64 X-Tahr - My complete disaster

[Steve91]

HI Guys, I'm a new lerker whos been around since the 4.30 days.
I came to love X-Thar, having regularly used X-Precise 2.4 for many years, However as time (and computing) demands have moved on, Ive been trying to make an X-Bookworm.
I wont go into details of how many times ive tried, but im running over 30 hours of attempts and im out of ideas.
I cant use Xenial 64 as it comes with an impossible mouse problem, Same with Fusilli, and Slacko pups have never worked with any of my sound devices.
Im running an I7 10500H, 32gb ram, but i like the speed and efficency of X-Tahr.

However it gets worse, X-Tahr wont work on my new UEFI computer. it just gives me a blank screen when i boot it, and mentions "the image might not be 64bit"

I was woundering if RG66 or PhilB would be kind enough to write us a tutorial on how to do this? (Owing to the fact that no one else can set X pups up like RG66)

[peebee]

XFCE-4.20 addon for LxPupSc64

[Jasper]

@Steve91

What steps have you taken so far?

pups have never worked with any of my sound devices

What hardware do you have?

Which kernels have you been using for each Puppy?

There are also designated UEFI enabled ISO's available.

https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... 20-6.0-CE/

[mikewalsh]

@Steve91 :- Hallo.....and to the new "kennels".

I was woundering if RG66 or PhilB would be kind enough to write us a tutorial on how to do this? (Owing to the fact that no one else can set X pups up like RG66)

Ya might be outta luck there. PhilB has been MIA since early '21, and rg66 disappeared when the old forum shut down in mid-2020. (He did put in a very brief appearance the other day, but that's the first - and only - time I've seen him for nearly 5 years...)

Whether he's actually "back" is anybody's guess. We lost a lot of members when the old Forum went tits-up due to John de Murga's 'passing'; many didn't bother making the switch, and sticking with the turmoil during those first few months of this forum.

Like you said, nobody could build 'em quite like rg66. I ran X-Slacko 2.3.2 for nearly 2 years.....but like so many have found out, as newer hardware has replaced older gear the UEFI stuff has made it all but impossible to enjoy those golden oldies any longer. They were good in their day, but would now be hopelessly out of date...

"Welcome back", anyway.

Mike.

[jp734]

Hello @Steve91

Just to be sure, here is a link where you can download tahrpup64: https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-tahr/iso/

Try telling us what you've done so far. A lot of people here knows what they're doing. They've proven me their expertise. And, below also might help. Good luck to you

[Steve91]

Hi Guys, Sorry for my late reply, I have a very limited internet connection as Im currently working in a hotel. I promise to respond to everyone, and I wont just disappear.
@jp734 My PC seems to only boot in UEFI mode so I attempted to convert some older pups (including X-Tahr into UEFI by adding the boot folders , a grub.cfg file and the boot64.efi file, unfortunately this simply gave me a message "not a 64 bit image" I tried the tutorial from here, but the original links are down, and I had ahrd time finding alternatives.

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=109702

I find that many pups wont boot on my new laptop, as it seems eitehr intel, or microsoft forced manufacturers to abandon MBR booting in thier BOIS systems some years ago.
My Laptop Specs are:
Dell G3 series 3500
Intel i7-10750H CPU
32.0 GB (31.8 GB usable) RAM
NVidea RTX 2060 (Mobile) 6GB VRAM
2x M.2 SSD NVME 4tb Kingston Drives (8tb in total)
As a side note, I will never buy a Dell laptop again, the machine overheats when playing windows games, the keyboard is plastic and cannot be replaced as its melted into the casing. (the keyboard is very fragile and already broken), and one of the USB ports is already showing signs of ware. I spent a lot of money on this machine and its given me nothing but problems.
My old Asus however lasted for years and still runs now, but the specs are far lower.

I also attemtped to add XFCE to Tahr 64, but the menus are all out of place and it doesnt look anything like X Tahr 2.0 (which I can only run on VM ware ( virtual machine)

Bookworm Puppex 64-86 : Drives do not show on the desktop, and I cannot see them at all in MNT/ folder. Pmount is not part of the OS. Wifi does not detect, No Sound detected, and it does not save on exit.

Tahr 6.0.7 No drive access (m.2) no wifi.
PupSC4: Most Slacko pups will not work, No Sound. @peebee
Tahr 6.0.5 MBR image, cannot boot
F96CE : Blank screen on boot, cannot get into Xorgwizard.
Xenial pup 7.5 Blank screen on boot, cannot get into Xorgwizard.
Xenial 64 bit R5 - Mouse problem, its like the mouse has super accelration and i cannot fix the problem
Fusilli 4.4 - Very beautiful pup, however I have a weird mouse cursor problem. I can click on buttons etc, but I cannot see the cursor at all, I have to guess where the cusor is and it makes it un-usable. I spent over 5 hours trying to fix it with no solution
Tahr 6.0.6 UEFI - booted to black screen, same as Xenial pup 7.5 and F96CE
Fossa Pup 64 Sound is ok, but wifi will not find my card
I also tried deepin, but only on the virtual machine, its a beautiful distro but the 5gb file size is just too much, and it bogged down my VM
A cut down version of deepin would be nice, but I think thats a bit too ambitious for me.

