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!

Wiz57 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 12:52 am

...I wonder what type/size USB drive maxthrottle is using??

I have used three USBs:
- generic free USB, I got as swag, 4GB (I am going to stop using this one, it has had errors in the burn process)
- SanDisk Cruser micro 2GB
- SanDisk Cruser 4GB

I have started formatting them in FAT or FAT32

Wiz57 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 12:09 am

I have that same Acer Aspire AOA 150, Intel Atom CPU, 1 gig RAM...

COOL! It's good to know it is possible. Mine has WindowsXP on it too. I will try the Slackware Puppys. And I have started formatting the USB drive as FAT32. Thanks!

I tried Slack files:

slacko-7.0.iso
slacko-5.7-NO-pae.iso
slacko-5.7.0-PAE.iso

Downloaded from...
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

I used UNetbootin on...
SanDisk Cruser 4GB...
formated in FAT32

Each time they didn't get past this screen:

Try this:

Look on the flash drive for the file syslinux.cfg. If it contains the clause "pmedia=cd" or something else, change it to "pmedia=usbflash".

Example:
syslinux.cfg

default puppy
display boot.msg
prompt 1
timeout 50

F1 boot.msg
F2 help.msg
F3 help2.msg

label puppy
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=cd

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This could be the issue with what is in your first post.
Needing to change the pmedia= entry in the boot loader config file.
Not sure what config file is used for it.
Could be:
menu.lst
grub.cfg
syslinux.cfg
.
.

Don't know if this is any help to anybody, but I've just used the BionicPup32-19.03-241006.iso to create 3 USB sticks, one with Unetbootin, one with Rufus and one with Ventoy. All 3 booted up fine in both of my laptops. I thought the Rufus stick was going to fail, as the "Waiting 5 seconds for slow storage device" did reach 4, but it booted ok after that.

maxthrottle wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 10:57 am

I have used three USBs:
- generic free USB, I got as swag, 4GB (I am going to stop using this one, it has had errors in the burn process)
- SanDisk Cruser micro 2GB
- SanDisk Cruser 4GB

Get some newer ones. I scrapped all my small USB drives years ago because I no longer trusted them.

Try doing more to the USB sticks to get them setup for a good install.

Make a new partition table (msdos type), which will delete everything on them.
Make one partition and format it fat32. Flag it boot.

@maxthrottle

Just for reference, used BionicPup32-19.03-241006.iso and created bootable USB's with both Rufus and Unetbootin. Both USB's boot correctly on three different MBR computers including one with specs close to yours.

Note: the USB's will not boot on UEFI only computers since they do not include the necessary files. If you use Puppy StickPup to create the USB, it will boot on UEFI.

wizard

wizard wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 3:46 pm

Just for reference, used BionicPup32-19.03-241006.iso and created bootable USB's with both Rufus and Unetbootin. Both USB's boot correctly on three different MBR computers including one with specs close to yours.

Can you drop any of these computers down to 1GB RAM, just in case that's a limiting factor with recent versions of these Puppy ISOs.

It sounds like the "pmedia=cd" setting is a non-issue.

I suspect that the problems people have with booting off USB are mostly hardware-related.

@rcrsn51

Can you drop any of these computers down to 1GB RAM, just in case that's a limiting factor with recent versions of these Puppy ISOs.

Yes, one of the test systems has only 1gb ram, so don't think that's the issue.

wizard

wizard wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 4:56 pm

so don't think that's the issue.

This is all about old computers with flaky USB systems or old failing USB sticks.

SUCCESS! slacko-7.0 Loaded!

rcrsn51 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 5:02 pm

This is all about old computers with flaky USB systems or old failing USB sticks.

The only thing I changed was using a new Microcenter 64GB USB. I thought that was a long shot, but I think that was it.

Thanks Everyone for all the Help!

I truly appreciate all of you taking the time to answer, and having the generosity to share your knowledge. Thanks again.

As is often the case, @rcrsn51 's hit the nail on the head. I, too, was musing along these lines earlier today.

2 GB & 4 GB flash drives date from around the mid-to-late 'noughties'.....i.e., 15-20 years ago. And older NAND flash was a lot more fragile than the stuff in use these days (which is quite robust by comparison).

