Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I downloaded Focal 64 and used dd to make a LiveUSB. However, it never booted. I was presented with Grub and other stuff in a console. I tried it a few times with the same result.

Then I realized that the BIOS of my laptop (Intel 3rd Generation Core processor, 8 GB memory) is set for legacy boot, which I won't change because of how I use it. So I downloaded Bionic 64 and used dd to make a LiveUSB. Success!

So I assume that Focal 64 and later releases will only work with UEFI BIOS. If there is another reason Focal 64 won't boot, I'd like to hear it.

Since Bionic 64 is based on Ubuntu, can I install it and later upgrade to Focal 64? Does Puppy have an Upgrade Manager like Ubuntu?

barquest wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 1:20 am

Since Bionic 64 is based on Ubuntu, can I install it and later upgrade to Focal 64? Does Puppy have an Upgrade Manager like Ubuntu?

No. Puppies do not update that way. You'd have to backup your user data from your BionicPup64 installation and do a fresh install of FossaPup64.

Focal 64 is not specific enough of a name to understand what Puppy version it is.
What is the complete name of the iso file?
Any Puppy version should boot OK if correctly installed on the USB.

Used dd does not tell us you used the correct dd command.
What exact dd command did you use?

Using one of these installer programs may give you better results.
viewtopic.php?f=156&t=157

Focal 64 is fossapup64-9.5.iso downloaded from puppylinux.com. I tried downloads from main and mirror, but both had the same result.

Bionic 64 is bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso downloaded from puppylinux.com.

The dd command was "sudo dd if=fossapup64-9.5.iso of=/dev/sdX" where 'X' represents the port in which the USB flash drive is inserted. I have a few different Linux distributions, but they're all Debian-Based -- Linux Mint, Sparky Linux, and Devuan -- and I use that dd command with many different Linux distributions.

I will try Rufus with Focal 64 later today. I used it in the past, but I use Windows less and less as time goes on.

No. FossaPup64 will boot from either a UEFI or Bios computer. As other's have suggested something went wrong in the installation. Since you have a Bios computer and functioning Puppy (Bionicpup64) I suggest the following is actually the easiest way to your objective plus allowing Fossa to use its full potential:
(1) Boot into Bionicpup.
(2) Plug in a 2nd USB-Key. Don't mount it.
(3) Start Menu>System>gparted and restructure (Device>Create Partition Table>msdos) the 2nd Key.
(4) Create a small (<300 mb) first partition formatted as Fat32. After it's formatted, Select it, Click Flags and put a check in the "boot" box.
(5) Optional create a 2nd Fat32 partition of such size a you think may be useful in transferring data to Window Systems. Window systems can not natively read Linux Ext partitions; and 'seeing' one stops reading the drive so won't see a following Fat32/ntfs partition. Edit: Thought this worked, but it doesn't. Windows won't read beyond the initial Fat32 (boot) partition. So if you need to use the USB-Key to transfer files, make the 1st Fat32 large enough to hold them as well as the 'boot' files.
(6) Format the rest of the USB-Key as Linux Ext3. (Is journaled to guard against corruption, but writes less than Linux Ext4).
(7) Exit gparted and mount (Left Click) the Linux partition on the USB-Key. Recommended: Right-Click an empty space; select New>Directory and give it a name, e.g. fossa*. Leave that window open.
(8) Mount (Left-Click) the FossaPup64 ISO. Copy initrd.gz, vmlinuz and every file ending in sfs into the Linux partition [fossa folder] of the USB-Stick. Left-Click that partition to Unmount it.
(9) Exit gparted and start Menu>Setup>Grub4dos --which is not merely for Dos. Select the USB-Stick and check the "Search only here" box. When grub4dos has finished, you should have a bootable fossapup64 on your USB-Key.

As there is a partition formatted Linux, it can be used with SaveFolders, giving you that choice on your first shut-down of Fossapup.
=-=--=-=-=-
* The reason creating a folder is recommended is that it makes it easy to add different Puppies or even more instances of the same Puppy to the USB-Stick. Just repeat Steps 7 and 8; then open the menu.lst grub4dos created on the 1st partition in a text editor and modify it (copy>past, edit folder names). The 2nd instance of the same Puppy can be a new version; or the same version but sporting different applications you can install without fear of breaking your functioning version or increasing RAM usage; or to have specialized version such as one for general use and another for video-editing. If it's the same version, there's no need to access an ISO for Puppy's system files, you can just copy them from the folder of the first version. But don't copy the Savefile/folder while its in use (generates errors). When you boot-up select Advanced Menu --the last listing on Menu.lst. The 2nd listing on the menu which will appear has "RAM mode\nBoot up Puppy without pupsave" in its title. Using it will boot into a pristine (sans things you've added/changed) Puppy; that is without using your SaveFile/Folder.

I am currently investigating this exact same issue.
I have tested with FossaPup64 9.5, BionicPup64 8.0, and Slacko64 Puppy 7.0.

