, and now you have a choice to use it, but it only contains the changes you made when you made the backup.

Get a handle on these basic file managment techniques and you will be able to freely experiment with your OS.

So here's an example sequence:

1) Fresh boot no save
2) Configure firewall, network connections, etc
3) Shutdown and make a save named: fossapup64save-00-USB1-clean
4) Reboot into the newly created save
5) Immediately make a pupsave backup of the newly created save which is now booted into and running
...which will be named: fossapup64save-00-USB1-clean.BKP-2024.06.13-13.33
6) Use a filemanager, rename the backup to fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS
7) Shutdown and reboot
8) at boot the choice is:
fossapup64save-00-USB1-clean
fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS
9) choose fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS
10) Install some basic APPS, test them, make whatever changes you want, use the save icon to save them.
11) Make a pupsave backup of fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS which is now booted into and running
...which will be named: fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS.BKP-2024.06.13-15.02
12) Use a filemanager, rename the backup to fossapup64save-02-USB1-hugeAPPS Shutdown and reboot
13) at boot the choice is:
fossapup64save-00-USB1-clean
fossapup64save-01-USB1-basicAPPS
fossapup64save-02-USB1-hugeAPPS
14) Repeat the loop from step 10 with hugeAPPS for a couple of years until you have a totally personalized, portable, reproducible system.

maybe having a final choice of
fossapup64save-16-USB1-MASSIVE-BLOATED-POWERHOUSE

[Governor]

14) Repeat the loop from step 10 with hugeAPPS for a couple of years until you have a totally personalized, portable, reproducible system.

maybe having a final choice of
fossapup64save-16-USB1-MASSIVE-BLOATED-POWERHOUSE

And when you get to fossapup64save-26-USB1-MASSIVE-BLOATED-POWERHOUSE switch to Windows.

[geo_c]

14) Repeat the loop from step 10 with hugeAPPS for a couple of years until you have a totally personalized, portable, reproducible system.

maybe having a final choice of
fossapup64save-16-USB1-MASSIVE-BLOATED-POWERHOUSE

And when you get to fossapup64save-26-USB1-MASSIVE-BLOATED-POWERHOUSE switch to Windows.

By that time there will be a newer, cooler, puppy to use, and you will want to start over with your refined development techniques.
And you can always keep the older version around and use it for it's strengths.

For instance, I mostly use a couple KLVs for daily drivers, but I keep F96 running for one older app that it runs that the newer KLV will not run, and to do maintenance on my KLV directories.

I still have fossapup64_9.5 installed on USB drives, but I only boot it for nostalgic purposes. F96 offered a whole host of improvements.

[Clarity]

I use a USB mouse and USB keyboard, and I have a desktop monitor on the HDMI port.

Thanks for this helpful understanding. As suspected, the varied devices and Laptop signaling-priority as well as hub signaling-priority in combinations led to some of what has affected your productivity.

I use a USB mouse and USB I take it that a NAS would also allow two different computers relatively close to the NAS (one 6 meters away and the other 3 meters away). Can the computers connected to NAS do automatic backups, and if one person is working on a file, would be locked for others on the network?

NAS has been around for almost 4 decades on every platform from Wins to Unix to MAC to Linux to etc. Every OS talks to it. While SAMBA has been around for Unix-Linux over 3 decades. Its safe and secure.

Yes! And NAS will reduce MOST of the things affecting your productivity. You will never look back after even the simplest of implementations.

ON the assistance that I can offer to further reduce your booting, let me know. I have a solution that I am confident will reduce your booting efforts to a singularity.

One thing at a time will make this palatable for your intended usages. Neither of these are rocket-science and does NOT need in-depth admin or development skills at all.

Star-Topology-Switch.png (18.73 KiB) Viewed 1086 times

[Governor]

I use a USB mouse and USB keyboard, and I have a desktop monitor on the HDMI port.

Thanks for this helpful understanding. As suspected, the varied devices and Laptop signaling-priority as well as hub signaling-priority in combinations led to some of what has affected your productivity.

I use a USB mouse and USB I take it that a NAS would also allow two different computers relatively close to the NAS (one 6 meters away and the other 3 meters away). Can the computers connected to NAS do automatic backups, and if one person is working on a file, would be locked for others on the network?

NAS has been around for almost 4 decades on every platform from Wins to Unix to MAC to Linux to etc. Every OS talks to it. While SAMBA has been around for Unix-Linux over 3 decades. Its safe and secure.