AFAIK - or am aware - 16 GB is the smallest capacity flash drive commonly available these days. I can't remember the last time I used a flash drive as small as 2 or 4 GB; I think I tossed my last one well before I joined the Puppy community (which puts it more than a decade ago at the very least.)

Me, I have quite a collection, if I'm honest. 2 x 16 GB; 3 x 32 GB; 2 x 64 GB; 5 x 128 GB; 2 x 256 GB.....and 1 x 512 GB. Apparently, 256 GB is widely regarded as the "sweet spot" capacity for flash storage by their afficionados...

(I can remember the very first one I ever bought, around 2001/2. It was all of 256 MB, and I felt like I'd really joined the tech community at long last..! )

Mike.

maxthrottle wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 7:27 pm

SUCCESS! slacko-7.0 Loaded!

rcrsn51 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 5:02 pm

This is all about old computers with flaky USB systems or old failing USB sticks.

The only thing I changed was using a new Microcenter 64GB USB. I thought that was a long shot, but I think that was it.

Thanks Everyone for all the Help!

I truly appreciate all of you taking the time to answer, and having the generosity to share your knowledge. Thanks again.

Great! Now you can try a newer Slackware version on the old Acer Aspire! I wish the archives at Internet Archive were back up
and running, there is a slew of Puppys there! By the way, if interested in a frugal install to your hard drive, you don't have to
wipe out WinX, you can "dual boot" (that's what I do). The EASIEST method I used was finding an older Slacko6.3exe Windows
executable installer, you double click it after you download it, it installs Grub4Dos, installs Slacko to a "folder" (directory in
Linux lingo) and modifies the boot.ini to enable both WindowsXP and Slacko. From there, it's simply a matter of downloading
whatever Pup you want to try, extract it to it's own folder/directory, then edit the menu.lst file to include the new Puppy
(just copy and paste, then change to appropriate names for folder, puppy, etc.)

And to prove your old Acer Aspire One AOA150 still has life, I'm currently on MINE! Booted into
S15Pup32, from 4-13-2024 (a long story, I like this one, but have a newer one as well) with a kernel
and zdrv.sfs from an ArchPup32 from 2020!!! Kernel 4.14.173! I like this kernel because it uses the
older ntfs-3g as opposed to the newer ntfs3. Older one seems to be faster, and I have a 1 gig pupswap
file on my Acer's hard drive, which is NTFS formatted since it also has Windows XP SP3. I also run with
the LXDE desktop w/PcManFM file manager (my preference) available from peebee via ydrv.sfs. I know
this is probably a lot to throw at you, but as you get used to Puppy lingo, you'll understand what I'm
talking about. NOTE: I tried Slacko 7 32 bit a long time ago, and for some reason it did not find the
WiFi adapter (Atheros 54X), but using the older 4X kernels and zdrv.sfs for drivers it works quite well.
My browser of choice is PaleMoon, currently running version 33.4.1 (latest available) that is compiled
by Steve Pusser for MX Linux. I've also got one of Alien Bob's Chromium 32 bit, like version 128.x.x,
to use on sites that Palemoon struggles with. All in all, I've kept this old netbook running for well
past it's "best used by" date! If you have questions, the folks here are VERY good to help. I may have
to upload some of my ISO collections somewhere to share, especially the ones with the older 4.x kernels.
Although the 5X kernels do run, as mentioned, with my swap file on NTFS, it sometimes gets slower,
noticeable when opening 8 or 9 tabs in a browser or when opening directories (folders) on the hard drive.
Such is life with only 1 gig RAM and a slower HD, LOL!

@Wiz57 Did you boot off USB, which was the crux of the issue in this thread?

bigpup wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 2:35 pm

Try doing more to the USB sticks to get them setup for a good install.

Make a new partition table (msdos type), which will delete everything on them.
Make one partition and format it fat32. Flag it boot.

I would not give up so fast on those old smaller USB sticks until you try this.

If no help.
No big deal for trying.

If they are really old.
Check and clean the contacts in the Plug end.