Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

My last computer was killed by a lightning strike/power surge. So have just treated myself to a new "black friday price" one.
Acer Aspire TC1785 - Intel I5 (decacore), 16Gb memory, 1Tb SSD.
Bad news - Windows 11 pre-installed.

Now how to get linux on it.
I have disabled secure boot in the bios.
inserted a usb stick that I use on a couple of laptops (bionic, F96-CE4 and others on it) - bios still only lists "Boot Device - 4 times along with CD/DVD, Hard disk ". none of the four recognise the usb. The computer has no cd/dvd drive. So I am left only able to boot windows.

What can I do? All advice gratefully received.

@ledster

Are you pressing F12 during boot to get the boot menu?

Have you confirmed your USB will boot on a UEFI system?

wizard

Is there a bios setting for usb booting?

I also recently bought a new Dell laptop.
In its bios configuration it has a check box called Enable USB Boot Support

So I'm able to boot from USB on mine, also with secure boot disabled.

When I got my laptop I made a Clonezilla backup of the Win11 so I can use that if I wanted later.
Then I reformated the internal drive so I could use one of the KLV installs.
So far I'm just using it to get more familiar with using PuppyLinux and the KLV distros - and looking at what obstacles I may come up with - like drivers.

+1 on the other two posts.

I also suggest you make a new USB stick with one of the very latest Puppy versions.
Using much newer Linux kernel and firmware, to support this new a hardware.

Suggest BookwormPup64 10.0.8

They will have much better support for the hardware in this computer.
Plus many new improvements and tweaks, to how Puppy boots, and operates.

I suggest you make the USB stick install this way:
viewtopic.php?t=11171

To activate the BIOS utility, press F2 while the computer logo is being
displayed.

I will add about using the F12 key to have the boot device selection screen to pop up.
The manual says to repeat pressing it, just as the computer boots, until the selection list pops up.

But if you just press it one time and do not release, until the list pops up.
That is doing the same as multiple times pressing and releasing.
All keyboards, will repeat a key, if you keep it pressed down, and do not release it.

@ Wizard, JusGellin and bigpup

Thanks for the suggestions & sorry about slow reply - life has been hectic for the last few days!

Start up options are
F12 - does nothing.
del - gets me into bios

Note - the bios does not contain an "Enable USB Boot Support" option.
there are 4 boot options - Rremovable device, Windows boot manager, CD/DVD and the 4th is disabled.
I have set external device as first boot option, but I cannot set it be usb

I am using usb that runs fine on my HP laptop, but is ignored by the Acer.
It is set up with a 500 meg fat32 first partition and a 55 GiB ext3 second partition
first partition is flagged boot
menu.lst shows I used grub4dos to produce it.
running bionic64, f96ce4 amongst others

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo UEFI || echo BIOS
gives UEFI
(picked that one up online!)

So, next I have downloaded frugalpup-44.pet and will set up a usb with the latest Bookworm.
See how that goes.

If I can't get this working its back to PC World for big Whinge!

@ledster

Check in bios to see if there is a setting too enable F12.

I am using usb that runs fine on my HP laptop

Is HP using UEFI?

menu.lst shows I used grub4dos to produce it.

Your USB needs to be using grub2, boot Pup on your other computer and use Menu>Setup>Stickpup to create a new bootable USB

wizard

there are 4 boot options - Rremovable device, Windows boot manager, CD/DVD and the 4th is disabled.

With the USB drive plugged in.

What happens if you select to use removable device?

Enable USB option in the bios setup is usually not in the boot section of the bios.

Could be in security or really any other section.

Also make sure you are plugged into a data USB port.

Some computers have a USB port that is power only.

ledster wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2024 3:21 pm

Acer Aspire TC1785 - Intel I5 (decacore), 16Gb memory, 1Tb SSD.

if the new UEFI thumbdrive doesnt work, then look up the manual
https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/drivers-and-manuals

when you say "get into bios", do you mean the bios setup menu or the bios boot device menu

I dont have windows anymore, make sure to turn off windows11 "fast boot".
How many USB port do you have?
Do you have sd-card port?

I have disabled secure boot in the bios.
inserted a usb stick that I use on a couple of laptops (bionic, F96-CE4 and others on it) - bios still only lists "Boot Device - 4 times along with CD/DVD, Hard disk ". none of the four recognise the usb.

I think your (bionic, F96-CE4 and others on it) on usb is not uefi capable.

are you sure "none of the four recognise the usb"? or give you an error?

Lets see what is found using Frugalpup installer and a BookwormPup64 10.0.8 install.

Setting up the drive as I suggested in my earlier post.

Waiting for results from ledster.

One issue I have had with older OS's on USB's not booting is that the OS USB bootloader is not EFI compliant, ie it is a legacy bootloader.
None of the more modern laptops etc I have used will "see" this older OS/USB as an option to boot from, which at the time was very annoying.
So I might suggest using a modern puppy, eg Bookwormpup64. You will need to know how to install it frugally, of course, and I would recommend frugalpup for that, which is in the setup menu of Bookwormpup64.

Hi all

frugalpup-44.pet installed.
Set up usb (500 meg fat32 first partition and a 55 GiB ext3 second partition) and used frugalpup to install bookworm10.0.8.
Did not work. So tried the usb on my HP lappy - worked fine.

There is no setting in bios to enable F12. However, if the only entry is for windows it would start that automatically with no menu shown.

Manual downloaded from Acer site last week - no help.

