Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I have a very old netbook that I would like to breathe new life into. Anybody know what I am doing wrong?

SYSTEM:
ACER Aspire One AOA150
x86 based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 28 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1595 Mhz
BIOS Date 2008
Total physical Memory 1024 MB

https://www.miniputer.com/Acer/AOA150.html
i686 (?)

DISTRO:
I used balenaEtcher to make a USB with BionicPup32-19.03.iso
...and I got as far as this error message:

@maxthrottle

I used balenaEtcher

Wrong program, try again using either Unetbootin or Rufus.

wizard

@maxthrottle :-

Yah; have to agree with @wizard . Balena Etcher IS the issue here.

It's coded to expect to write a full file-system to a dedicated partition. This is how all 'mainstream' distros do it. In Puppy's case, the 'full file-system' doesn't exist until after Puppy has booted and loaded the file-system into the 'virtual' file-system it sets-up in RAM. Etcher doesn't understand this.......and when it boils down to it, it's only a glorified spin on 'dd' anyway, meaning that if it's installing from an ISO, it copies ALL attributes (including the 'read-only' nature of the ISO9660 optical disc file-system).

Even if it worked, you would HAVE to set-up Puppy's save-file/save-folder in a different location.....because the flash-drive or whatever media you chose to install Puppy to would have been re-formatted to 'read-only'. You can't use a 'save' like that.....

(*shrug...*)

Me, I would recommend UNetbootin. I've used it very successfully for installing Puppy on several occasions in the past.

Mike.

wizard wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 3:24 pm

Wrong program, try again using either Unetbootin or Rufus.

mikewalsh wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 4:40 pm

Me, I would recommend UNetbootin. I've used it very successfully for installing Puppy on several occasions in the past.

First, thank you both for the replay, and the knowledge. I will try that now.

Second your avatar made me chuckle.

Well, now I am getting a different error message. I am going to pretend this is progress.

@maxthrottle

You have not told us what you used to create the USB, will assume Unetbootin.

1. try the USB in another computer.

If it does not work

2. If you have a MS Windows computer try Rufus and repeat #1

If it does not work

3. try a different USB, repeat #1

wizard

wizard wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 8:57 pm

You have not told us what you used to create the USB, will assume Unetbootin.

Yes, Unetbootin.

wizard wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 8:57 pm

1. try the USB in another computer.
2
3. try a different USB, repeat #1

I started over with a different USB and tried it in the old netbook and a newer Ubuntu machine, and it gave the same error in both machines.

I will try Rufus next. Are there any recommended settings?

Persistent partition size
Partition scheme
Target system
File system
Cluster size

Thanks.

@maxthrottle

BionicPup32-19.03.iso

Is that the full name of the ISO file?

I've had some issues with the latest version BionicPup32-19.03-241006.iso, so want to run some test on the exact version you are using.

In the meantime, try this:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/friend ... o/download

Thanks
wizard

@maxthrottle
I have that same Acer Aspire AOA 150, Intel Atom CPU, 1 gig RAM...it came with WinXP Home Starter, but recently I put WinXP Pro SP3 on it...
it also dual boots several different Slackwre based Puppys, primarily S15Pup32, but I did a kernel swap for an older version 4. kernel.,
Grub4Dos handles the booting of the frugal installed Puppys, Windows boot loader boots Windows. I've also got a couple of old 4 gig USB
thumb drives that boot on it, one with an older Slackware Puppy (ScPup32), another with Slacko 5.6 (I think???) Anyway, I made those
with Unetbootin, the Windows XP version, several years ago. It may be best to format the USB drive as FAT32, especially since our Acer
netbooks don't have UEFI, don't recognize GPT only MBR. Should be an option in Unetbootin or Rufus (I've used an older version of Rufus)
to format the thumb drive and make it bootable then "install" your Puppy iso to the thumb drive.
Wiz

@Wiz57 Can you duplicate this situation with the most recent Bionic ISO and one of the USB tools like Unetbootin?

rcrsn51 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 12:41 am

@Wiz57 Can you duplicate this situation with the most recent Bionic ISO and one of the USB tools like Unetbootin?

If I had a spare USB drive I'd give it a go! Mine are all in use currently, and rather old...I wonder what type/size USB drive maxthrottle is using??
FTR, I've never tried one of the "buntu" based Pups, I do have an older ArchPup 32 on the old Acer though, not used much. The biggest issue
looks to be where the bootloader is looking for the Puppy files on maxthrottle's USB? Perhaps a simple edit of the menu.lst or grub.cfg would
work???

That's too bad. Since you own the same computer, you could give a definitive answer to what is becoming a common problem.

If it were the weekend when I have more time, I could see which of those older USB drives I could wipe and use to test.
10 hr work days Mon thru Thurs, plus 8 on Fri, don't have much time for experiments during the week, LOL!