In all cases the .iso file is flashed to the USB drive with the Linux command:
dd if=file of=/dev/sdx status=progress
with no extra switches or settings.

With BionicPup I can boot the resulting USB on both my BIOS and UEFI machines.
With the other two pups (Fossa and Slacko) I can only boot the USB on my UEFI machine. On the BIOS machine I'm kind of stuck in GRUB. Screenshots attached.

I have a workaround which is to boot it on the UEFI machine and then install (using StickPup - usb stick installer) it to a second USB drive. The second USB drive will then boot and run OK on either BIOS or UEFI systems.
Not everyone will have this option though, and I doubt it's meant to work this way.

Yes, MrHull's technique is a variation of what I suggested. It uses frugalpup-installer rather than grub4dos to create the boot-loader on the 2nd USB-Stick. It's what I would have recommended if the problem had been an inability to boot from a UEFI computer as fruglpup-install can create the boot-structure for either. Obviously --at least with Fossapup-- employment of 'dd' doesn't. Neither will grub4dos --it can't be used with UEFI computers.

The advantage of grub4dos over frugalpup-installer with Bios computers is the ease with which grub4dos's menu.lst can be edited when adding a 2nd Puppy to your computer system.

Edit: I'm not certain if there's an easier work-around as I'm not certain whether, from MrMul's screenshots, the current boot-loader setup is finding menu.list or not. If it is, simply editing menu.lst may suffice. Perhaps an edit so that it reads something like the following would suffice:

title Puppy Fossa
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /fossapup64/initrd.gz
kernel /fossapup64b/vmlinuz psubdir=/fossapup64b pmedia=usbflash pfix=fsck
initrd /fossapup64/initrd.gz

Essentially, what the second line of above does is to tell grub4dos to search for the initrd.gz file in a folder named fossapup64 --but don't look for cds. Finding that, it sets the 'root' partition as the partition on which initrd.gz was found and then follows the arguments of the rest of the listing. Obviously, modify the above to have the actual name of the folder in which fossapup64's files are located.

If I'm not mistaken what the dd routine does is to merely copy the contents of the ISO --bit by bit-- to the USB-Key. It doesn't examine what's being done and modify what's being written to respond to the environment. If modifying menu.lst as above doesn't result in a work-around, that provides a clue as to what changes have to be made to the ISO in order for the dd command to become functional.

Thanks for all of the responses. MrHull did what I should have done, take photos of the offending screens and post them.

By the way, I used Puppy Linux years ago, but then I started using Linux Mint, Devuan, and Sparky Linux. I never had a problem using the older ISOs.

I downloaded Focal 64 and used Rufus to "burn" it to a USB flash drive. When I booted it, I saw the Grub prompt for just a second and then was presented with the list of Puppy options. I selected the first one, but the usual messages started with "Wrong EFI loader signature" which may or may not be relevant. Puppy Linux started and looked normal.

I will try mikesir's approach, using a Bionic 64 LiveUSB to create a Focal 64 LiveUSB. Good thing I have spare USB flash drives. And that bit about Puppy Linux being "grandpa-friendly" should be removed from the home page.

Puppies are great for installing other Puppies. The problem arises when you mix operating systems. Try installing Windows from Linux, or vice versa, without some application to do so that runs under your current OS.
Puppy was 'grandpa friendly' before UEFI came into the picture and Linux Live USB-Creator or Unetbootin (and a simple edit) could no longer produce the first bootable Puppy. It's still grandpa-friendly once you overcome that hurdle.

Stop calling it Focal 64.
It is Fossapup64 9.5.

Tails recommends using the Restore Disk Image function of GNOME Disk Utility to "burn" a LiveUSB. It works fine for that, so I tried it with Fossapup64 9.5, but it resulted in the same grub/whatever screens mentioned before. That functionality probably uses dd, so the result is not surprising.

Hi all,

Complete puppy newbie here. I ran into the same problem (I ended up staring at grub4dos while booting fossa from usb). I managed to boot by typing root=(hd0)/ then going back to the menu and selecting the first entry.

Not sure if that says anything new or if it helps.

Dean

The solution posted by Deanus worked for me.

You just need to run command: root=(hd0)/
Then hit escape and then hit enter, it should load the menu this time.

Thank you very much Deanus!

Hm. I confess, I'm finding this hard to understand, but.....well. Could be because I'm something of a Puppy "veteran" by now, with years of experience with Puppy's quirks & foibles.

Still.....

I have Fossapup64 9.5 running on two machines, as many of you know. The 'new' HP desktop rig; 2019-vintage, so UEFI-equipped.....and the refurb'd Dell Latitude D630 I bought last year to replace the truly ancient 2002 Inspiron lappie, which turned up its toes after 21 years of sterling service. This is approx 2008-vintage, and is very definitely the older MBR/BIOS configuration.

Despite that modern Pups now come equipped with a different bootloader system, I still run Grub4DOS. It's simple; it's elegant; I fully understand what I'm doing with it.....and for me, it just works.

