Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello! This is my first post to this forum although I've been reading it for a few months now. Please be gentle .

I have been trying to get Puppy Linux to boot from a USB flash drive (thumb drive). I'm able to get it to boot the first time. However, after I go through the process of saving my session and shutting down the computer, the computer will no longer boot from the thumb drive. I've tried a few different ISOs, including fossapup64-9.5.iso and friendly-fossa64-v1.0.iso. I've used rufus version 3.17p to create the bootable USB drive. I've tried creating a persistent partition and saving my session to that partition (puppy save folder). I've tried using a single partition formatted as FAT32 and saving my session to a puppy save file. In all cases, I can boot into Puppy Linux for the first time off the thumb drive, make any edits and personalizations I'd like, and use the OS as normal. However, after I shut down and go through the save steps, the computer will no longer boot off the thumb drive. The next time I try to boot off the thumb drive, the LED on the thumb drive blinks a few time and then nothing else happens. If I do nothing, eventually the computer just boots into Microsoft Windows instead (I presume there is a timeout in the bios[?].)

On my most recent attempt, I was using a single partition and a puppy save file, saving that puppy save directly to the thumb drive. I subsequently booted into Windows and tried copying the puppy save file out of the thumb drive, and then tested booting from the thumb drive again. With the puppy save file missing, this time Puppy Linux did try to boot, but then (obviously) threw errors and would did not complete the boot up because it could not find the puppy save file. I booted back into Windows and copied my puppy save file back onto the thumb drive, then tried to boot it again. This time, Puppy Linux loaded all the way to the desktop and all my settings from that first session were there. Confused, I made minimal changes, then shut down the system. I powered the system up one more time and, once more, the computer failed to boot off the USB and eventually booted into Windows instead. I'm at a loss at this point and would welcome any suggestions on the best way to proceed.

The computer I'm using is a Toshiba Satellite L755 originally running Windows 7 Home Premium. It has a 2.20 GHz Intel i3 processor and 6GB of RAM. The system is a 64-bit OS.

What brand of USB-Key did your use? What was it's alleged size? Not all manufacturers are honest.

When you used rufus, did you carefully follow the instructions here? https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 522#p40522 particularly, Step 6: "Under Persistence use the slider to have rufus create a persistent partition of the entire drive less about 2 Gbs...?

I suspect that your bios is trying to decide between mbr boot or uefi boot when it boots the second time.

if you press F2 or F12 repeatedly when powering up, can you access a usb selection menu?

possible hints here

https://superuser.com/questions/624234/ ... tings?rq=1
https://superuser.com/questions/1691576 ... oot-to-usb

mikeslr wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 9:19 pm

What brand of USB-Key did your use? What was it's alleged size? Not all manufacturers are honest

It’s a Duracell branded USB rated for 8GB. When I check it in with Windows Explorer or with DISKPART, it confirms the size is about 7.5GB. I’ve had the drive for a good while now but am pretty confident it’s good.

mikeslr wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 9:19 pm

When you used rufus, did you carefully follow the instructions here? https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 522#p40522 particularly, Step 6: "Under Persistence use the slider to have rufus create a persistent partition of the entire drive less about 2 Gbs...?

Yes I followed the instructions.

just edit my above post

williwaw wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 10:13 pm

I suspect that your bios is trying to decide between mbr boot or uefi boot when it boots the second time.

if you press F2 or F12 repeatedly when powering up, can you access a usb selection menu?

I can get into the boot order if I press f2 at power up. I confirmed that USB is the first in the order.

williwaw wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 10:13 pm

possible hints here

https://superuser.com/questions/624234/ ... tings?rq=1
https://superuser.com/questions/1691576 ... oot-to-usb

Thanks for these. The first link mentioned quick boot. I checked and my boot speed was already set to normal. The second link I actually found before I posted this thread. I just re-read it but it’s not triggering any light bulbs for me

assuming still the issue might be with the machine bios:

MikeLvG wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 10:48 pm

I can get into the boot order if I press f2 at power up. I confirmed that USB is the first in the order.

setting the boot order in the setup menus may not be enough to get you up and running. Earlier implementations of efi were often fiddly. you may have to see if there is a legacy setting to enable or csm modes

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/solved- ... ux/48312/9

trying to disable uefi would mean your usb would also have to be able to boot with a mbr.

in addition to the bios setup menus where you set the boot order, you should also be able to find a boot device selector menu maybe F12
your usb device may show up as either a legacy device or an efi device. the trick is to get your setup menus configured such that you would not have to bring up the device selector menu on each boot.