I have tested more pups, (before i started logging my results), but at this point I gave up. I think ive spent over 25 hours attempting to boot and fix a puppy. and im still struggling.

I thought about using WODF CE to try and build a pup myself, but im under confident and I dont think I would ever manage to successfully make an X-Tahr64.

@Jasper Ive only been using the default Kernals that came with each distro, I attempted to change the Kernel on some pups a few eeks ago, but I wasnt sucessful.

@mikewalsh Yes, I did see the memorial page for John. I used to visit the old furom during my X-Precise days. Although I rarely posted as I was too inexpereinced to help anyone. Thanksfully the old forum is still online and ive been reading about woof ce, but its gonna take some time before i attempt to use woof ce myself.

I hope ive responded to everyone, I tried to include everything in one post, lets hope its not messy when i press submit lol/

[Jasper]

@Steve91

never worked with any of my sound devices

What is your output in terminal if you enter lspci ?

[mikewalsh]

@Steve91 :-

Hm. I'm really surprised to hear of your misfortunes with the Dell. Normally, they're as reliable & fuss-free as the day is long.

I have a relatively powerful modern HP desktop rig, but I also always keep an older, second-hand lappie in the front room for when I keep my 91-yr old mother company in the evenings (I'm her full-time carer). I get these from eBay, as a rule; I 'upgrade' to a newer second-hand model every couple of years. Currently using a Latitude E6430, with a Core i5-3340m (Haswell).

I've never had any issues at all with Dell hardware - the current one is, IIRC, my third Dell lappie (the first one lasted nearly 19 years!) - but I haven't used any of their relatively new stuff yet. It's quite possible the build-quality has gone downhill; it has with a LOT of things over the last few years.

============================

I'm something of a dinosaur in OS terms! Unlike most folks, who seem to be obsessed with always running the very newest of everything all the time (safety & security, apparently), I run the series of 'buntu-based LTS Pups; Tahrpup64, Xenialpup64, BionicPup64, and Fossapup64. I also keep an up-to-date build of Bookwormpup around, along with Studiopup 1337 - the Bionicpup64-based build of 10wt3ch's masterpiece), a 'lite' spin on Barry's old Quirky64 'April' 7.0.1, and various 'newer' old 32-bit Puppies, most of which would be unrecognisable to their creators!

All of these run an entire range of portable browsers/apps we've put together over the last several years. I'm responsible for many of these; to my way of thinking, it's a method that suits Puppy down to the ground, 'cos these all run externally to your 'save', and keep their config stuff within their respective directories. It also allows 'sharing' of apps between multiple Puppies...

I also run a build of HaikuOS (based on the BeOS system from the late 90s) from a flash-drive, and a build of ChromeOS-Reflex from a "home-brewed" external SSD.

I have a soft spot for Tahrpup. It was the first Pup that ran 100%, OOTB, on the elderly hardware I had 10 yrs or so ago. Mine is highly-modifed & customized; glibc up from 2.19 to 2.28; k4.9.58 kernel from Xenialpup64, up from k3.14.56 (I'm kinda stuck with this one, as I run the official drivers for my Asus GeForce GT710 GPU, and they refuse to compile against anything newer), along with upgraded SSL, dbus, a newer ca-certs package, and various other stuff.

===============================

It sounds like Fossapup64 is going to be your best bet. The wifi is almost certainly a firmware issue; @ozsouth should be able to help with this.

Whatever you do end up running, though, you really need to go into your BIOS/UEFI & set it up run 'legacy' booting. The Windoze FastBoot/SecureBoot crap needs disabling, 'cos this just chucks a giant spanner in the works (nothing will run without a Microsoft digitally-signed certificate if SecureBoot is "on".)

Keep us informed as to 'progress', please!

Mike.

[ozsouth]

@Steve91 - I concur with mikewalsh - fossapup64 seems best for you.
If you want a lighter version, Fossa-Mid is 282mb. see: viewtopic.php?p=94956#p94956

As for wifi, is it usually either driver or firmware issue. To check out which in the puppy you use,
please run the following tests in a maximized terminal & post results here:

lspci -nn | grep etwork (that starts with a lowercase L & has pipe symbol in middle, usually shift & \ keys)

dmesg | grep irmware

[Clarity]

Hello @Steve91

I offer an option that should be helpful on several fronts. IF this works, I can also help you around other boot-time solutions as well. ... found on the forum, here.