Yes! And NAS will reduce MOST of the things affecting your productivity. You will never look back after even the simplest of implementations.

ON the assistance that I can offer to further reduce your booting, let me know. I have a solution that I am confident will reduce your booting efforts to a singularity.

One thing at a time will make this palatable for your intended usages. Neither of these are rocket-science and does NOT need in-depth admin or development skills at all.Star-Topology-Switch.png

Sounds great to me. I think this would solve issues with several things, including file sharing, and backups.
I have a Zyxel VMG8825-T50 router. Would a 2 bay NAS be sufficient for automatic daily backups of a main network drive? Would this be some sort of RAID setup? How fast does the NAS need to be to operate efficiently in real-time with zero latency? I have an old HP Prodesk 600 G1 SFF computer available, but it is very slow and extremely noisy, which is why I never use it. It has a slow Intel CPU.

Code: Select all

SATA ports	4
PCI slots	PCIe 3.0 x16; (3x) PCIe x1;
M.2 slots	N.A.
Drive bays	2.5in; 3.5in; 5.25in (slim)

Realistically, I might be better off getting a NAS with 2 SDD disks.
What do you think?

Thanks.

[Clarity]

Yes and Yes and Yes.

1. Many/most routers will share, to the LAN, the drive you plug into its USB port. You would go into your router's webpage and setup the sharing. And you can store anything you want to the storage you have on the USB port of the router. And in some cases, the router manufacturer will assist you for setup at no charge.

2. You can use an old PC to be a NAS. Simplest is to just boot a forum distro, and use the distros "Simple SAMBA Management" utility built-in to all good forum distros to setup sharing. This give a very simple, useful, and secure network setup that is quick, easy, and almost everyone on the forum understands it use and will assist if you run into issues. You'll want to check to insure this old PC's LAN is at least 1GB/sec ethernet LAN adapter.

3. A dedicated NAS box with storage from a manufacturer will also address your need. And the manufacturer will assist you from beginning to end in secure setup of their NAS. Some are very cheap and some will allow use of your USB storage as well. Many modern NAS solution are tiny and quiet using SSDs or NVMEs OOTB. Lastly many modern new NAS have 2GB/sec wired LAN as well as Wifi 6 & 7 which should future proof your use/needs. For your setup, you dont need anything expensive. There are some inexpensive solutions abound. But,I cant recommend any as I haven't done any purchases for this in years. But, for your use, as you've explained, its reasonably simple and will also accommodate home devices as well, should you have a need for multimedia storage/use.

Choose what you feel is the best path.

In most cases, any path you choose will last for decades unattended. You ONLY have to check on its free storage, on it, from time to time over time.

[Governor]

I still have fossapup64_9.5 installed on USB drives, but I only boot it for nostalgic purposes. F96 offered a whole host of improvements.

In my BIOS boot menu, there is this entry:
Puppy Linux - Grub2

Why is there no indication of the location? Where does it come from, and how do I get rid of it?
Thanks.

[geo_c]

I still have fossapup64_9.5 installed on USB drives, but I only boot it for nostalgic purposes. F96 offered a whole host of improvements.

In my BIOS boot menu, there is this entry:
Puppy Linux - Grub2

Why is there no indication of the location? Where does it come from, and how do I get rid of it?
Thanks.

You say that's the BIOS menu? As in when you press F12, esc, F2 or whatever key it is that gives you the BIOS boot menu, that you get this entry?

What do you have plugged in when you do that? The USB boot stick? No externals? All externals?

[Governor]

I still have fossapup64_9.5 installed on USB drives, but I only boot it for nostalgic purposes. F96 offered a whole host of improvements.

In my BIOS boot menu, there is this entry:
Puppy Linux - Grub2

Why is there no indication of the location? Where does it come from, and how do I get rid of it?
Thanks.

You say that's the BIOS menu? As in when you press F12, esc, F2 or whatever key it is that gives you the BIOS boot menu, that you get this entry?

What do you have plugged in when you do that? The USB boot stick? No externals? All externals?

No externals. I don't remember if I had a boot stick inserted, but probably not since it doesn't show. This photo is from 2 days ago. But Grub2 has been there every time I booted up since.

BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG (77.51 KiB) Viewed 999 times

[geo_c]

No externals. I don't remember if I had a boot stick inserted, but probably not since it doesn't show. This photo is from 2 days ago. But Grub2 has been there every time I booted up since.
BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG

I don't look at my bios very often, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that kind of entry.

When you go into the change-boot-order screen, that's where you might a find an option to delete that entry. Do you still have grub installed on the nvme?

If you have the thumb drive plugged in when you get this entry, that might be normal.

I think you need to check if the entry is there with no externals attached, or the thumb drive plugged in. Definitely make sure there is no grub on the nvme (you'll have to boot of course to do that), and then look in the bios settings for boot order, and see if you have an option to remove it.

a side note: if I was primarily booting from USB thumb, I would list the CD second in the boot order, as that's just wasting some time checking for a cd drive first. Then if there's no thumb plugged in, it will jump to the CD next.

EDIT: But on second look, that Puppy entry just might be your thumb drive boot partition. Because your second listing is USBHDD.

[Governor]

No externals. I don't remember if I had a boot stick inserted, but probably not since it doesn't show. This photo is from 2 days ago. But Grub2 has been there every time I booted up since.
BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG

I don't look at my bios very often, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that kind of entry.

When you go into the change-boot-order screen, that's where you might a find an option to delete that entry. Do you still have grub installed on the nvme?

If you have the thumb drive plugged in when you get this entry, that might be normal.

I think you need to check if the entry is there with no externals attached, or the thumb drive plugged in. Definitely make sure there is no grub on the nvme (you'll have to boot of course to do that), and then look in the bios settings for boot order, and see if you have an option to remove it.

a side note: if I was primarily booting from USB thumb, I would list the CD second in the boot order, as that's just wasting some time checking for a cd drive first. Then if there's no thumb plugged in, it will jump to the CD next.

EDIT: But on second look, that Puppy entry just might be your thumb drive boot partition. Because your second listing is USBHDD.

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries for the same Bookwormpup, One in the boot menu called Grub2 and one on the Sandisk Cruzer boot thumb drive. I did not see a way to delete the Grub2 boot item.

BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG (58.35 KiB) Viewed 991 times

[geo_c]

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries for the same Bookwormpup, One in the boot menu called Grub2 and one on the Sandisk Cruzer boot thumb drive. I did not see a way to delete the Grub2 boot item.
BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG

I don't think you need to delete it.

I think the bios is listing the cruzer as a USB boot device, but also recognizing the GRUB2 partition on it. And so it's the same boot location (if they both boot the same bookworm on the Cruzer) and shouldn't be a problem.

[Governor]

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries for the same Bookwormpup, One in the boot menu called Grub2 and one on the Sandisk Cruzer boot thumb drive. I did not see a way to delete the Grub2 boot item.
BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG

I don't think you need to delete it.

I think the bios is listing the cruzer as a USB boot device, but also recognizing the GRUB2 partition on it. And so it's the same boot location (if they both boot the same bookworm on the Cruzer) and shouldn't be a problem.

EDIT:
BookwormPup64 10.0.6 (x86_64)
In Pmount, choosing "Mount partition at boot", is not working. Is this a known issue?

It is working now. I have been rebooting so many times that it is possible that I just thought I saved my session before rebooting, but didn't. Or booted from the wrong save. In any case, it is working. Sorry guys.
Thanks.

[geo_c]

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries for the same Bookwormpup, One in the boot menu called Grub2 and one on the Sandisk Cruzer boot thumb drive. I did not see a way to delete the Grub2 boot item.
BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG

I don't think you need to delete it.

I think the bios is listing the cruzer as a USB boot device, but also recognizing the GRUB2 partition on it. And so it's the same boot location (if they both boot the same bookworm on the Cruzer) and shouldn't be a problem.

BookwormPup64 10.0.6 (x86_64)
In Pmount, choosing "Mount partition at boot", is not working. Is this a known issue?
Thanks.

Mounting what partition at boot?

I didn't even know pmount had that option. But anyway, what drive and partition are you trying to mount at boot? If you are having timing issues with externals in the hub, that needs to be addressed, could have something to do with it.

For future reference, it helps to give details like that ahead of time.

example: I booted Bookworm from my thumb drive with no external drives inserted in the hub, and the hub power was turned off. I'm trying to use pmount to mount sda1 at boot, but it doesn't seem to work.

[williwaw]

there are ways to delete it from your bios, but if it is actually on your nvme it will reappear.

please post a screenshot that shows the entire boot order screen

and also post a screen shot of the entire screen of..