So took it back to PC world and complained. They tried and could not fix it.
They did try the usb stick on one of their office computers - and it worked!
So they offered to take the Acer back as faulty and offered me a Lenovo Idea centre 3 to replace it. About the same spec as the Acer but a bigger Black Friday discount.
Will report back when it is delivered and I have tested it.

Many thanks for all your suggestions & help.
Regards
Ches

@ledster - This might help

ledster wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2024 4:10 pm

Will report back when it is delivered and I have tested it.

Many thanks for all your suggestions & help.
Regards
Ches

hope the lenovo works better. Getting a new machine up and running on linux can be a challenge sometimes as implementing the latest technologies are worked out by the communities.

If you have problems with the lenovo, please post a pic of the label with all the model and serial numbers.

When you partitioned the drive.

The first partition needs to be flagged boot, esp
It is to be used for the boot loader files.
The boot partition.
The flags identify the partition as the place to find the boot loader.
boot is the old legacy bios identifier.
esp is the UEFI bios identifier.
Using both flag's, it should work for any computer bios.

There is a legacy bios and a UEFI bios boot loader setup, that Frugalpup can install.
I always tell Frugal pup installer, when installing the boot loader, to install both.
That way it has a boot loader on it to boot any type computer bios.

One more thing you could have tried when setting up the USB stick.

Make a new partition table type gpt and not msdos.
Then partition and format the drive.

With type gpt being used now as the standard partition table.
The computer UEFI bios may not see a drive, unless it is setup as a gpt partition table.

UEFI bios is constantly getting changed on how it works and the computer manufacture, can also change it, for their computers.
How they want it to work.

@ bigpup

Hmmm. gpt not something I know anything about.
How does one set it up? Gparted doesn't even mention it.

currently above my pay scale!

Note:
Creating a partition table.
This does delete all that is on the drive and sets it up with nothing on it.
It then needs to be partitioned and formatted.

Using the Gparted program.

With the drive you want to work on displayed.

Device ->Create Partition Table......

A drop down list of different type partition tables, you can click on, to select type to use.

Select gpt.

Back on the main Gparted window click on apply green check mark icon.

A new partition table will be made.

All space on the drive is now unallocated.

Partition and Format as you want.

All drives have a partition table to store information about the partition(s) and what is on them.
.
Note:
This image is only showing where to find the option to create a partition table.

I got myself a new Lenovo laptop a couple of months ago. See here: viewtopic.php?p=134629#p134629
Once I'd booted into Puppy from usb, I just formatted the main win partiton as ext3, copied Puppy's sfs's there, then renamed windows boot efi as EFI.WIN & copied my EFI folder across, checked boot config & rebooted. I needed wifi firmware (quickly found) & touchpad driver (had to rejig a kernel - my latest 6.6 ones & latest fdrvs are fine) but it worked pretty well straight away, simply, without blowing windows away completely (recovery partition retained). I didn't post here earlier, as usb booting puppy was an issue for OP.

Hello @ledster

I think I have a simple solution for you.

I need to ask you 1 'simple' question: Do you want a Linux ONLY PC or do you want to keep Windows and Run Linux?

You will NOT need to manipulate your new PC's UEFI in either case. Change to the UEFI will ONLY be necessary if you intend for your PC to run a VM when it is booted. Other than that, no change to the UEFI is needed.

Sorry about the delay with this post. Pre Christmas can be pretty manic here!
Lenevo received.
Finished the supplied winblows set up - may need it for something sometime.
Disabled secure boot and fast boot. Allocated USBHDD as first boot.
Tried my usb with bookworm - and it worked!
So in win found system manager, reduced win partition to 170 Gigs and left 700 odd gigs free.
Returned to bookworm & used gparted and formatted the 700 gigs to ext3.
Copied bookworm to this plus bionic64 & f96-ce4 and ran grub2config. Now have choice in startup menu.

Now for the problems.
In bookworm cups does not run. Tried browser and localhost:631 - nothing.
Also after every boot had to reset the internet connection despite saving when closing down.

So rebooted with bionic - runs but graphics terrible, 800X600 only option available.

So rebooted with f96-ce4 - runs at 1920X1080.
Tried cups - runs and set up my printer - no problems.
Remembers network connection.
Only remaining problem seems to be sound. I can only just hear my attached speakers when at max volume.
Any ideas gratefully received.

As suggested by @Williwaw I have attached a pic of the label on the computer. Hope it helps.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Try to use GRUB2 for UEFI boot,

then load Puppy as G4D does.

menuentry "Puppy Fossa" {
	search --set -f /80f2f175-cd38-4a12-8d6c-aadfcf1e0462
	linux /fossapupfrugal/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=fossapupfrugal
	initrd /fossapupfrugal/initrd.gz 
}

In bookworm cups does not run. Tried browser and localhost:631 - nothing.
Also after every boot had to reset the internet connection despite saving when closing down.

I would delete the install of BookwormPup64 10.0.8 and do a fresh new frugal install of the latest version BookwormPup64 10.0.9.
v10.0.9 has some bug fixes in it.

@ledster - for sound, in a terminal run: alsamixer
Use arrow keys to move left/right & up/down to adjust voulumes. If any item you need shows MM press m key to unmute.
Press esc when all done.

Solved/decisions made

Sound simple - turned out to be a faulty plug. Changed connecting cable and all's well.
Tried bookworm1009 & cups worked. so saved to a frugal install file, rebooted and cups does not work. Beats me.
As a side issue printer is a Canon Pixma - not listed in cups.

So have moved to f96-ce4 and no problems.

Best forum I know of!

Happy new year.