Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I'm trying to set up a media server on an ancient desktop and I'm pretty sure the SFS file system could cause issues. I don't see any option for a full install to disk on Puppy Installer, so I was wondering if I'm missing something or if there's a manual way to do it. I swear I can remember Fossapup64 having this option, or perhaps I've just gone mad.

I know it's not recommended, but Debian 12 seems to have it out for this poor dinosaur and won't boot because of ACPI errors (acpi=off, strict etc. none of them work sadly), leading me back to Puppy Linux.

Cheers!

Stick with a frugal install. It won't affect your media server at all, and it'll make your life easier in terms of installation

@jenkem_lover189 :-

p310don wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 7:10 am

Stick with a frugal install. It won't affect your media server at all, and it'll make your life easier in terms of installation

^^^ +1.

Seriously, I would go with the standard, *recommended* frugal install. Our Admin, @rockedge , runs all kinds of web-servers/test installs of the forum software, often on pretty ancient hardware.....even a Zoneminder CCTV install (which includes a server, for remote viewing/administration) .....and to the best of my knowledge, always runs frugal installs & never has a moment's trouble with 'em.

I'm sure Erik will confirm this.

What makes you think it MUST be a "full install" to work correctly? Just curious, really...

Frugal installs ARE the 'full' Puppy experience. It's not a cut-down, poor-man's version, as many seem to think.....and by using a "full install", you voluntarily deny yourself many of Puppy's best features. Believe it!

After well over a decade with Puppy, I've long since figured this one out.

Mike.

.....runs all kinds of web-servers/test installs of the forum software, often on pretty ancient hardware.....even a Zoneminder CCTV install (which includes a server, for remote viewing/administration) .....and to the best of my knowledge, always runs frugal installs & never has a moment's trouble with 'em.

This is true. I use only frugal installs for all of the server installations I set up. Matter of fact, the current web sever development platform is 21 years old and is a true 32 Bit computer with Pentium 4 CPU and sits in my basement right next to a real server with 4 Terabytes of disk space in it. Also saved from a dumpster and in good condition. The company went to the cloud and threw out their own server infrastructure. I went home with it and the monitor, keyboard and mouse for free.

I can run Kodi on this machine or just use it as a file/media server using the SAMBA already built into the Bionicpup32 operating system. Even though this particular machine has a 80G hard drive which isn't much for a media server, it would be no problem plugging in a 1 or 2 terabyte external drive via USB to have all the audio and video data one desires.

My recommendation would be use the frugal installation method!!! Your machine will run with the SFS components just as well or better than a traditional full install. Much easier to maintain as a media server as a frugal install since you need all the disk space you can get for your real purpose.....serving up those media files that take up lots of storage.

I set up a similar 20 year old dumpster rescue machine for a neighbor that serves up E-books, digital magazines and news papers. Gives our town's library a run for it's money.

I don't run a server. But do run Bookworm64 [it goes without saying "as a frugal install"]. The only things worth noting are (a) if you've never run a frugal install, deploy it to a Linux Formatteed partitition so that you have the Save to Folder option at first shutdown; and (b) Bookworm64's SFS-Load/Unload isn't as convenient as earlier Puppys: it requires a reboot to effectuate. That is, you can Right-Click>SFS-Load, but will have to reboot to have that application loaded. Once that's done it will automatically SFS-load on future boot-ups until you again SFS-load [a toggle] to unload it and reboot.

jenkem_lover189 wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 4:12 am

I'm trying to set up a media server on an ancient desktop and I'm pretty sure the SFS file system could cause issues. I don't see any option for a full install to disk on Puppy Installer, so I was wondering if I'm missing something or if there's a manual way to do it. I swear I can remember Fossapup64 having this option, or perhaps I've just gone mad.

I know it's not recommended, but Debian 12 seems to have it out for this poor dinosaur and won't boot because of ACPI errors (acpi=off, strict etc. none of them work sadly), leading me back to Puppy Linux.

Cheers!

I have an app for this, I don't know why no-one's mentioning it.

viewtopic.php?t=13917

As you have an ancient desktop with a faulty BIOS.

What hardware do you have?

Which software are you envisaging to use?

Will you need to transcode content?

Are you looking at serving files locally or via the Internet?

If you want to do a 'full hdd", as requested go for it. Guides and tools are here on the forum.