YOu seem to have enough knowledge where you can test this forum distro. The members who follow that forum have knowledge of UEFI as that distro is tailor made for UEFI motherboards. Further, they are equipped to help step you thru UEFI registrations if that is troublesome.

Post there if you have ANY problems in booting your UEFI hardware.

Beware! That forum distro is "lightning fast" on the desktop.

Hope this helps

[Wiz57]

@Clarity Dude! Would you PLEASE stop with the non-descript links in your posts!
I thought we had this discussion before, but apparently the notion of including a description of what you are
linking to is beyond your grasp!
@Steve91 What non-Clarity is referencing is Fatdog...you may already be
familiar with it.

See Clarity, not so darned difficult at all! One word...instead of just a link. It's easy.

[Clarity]

@Wiz57 Get OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE and get down to what he is asking.

He wants something simple and from that it can arrive at something consistent.

You are quite the helper, now aren't you attacking me for suggesting a distro which might get him starting in a way which might be a little clearer.

Sp stop attacking someone and help where you can.

Or did you want to be the one suggesting a Fatdog with UEFI registration to help???

All this emotion for what goal... to discredit members???

[Flash]

Jeez, talk about emotion.

[fredx181]

..
@jp734 My PC seems to only boot in UEFI mode so I attempted to convert some older pups (including X-Tahr into UEFI by adding the boot folders , a grub.cfg file and the boot64.efi file, unfortunately this simply gave me a message "not a 64 bit image" I tried the tutorial from here, but the original links are down, and I had ahrd time finding alternatives.

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=109702

This might help: viewtopic.php?p=85041#p85041

[bigpup]

If this is a very new computer.

With the newer or newest version of UEFI bios firmware.

You are going to need to use a Puppy version with a kernel that can support the hardware.

One using a 6 series Linux kernel.

Suggest you use BookwormPup64 10.0.10

As a live install on a USB
It has the needed boot loader for UEFI.

I have had god luck with Unetbootin program doing installs to USB sticks.
It installs a UEFI boot loader to boot with.

To get all hardware supported, may even need to update the kernel in it.

Example:
A new computer I have. BookwormPup64 10.0.10 had no support for it's WIFI hardware.
Had to change the kernel to a much newer 6 series kernel, that did have drivers for the WIFI hardware.
Also added the firmware needed.

I have a very new computer that will not boot 32 bit operating systems. Must be 64 bit.

With an older version of Puppy.
You could try changing the kernel to one of the newest versions offered in this forum Additional Software ->Kernels
Also will need the newer firmware to use with it.
Easy to do if a live or frugal install.

Note Warning:
If booting with the UEFI bios set to use secure boot.
None of the older Puppies are going to be able to install the needed Puppy certificate needed to boot with secure boot enabled.
Best to have secure boot disabled in the UEFI bios settings.

[mikewalsh]

I have a very new computer that will not boot 32 bit operating systems. Must be 64 bit.

That's most likely to do with the UEFI/boot-loader stuff. It may even be summat to do with the CPU microcode updates, deliberately disabling internal features.......but I've never yet heard of an x86_64/amd64 CPU that will not natively run 32-bit code, since the latter is inherent in the architecture's origin.

64-bit architecture originated from the 32-bit one. All 64-bit CPUs will run in either 'compat' mode (where only the 32-bit registers are active), OR in what's known as 'long' mode (where the full complement of internal registers are available). Especially given Microsoft's insistence on 'backwards-compatibility' for almost every piece of Windows software ever written/compiled/built.

I daresay there would be a way to run 32-bit. You probably just haven't found it yet. Unless it IS to do with the microcode; that might be harder to reverse...

Mike.

[jp734]

@Steve91 - I think you can still run you favorite TahrPup. You just need to get GRUB2 installed. GRUB2 is the ONLY thing that will work with UEFI. Old grub, which TahrPup had, and UEFI is a NO BOOT. Even if you copy all the folders and files, it is still the old grub.

Here's my suggestion:
- Install BookWormPup, at the least version 10.0.7, on a bootable flashdrive. Boot pc with it.
- (CAN SKIP THIS STEP IF NOT NEEDED) Partition your laptop HD if not already. A 300 mb for boot partition with "boot" flag set. This is where you will install your grub2. Then another partition for your puppy files.
- Copy Bookworm boot files from ISO image. Then create a folder for you TahrPup and do the same. Copy all files from TahrPup ISO to the folder. You can delete bookworm later if you just want TahrPup
- run grub2config. On the first window, select the 300MB partition you created for "boot" to install grub2, then select all drives to search for distros on the second window that comes up. It should detect both Bookworm and Tahr. Or at the least, detect BookWorm and you manually enter TahrPup. I'm confident it will though.

Let me/us know.