Aged USB port contact issues and timing issues for some slow USB thumbdrives can cause erratic behavior on booting. One evidence I hear in the above is that you did successfully boot to savefile once, but couldn't repeat it afterwards. That to me indicates an intermittent issue, and intermittent issues often have to do with specific hardware problems that vary over time, like poor contacts and problematic thumbdrives.

I would suggest getting a Sandisk brand USB 2 (if you don't have a USB3 port) thumbdrive (they're cheap) for this age computer, and then trying to create your Puppy installation on the new thumbdrive using a Puppy stick installer, not Rufus, from your initial bootup on your first Rufus created stick. A puppy like Fossapup or Bionic would be applicable to your age laptop. Fosssa has a number of stick installers -- I happen to like stickpup and f2stickpup on Fossa.

I don't know where you live but if in the states it's fairly likely a Walmart near you carries Sandisk USB2 sticks (or USB3 if you have a USB3 port). For a USB2 Sandisk stick the cost is like $5 and change.

@MikeLvG

Just to reinforce what @vtpup said, get a Sandisk USB and if you are buying from Walmart DO NOT buy one of their ONN branded USB's. They are tremendously SLOW.

wizard

Hahaha, Wizard!

Oh, man I bought a three pack of those ONN drives. What a mistake!!! I mean I can use a chisel on stone and record more characters per hour than those things can absorb. I think they are actually filled with cotton.

Thanks you all for the quick and insightful responses. I spent several hours more on this issue today. I was able to get my USB with save to reliably boot up several times by ignoring the boot order and instead mashing F12 at power on until the boot select came up. At that point I’d manually select USB and Puppy would promptly boot up. I suspect that williwaw’s observation yesterday may be the culprit: the computer seems to get confused at boot up when USB is first in the order, but isn’t confused if I use F12 to manually tell it what to boot from when I power on.

It’s not elegant, but mashing F12 is workable for me for now. My next adventure awaits: learning how to use Puppy Linux! I’m generally a Linux newbie, but I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead.

A lot of good information here for new to Puppy:
viewforum.php?f=184

If the USB drive isn't quite responding fast enough to whatever timing delay the BIOS has on first access or autodetection, then BIOS may sometimes recognize its existence and others times not. By slowing down the process manually and forcing boot to USB, that autodetection is bypassed. This doesn't mean that a thumbdrive is "bad" and you may be able to use it fine as a normal storage device, so one might think that it is "good". And for those normal purposes, yes it is. But initial boot timing is a different quality than simple storage use. While what I'm suggesting may not apply in your case, it's perhaps worth a try to see if you don't have to manually boot every time, up to you. I hope you can get things working satisfactorily. That's my only reason for mentioning these things. And as I say, it may not be the problem at all.

MikeLvG wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 9:25 pm

My next adventure awaits: learning how to use Puppy Linux! I’m generally a Linux newbie, but I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead. :thumbup:

welcome to puppy!

Trying with a quality usb is certianly one possibility to eliminate. Another hardware issue that may crop up with an older laptop is a weak cmos battery, especially if it has never been replaced or other bios/startup problems arise.

As for the bios itself being buggy, one test to considerer is whether the usb (with or without a savefile) will boot two times in a row without an intermediate boot-up of the windows/hardisk.
Maybe the problem is not the savefile but the second boot.

I have a new problem and I wasn't sure if I should start a new post or place it here. I thought here since my PC specs and all the previous info about my USB flash drive and how it was created is already in this thread. Someone please let me know if this is the wrong place.