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries

[Governor]

there are ways to delete it from your bios, but if it is actually on your nvme it will reappear.

please post a screenshot that shows the entire boot order screen

and also post a screen shot of the entire screen of..

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries

Below is the boot menu I see when there is no USB of any kind plugged in.

Boot with no USB plugged in.JPG (17.25 KiB) Viewed 858 times

When I try to boot either entry, I am immediately served the same screen again.
============
Below is the boot menu I see when the USB hub is plugged in, but all USB drives in the hub are switched off (there are individual power buttons on each connector). My Bookworm boot stick (Sandisk Cruzer) is not present.

Boot with USB hub plugged in & all turned off.JPG (54.17 KiB) Viewed 858 times

============
Below is the boot menu I see when the Bookworm boot stick is plugged in on boot.

BIOS boot menu with Grub2.JPG (58.32 KiB) Viewed 858 times

I must keep the image sizes small, otherwise I cannot upload them. Please let me know if you need to see more than is shown. The boot order varies only because I took the photos at different times.
Thanks!

[Governor]

BookwormPup64 10.0.6 (x86_64)
EDIT:
In Pmount, choosing "Mount partition at boot", is not working. Is this a known issue?
It is working now. I have been rebooting so many times that it is possible that I just thought I saved my session before rebooting, but didn't. Or booted from the wrong save. In any case, it is working. Sorry guys.
Thanks.

Mounting what partition at boot?

I didn't even know pmount had that option. But anyway, what drive and partition are you trying to mount at boot? If you are having timing issues with externals in the hub, that needs to be addressed, could have something to do with it.

For future reference, it helps to give details like that ahead of time.

example: I booted Bookworm from my thumb drive with no external drives inserted in the hub, and the hub power was turned off. I'm trying to use pmount to mount sda1 at boot, but it doesn't seem to work.

Ok!

[some1]

@Governor: You are doing fine with the info feed-back!!!

You made an edit today:

EDIT:
BookwormPup64 10.0.6 (x86_64)
In Pmount, choosing "Mount partition at boot", is not working. Is this a known issue?

It is working now.......Sorry guys.
Thanks.

About Jafadmins script:
1) Underscore is not a weird character i.e
you could use Mike_Walsh - if you feel like it
2) The script does NOT use UUID to identify a Disk/Partition.
3) The script is a workaround/a crutch for challenged Puppies.
Fatdog has the Right-Click ability to
mount by-device,by-label,by-UUID.
4) If you succeeded in implementing Jafadmins workaround -
the partitions on the disk you specified should mount on
boot.
However - I have a notion that the script did not work for you.
In that case you should make sure - that you have removed
the debris from your working savefile/-folder - or create a
new from an earlier backup.
---
End of reminder/digression.

IMHO:Solving the BIos-problem is the main thing for now.
'

'

[bigpup]

Last time I tried to boot Grub2 in the BIOS menu, it didn*t boot. Now, Grub2 booted into Bookworm. So it looks like there are two boot menu entries for the same Bookwormpup, One in the boot menu called Grub2 and one on the Sandisk Cruzer boot thumb drive. I did not see a way to delete the Grub2 boot item.

Do not even worry about it.

Just use the one that will work at any one time.

Yes, one listed item may work and one may not. (Bios is not 100% perfect all the time) The bios has to see the device, power it up, figure out what type it is, what to call it, etc.......

It does need to do this from a completely power off/on mode of starting the computer.

Bios sometimes sees the boot loader on the drive and provides this as the name of it in the boot device selection list.
Sometimes it uses the actual name of the device that is provided by the device.
Sometime it will see both and list both of them as devices.

Just be happy it does see it as a boot-able device and lists it.

You got the type bios that remembers what boot device it may have used at one time to boot from.
It keeps it in the list of possible devices.

At some point you booted with puppy linux-grub2, so it recorded that as a boot-able device and put it in the list.

Sandisk Cruzer is the actual name of the USB drive and it is provided, because the bios sees it as a boot-able device.
Yes, if you select it. There is the actual grub2 boot loader on it, that gets used to boot the BookwormPup64 OS.

Just worry about the devices showing in the bios boot device selection list.

My computer bios does this remembering devices, you may have had connected, that are seen as boot-able devices.

My bios boot device list is up to 18 different devices right now.