Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi all,
I recently installed Slacko Puppy on a laptop via full install. On it, I installed Open Office from the SFS manager, but now I would like to uninstall it. As this is a full Slacko Puppy install, the SFS cannot be unloaded from the Boot Manager and it neither appear on the list at the SFS-Load tool.

How can I uninstall a package installed from an SFS in a full installation of Puppy Linux?

Usually .sfs modules are loaded and unloaded "On The Fly". As far as I know, on "Full Installs" .sfs modules aren't loaded, but installed like .pet packages.
So, perhaps it might be listed in the Puppy Package Manager (PPM) and can be uninstalled via the PPM.

Actually, the installed SFS does not appear in the package manager under uninstall, so I guess that is not an option.

Then click the Open Office .sfs to have access to its content. Browse the directories inside the .sfs and browse equal directories in your installation to remove all directories and files manually. Unfortunately there's no other option. And keep in mind for the next time: in a full install loading a .sfs is equal to install a .pet package.

I -plus many other too- recommend to do a frugal install. It doesn't have any disadvantages compared to full install, but lots of advantages and benefits.

taersh wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:43 pm

And keep in mind for the next time: in a full install loading a .sfs is equal to install a .pet package.

If I may add: installing a .pet you will have it in the PPM and you can uninstall it through the PPM.
If you install a .sfs in a full install, it is not picked up by the PPM, so you cannot uninstall it with PPM.

Puppy frugal install recommended indeed.
The name may not be appealing, I would call it layered install instead.
Layering is one of Puppy's great features.
You loose that with full install, where everything is mixed together forever.
With frugal install you leave everything in its wrapper (like a present ), hence the name 'frugal'.
The components are just dropped on the device, not unwrapped, a bit sloppy it seams.
But there are a lot of advantages, and it is not sloppy at all.

Welcome to the kennels @hinojojojo !

@hinojojojo :-

Hallo....and to the 'kennels'.

Indeed, I concur whole heartedly with foxpup. Fortunately, unlike many others who learnt the hard way, I went with 'frugals' from day one, nearly 7 years ago.

The name IS misleading, it's true. A 'frugal' (as opposed to a 'full') convinces many an unsuspecting noob that they're being palmed-off with a 'poor man's', cut-down version of the 'real thing'. However, the name does NOT refer to the quality, OR the content.....merely the amount of space it occupies on your hard drive.

The 'frugal' install is the one recommended for the best possible Puppy experience; for the maximum versatility in usage of programs/apps/installing & uninstalling; and for the easiest possible means of backing-up. (What could be simpler than copy/paste, hmm..? I'm not pulling your leg here, either; I'm talking LITERALLY that simple.)

The 'full' install is in fact the one recommended for seriously resource-starved, really elderly hardware.....and it's all to do with the way Puppy runs. Standard procedure is to run the session completely in RAM; this is what produces Pup's lightning-quick behaviour, since RAM is by far the fastest component of any system.

Where there isn't sufficient RAM to do this, there's no option but to go for a 'full install', since reading from an HDD is the next best thing in this case, and will cause the least amount of delay....

We really do need to update the relevant documentation, or at the very least include an 'explainer' to this effect on the home page of the main Puppy site. Hopefully, this will steer many would-be Puppians towards the best type of install for a good experience.

Mike.

mikewalsh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 1:14 am

Where there isn't sufficient RAM to do this, there's no option but to go for a 'full install', since reading from an HDD is the next best thing in this case, and will cause the least amount of delay....

We really do need to update the relevant documentation, or at the very least include an 'explainer' to this effect on the home page of the main Puppy site. Hopefully, this will steer many would-be Puppians towards the best type of install for a good experience.

I whole heartedly concur with you, Mike.

And if I may add again:
I never do a full install. If there is little RAM, or if I expect something heavy on the memory (ms teams ),
I use the kernel option pfix=nocopy which instructs not to load everything from the start into RAM.
It works good for me.
I do not know how it compares to using a full install tho.

I don't think the following script was developed with the full install in mind but it might give some ideas on how to write a similar script for a full install:

SFS-Remover by stemsee (Old forum)

Another adaptation of this idea might be as part of a scrip to transition a full install to a frugal install. See thread:

Re: Frugal install, All apps & files?

Thanks all for you answers and advice. Alright, then removing files the dirty way is the way.
Yea, I am giving a try to frugal install now.
Probably not related to this thread, but as the topic about memory usage has come in a few of your answers...
Would you recommend full or frugal in a 1 Gb RAM computer?

hinojojojo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:25 am

Thanks all for you answers and advice. Alright, then removing files the dirty way is the way.
Yea, I am giving a try to frugal install now.
Probably not related to this thread, but as the topic about memory usage has come in a few of your answers...
Would you recommend full or frugal in a 1 Gb RAM computer?

If your ram is that low then try to put the save file (or folder) on the hard drive rather than a USB drive. This way changes are directly made to the device (direct mounting) rather than stored in memory until you need to save. You could likely do something similar with the USB device but I forget how.

You may find this post interesting as well:
Running modern Puppy in Low RAM systems

The same, as @s243a mentions about putting the pupsave on the harddrive, applies to a swap.
You should definitely use a swap on the HDD.
Ideally the swap is seldomly used, just to prevent freezing. But on so little RAM, it could be used more.
You can monitor it with htop.

Too bad it is a laptop, because RAM is very cheap and in a PC it is easy to add it.

hinojojojo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:25 am

Probably not related to this thread, but as the topic about memory usage has come in a few of your answers...
Would you recommend full or frugal in a 1 Gb RAM computer?

I've always run frugal installs. Right now I have several different puppies I can choose between at boot time, using Grub4Dos. Works great until I run low on HDD space. (Booting from a live CD or a USB drive is an alternative to Grub4Dos - but still a frugal install is recommended.)

From experience I can second the importance of creating a swap file. At the beginning I was running with 512MB of RAM. All was usable until browsers began breaking - creating a 1GB swap file at least permitted me to continue running, albeit slowly.

I am having trouble thinking of any reason to run a full install - except perhaps if you KNOW that you will never want or need to move to a different puppy. That seems highly improbable.

You can run a frugal install using the lowest amount of memory possible.
Boot using the boot option pfix=nocopy
Puppy boots, but does not load the different SFS files into memory.
Only loads what is needed for Puppy to run and provide a working desktop.
Starting programs will be slower, but after the program loads into memory, it will run normally.
Example boot menu entry:
menuentry "fossapup64 9.5 - Don't copy SFS files to RAM" {
linux /vmlinuz pfix=nocopy,fsck pmedia=cd
initrd /initrd.gz