Puppy on my USB drive (F96-CE) was working great and my pupsave was working fine. I took a week off for a business trip and today I tried to boot up my puppy with pupsave and it's booting directly into puppy as if it's the first boot. In other words, it's not loading my pupsave. The USB is set up with two partitions, one FAT32 for boot and one Linux for pupsave, as described in the beginner instructions noted above. When I'm in puppy, I can see the 2nd partition as sdb2, and when I open it up I see the pupsave folder there with multiple folders beneath it. Reading through the readme, it told me that if puppy has any problem finding or loading a pupsave it defaults to its initial boot behavior. It further stated that errors would be logged. There was an instruction there on where the init boot log would be stored, but when I typed that into the terminal window I got a message telling me permission was denied. I thought that was strange, and now I'm lost. Can someone kindly point me in the right direction to figure out why my pupsave isn't loading? I could go the nuclear option and just start over from scratch, but I think this is a good learning opportunity for me. I just need some guidance on where to go from here, as I'm still very green with Linux.

MikeLvG wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2024 3:22 pm

I could go the nuclear option

why not try a new thumb drive with a new install? you dont have to destroy the old install right away, but it would eliminate some of the possibilities.

does the boot process go directly (without hesitation) to the initial boot behavior? (we call this pupmode 5 ), or does the boot seem to have some errors and timeouts and eventually bring up pupmode 5?

posting here or starting a new thread is fine, though typically if new problems are described with approiate titles in a new topic, its easier to anwser and easier for others to search if they have similar issues. One can always link back to an older thread if a new one is opened to point to additional info.

Usually something going wrong with a save file or folder is usually installing some type of software that replaces or messes up the software used to operate Puppy Linux.

What installed and did this you would know better than us.

We have no idea what software you may have added.

Did you install any software by downloading it and installing using the software's method to install?

Install anything using the package mangers?

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I would first try this and see what happens.

To test for and repair errors in Linux file system, use e2fsck.

Reboot Puppy, using boot option " puppy pfix=ram" this will make sure save is not being used.

The save file can not be in use.

Mount the partition the save is on.

Open a terminal, and enter:

e2fsck /path to save file

For example:
a save file named pupsave.2fs on partition sda1
e2fsck /mnt/sda1/pupsave.2fs

To check a save folder use the method for checking a partition.
Check the partition the save folder is on.

To do the whole partition:
Need to boot from a live Puppy or a Puppy on a different partition to do a partition check.
(the partition must be unmounted)
Example:
partition sda1

e2fsck -p /dev/sda1

If it finds any errors they should be fixed.

bigpup wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2024 7:55 pm

What installed and did this

To my recollection, the only thing that was installed was Firefox automatically updating itself. I never used package manager. I’ll try the steps you suggested and report back. I’m also looking into another USB stick but want to see if I can fix this first. I’m also considering updating the PC’s BIOS, although I doubt that would have any influence on this issue. Might fix my F12 mashing requirement I mentioned previously though.

Just another possibility to consider:

If you used a savefile instead of a savefolder on the puppy partition, and it got filled up inadvertently before you had a chance to enlarge it, that might cause booting problems.

I'm also a little surprised at the "permissions" problem.

If you have two USB slots, and you can boot a clean new USB puppy up on one, then mount the other old one, you can have a look at the old one and see if there appear to be any problems with the old one. From the new Puppy, you can also run Gparted (ueusally in Menu>System) This will show you the partitions of the old drive, and it also has the ability to check any partition (and fix errors) -- it does that similar to what Bigpup suggested.

If you ever put a puppy USB stick into a computer running Windows, Windows will invariably tell you that the stick has errors on it, and ask to fix those. You do not want to say yes to that, for obvious reasons.

If you remove a stick, or in an old computer jostle it so it loses contact before saving a session manually, it will no longer be seen as the same drive. An sda1, for instance will become an sdb1, and Puppy will not be able to save the session. If contact is interrupted during a save, that can cause corruption of the save.

Firefox updating should not normally cause any kind of problem (unless you are running out of savefile room while it is.)

How large was your savefile (if you didn't use a save folder) and what format did you use for the Puppy partition and savefile: ext2, ext3 or ext4? Ext3 and ext4 should be able to recover easily from a glitch when checked. ext2 is less sure.

vtpup wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2024 9:52 pm

How large was your savefile (if you didn't use a save folder) and what format did you use for the Puppy partition and savefile: ext2, ext3 or ext4? Ext3 and ext4 should be able to recover easily from a glitch when checked. ext2 is less sure.