The reason I continued using it with the new desktop rig was, I guess, mainly because I chose to install an elderly, nearly 8-yr old Puppy as the first occupant of the new 'kennels'.......unlike most of you, who would almost certainly have chosen to run the very newest Puppy with a brand-new machine. I'm strange like that..!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took a wee while to figure out the boot 'stanzas' for Grub4DOS so they would work with this new UEFI stuff. I think I took inspiration from some of rcrsn51's work with the DebianDog 'starter kit'.....but the "menu.lst" I use ended up looking like the following:-

# menu.lst produced by grub4dosconfig-v1.9.3
color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
splashimage=/pupsplash2.xpm
timeout 20
default 0

# Frugal installed Puppy

title Quirky 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Quirky64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Quirky64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Quirky64/initrd.gz
  
title Fossapup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Fossapup64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Fossapup64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp edd=off
  initrd /Fossapup64/initrd.gz  
  
title F96-CE_64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /F96-CE/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/F96-CE pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp edd=off net.ifnames=0
  initrd /F96-CE/initrd.gz
  
title Bionicpup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Bionicpup64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Bionicpup64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Bionicpup64/initrd.gz
  
title JammyPup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /JammyPup64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/JammyPup64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /JammyPup64/initrd.gz
  
title Studio 1337
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Studio1337/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Studio1337 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Studio1337/initrd.gz
  
title Tahrpup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Tahr64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Tahr64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Tahr64/initrd.gz
  
title Xenialpup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Xenialpup64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Xenialpup64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Xenialpup64/initrd.gz
  
title BookwormPup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Bookworm64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Bookworm64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Bookworm64/initrd.gz  
  
title Vanilla DPup 64
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /VanillaDPup64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/VanillaDPup64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp edd=off net.ifnames=0
  initrd /VanillaDPup64/initrd.gz
  
title
  root

title ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  root
  
title Xenialpup 32 (+64)
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Xenial32_64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Xenial32_64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Xenial32_64/initrd.gz
  
title Tahrpup 32 (+64)
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Tahr32_64/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Tahr32_64 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Tahr32_64/initrd.gz  
  
title
  root

title ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  root
  
title Slacko 560
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Slacko560/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3 psubdir=/Slacko560 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Slacko560/initrd.gz
  
title Slacko 571
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Slacko_571/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Slacko_571 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Slacko_571/initrd.gz  
  
title Tahrpup 32
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Tahr32/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Tahr32 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Tahr32/initrd.gz
  
title Xenialpup 32
  find --set-root uuid () b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3
  kernel /Xenial32/vmlinuz  pdrv=b142cd08-ce81-413e-b963-12b393d8eaa3  psubdir=/Xenial32 pmedia=satahd pfix=fsckp
  initrd /Xenial32/initrd.gz
  
title
  root

title ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  root
  
# 'Portable' Linux

title Porteus 5.0 KDE (sdc1/boot)
  rootnoverify (hd2,0)
  chainloader +1  
  
title
  root

title ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  root

#Full installed Linux

title Haiku OS (sdc2/EFI)
  rootnoverify (hd2,0)
  chainloader +1
  
title ChromeOS Flex (sdc12/efi)
  rootnoverify (hd3,11)
  chainloader +1
  
title
  root

title ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  root
  
# Advanced Menu
title Advanced menu
  configfile /menu-advanced.lst
  commandline

The business with the blank 'title' & 'root' entries, and dotted lines, I picked up from one of our members over the last year or so. It's their way of being able to tidy-up & re-organise the menu so as to group certain things together; I use it to keep 64-bitzers together, 32-bitzers together, plus a couple of 32-bitzers that use peebee's marvellous 64-bit compat SFS (so modern browsers can be used).

Finally, a couple of chainloaders to externally-installed OSs that had their own bootloaders installed. These CAN be started through the Advanced Menu, but it's just nice to have entries for them in the main Menu as well.

(I'm using what amounts to the exact same set-up in the older, BIOS-equipped Latitude.....just with the UUIDs & locations adjusted to suit).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the above might help some of our 'noobs' that are posting with issues concerning this stuff. Hopefully, it may be of some use...

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

I can understand your frustration. I have FossaPup 9.5 frugal installed, with Grub4DOS bootloader, to a portable hard drive. All my laptops are fairly old and all are BIOS only. It doesn’t matter which laptop I plug the drive into, FossaPup 9.5 always boots without any issues.

However, it hasn’t been plain sailing all along, and I had some problems at the beginning which I started a thread about. When I first installed the files I then ran the Grub4DOS bootloader, and it wouldn’t boot. Can’t remember now what error messages I got.

So I started again, and it still wouldn’t boot. Third attempt and it failed again. I was on the verge of giving up but decided to give it one last try, 4th attempt and it suddenly booted. And it’s booted ok ever since.

I should point out that on that final attempt I did nothing whatsoever any differently to what I had done on the previous 3 attempts. So why the first 3 failed and the 4th was a success remains a mystery.