JP

[mikewalsh]

@jp734 :-

Mm. Okay. Explain this one to me, then....

I'm posting from Tahrpup64 ATM. This is on a 2019 HP Pavilion desktop rig.....with UEFI. Yet I'm running in "legacy" mode, and booting via Grub4DOS.....with custom boot stanzas derived from a formula that Bill (rcrsn51) originally published in the Debian Live Starter-kit thread in the DebianDogs section of the forum, during the first half of 2020 when I bought this thing.

The way you can boot is as much down to however your particular UEFI has been implemented by the hardware manufacturer as it is to the bootloader itself.....though I will agree that Grub2config certainly makes the process easier for beginners/noobs and those with less experience in booting Linux in general (and Puppy in particular).

YMMV, of course......though there's ways to make anything boot IF you don't mind doing a wee bit of research.

Mike.

[jp734]

@mikewalsh How are doing this fine evening or morning? Dont know exactly what part of the world you're at.

Did you mean you have a PC that you can set bios to either uefi or legacy? And you have it set on legacy and using grub4dos? Yes, that will work. Look at the chart on my first post on this thread.

Try setring your bios to uefi and see if it will boot. My hunch is it will not.

[Steve91]

Hello guys. Ive had some problems woth my internet provider and i hope to visit the shop sometime over the weekend.

In the mean-time, ive done a lot offline, including running the grep commands to find my firmware. (And also fatdog, which also would not boot.

I have also tried bookworm pup on both my old and new machines, and it works flawlessly!. I visited a friend today to test my wifi, and it works as good as gold. I also attempted to install xfce "quickly" but since i was short for time, the attempt wasnt sucessful. I later attempted to install from source but i had some issues with something related to atk-auth from the xfce debian repository. I dont remeber the exact file name.

I promise to keep my word and I'll get back to you asap

[Jasper]

So, you have decided to migrate from Tahr to Bookworm as an OS?

Topic closed

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh How are doing this fine evening or morning? Dont know exactly what part of the world you're at.

Did you mean you have a PC that you can set bios to either uefi or legacy? And you have it set on legacy and using grub4dos? Yes, that will work. Look at the chart on my first post on this thread.

Try setring your bios to uefi and see if it will boot. My hunch is it will not.

Heh. Ahh.....

I've run an install of ZorinOS from an external drive for many years. One of the very few mainstream/mainstream-based distros I've ever had time for. But since Ubuntu - which ZorinOS is based on - went UEFI-only booting, ZorinOS naturally followed suit.

It's so much farting about to keep switching from legacy to UEFI every time I wanted to run it, Zorin now gets very little use. Previously, I'd set the main boot menu to chainload into Zorin's dedicated drive, which I'd allowed GRUB2 to take control of.....but things simply aren't that easy anymore. You have to take the trouble to go into the UEFI every time you want to switch, and mess about in there. It's too much like hard work!

And they call this "progress". Sheesh....

Mike.

[Steve91]

Some newer dell laptops dont have legacy mode. I tried this more than a year ago, Even after I updated the BIOS, the legacy mode never appeared, and I really dont like to mess around with things that can kill my newer laptop.

As for topic closed, I can make a new thread in the Bookworm pup, but ultimately I have not been sucessfull in adding XFCE to any 64 bit pup.
The only difference between Bookworm64 and Tahr64 is the Bookworm pup removes the need to resolve the wifi issue. Perhaps the procedure will be similar?

[jp734]

This thread made me try to boot Tahr6.0 NO PAE and PAE, just for giggles, on my desktop with bios set to UEFI and Grub2 and both booted with no problem

Good luck @Steve91

[bigpup]

Yes start a new topic talking about issues with BookwormPup64 10.0.10.

This topic's subject tells nobody you need help with BookwormPup64.

[bigpup]

legacy mode could be CSM mode in the UEFI bios settings.

Same thing just different name used.

CSM is a legacy boot mode that emulates a traditional BIOS environment, providing backward compatibility with old operating systems and hardware devices that do not support the newer UEFI standard.

[Jasper]

I have not been sucessfull in adding XFCE to any 64 bit pup

Try

f96ce/devuanpup XFCE_FUSILLI

viewtopic.php?t=13821

or

QuickPup64 25.01 RC4

viewtopic.php?t=3171

[mikeslr]

@Jasper +1.

Both are beautiful, very accomplished operating systems.

There's a considerable difference between the foundations of JWM and XFCE. Mistfire's and pp4mnklinux's accomplishments don't receive the recognition they disserve.

Me, I still love jwm-rox as embellished by radky. So, I'm not sure the following is helpful. My experience has been when you install a pet (or SFS-load an SFS) xfce doesn't recognize the menu categories used with JWM so assigns those applications to "Other". I published the pet here,
viewtopic.php?t=2528, to overcome that.