It was a folder on the 2nd partition created via rufus.
If memory serves, it was a folder, ext3, and the partition was about 4GB.

If you run Gparted, and look at the puppy partition, how much free space does it say it has? Can you do a Check on the partition in gparted?

If you used Rufus to do the install to the USB.

Read this post about Rufus:
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 81f#p40522

Really, any installer that is out there, that was not specifically made for installing Puppy Linux, is going to have issues.

Most will install a boot-able Puppy Linux, but still not 100% get the drive setup correctly for doing saves to it.

Installer programs that are in Puppy Linux will do it correctly.

If you want to keep using Puppy installed on a USB stick.

Just get the Puppy version booted and running the computer.
If it is on a USB.

Use another USB stick and do the install on it, using the installer programs in Puppy.

bigpup wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2024 8:13 am

If you used Rufus to do the install to the USB.

Read this post about Rufus:
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 81f#p40522

Really, any installer that is out there, that was not specifically made for installing Puppy Linux, is going to have issues.

Most will install a boot-able Puppy Linux, but still not 100% get the drive setup correctly for doing saves to it.

Installer programs that are in Puppy Linux will do it correctly.

If you want to keep using Puppy installed on a USB stick.

Just get the Puppy version booted and running the computer.
If it is on a USB.

Use another USB stick and do the install on it, using the installer programs in Puppy.

I did follow these instructions when using Rufus. I didn’t know it would still cause issues. Thanks for the info.

bigpup wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2024 7:55 pm

.
To check a save folder use the method for checking a partition.
Check the partition the save folder is on.

To do the whole partition:
Need to boot from a live Puppy or a Puppy on a different partition to do a partition check.
(the partition must be unmounted)
Example:
partition sda1

e2fsck -p /dev/sda1

If it finds any errors they should be fixed.

I booted into bionicpup64 from a CD. I inserted my USB stick. 2 partitions were found (my FAT32 bootable one and the Linux one).

I opened the terminal and ran the following on the Linux one:
e2fsck -p /dev/sdb2

The results were:
persistence: clean, 2962/262144 files, 110279/1048572 blocks

I restarted and booted off the USB. The boot ignored my save folder and booted up with the initial setup dialogue and without loading any of my saved settings.

williwaw wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2024 7:03 pm

does the boot process go directly (without hesitation) to the initial boot behavior? (we call this pupmode 5 ), or does the boot seem to have some errors and timeouts and eventually bring up pupmode 5?

I don’t notice any hesitation or errors when watching the boot up process. It goes quickly and some screens are too quick for me to read. There is a 5 second delay that runs “for slower systems.” But other than that it’s pretty quick.

its not so much that rufus "causes issues" but rather rufus is not designed to do a proper puppy frugal install.

if you can boot into the rufus install puppy you would like to eventually have as your working puppy version, I would definitely try a puppy installer onto a new or second USB

When you made the save on first shutdown of the USB install.

You did tell the process to place it on the USB?

When you boot with the USB.Do not have any other USB drives plugged in or a CD, with a Puppy install on it, in the CD drive.

The boot process that is in Fossapup64 9.5 for booting from a USB drive will only look on the USB for the save.

Depending on the computer.
If other USB drives are plugged into the computer it can get confused about what USB drive to look on.

bigpup wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2024 11:57 pm

When you made the save on first shutdown of the USB install.

You did tell the process to place it on the USB?

When you boot with the USB.Do not have any other USB drives plugged in or a CD, with a Puppy install on it, in the CD drive.

The boot process that is in Fossapup64 9.5 for booting from a USB drive will only look on the USB for the save.

Depending on the computer.
If other USB drives are plugged into the computer it can get confused about what USB drive to look on.

I was booting with the USB stick as the only thing plugged into a USB port, and with the DVD-ROM drive empty. I'm at a loss to explain why this was working, then the computer sat powered off for a week while I was out of town, and now it's not working (not loading my save, which is on the linux partition of the same usb stick as Puppy).

At this point I think that I will try to create a new install on a new stick from within Puppy and go from there.