Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello. I downloaded the iso and used the installation guide at https://www.toolbox.com/tech/how-to/blo ... nd-030915/ that was directed by the Puppy Linux Installation and Usage page https://puppylinux.com/install.html to write the iso to my 16GB USB stick. I checked the md5sum and that checked out correct. I was using Linux Mint 20.1 to write the iso image in case that matters. I used Gparted beforehand on the usb stick to make sure it was clean and paritioned before writing the iso file. After using the dd command as directed, I then tried to boot the usb stick on the PC to use Puppy Linux on. I was greeted with just a grub command prompt and nothing else. I hit ESC key, which took me to the grub menu and no kernel entries were present to boot to. This is an older PC with just BIOS and no UEFI. I tried both the quick boot menu option and also tried placing the USB stick as the first boot option. Both resulted in the same grub command prompt after booting the usb stick.

I decided to use Gparted and clean the usb stick again but this time, I used the Linux Mint "create a bootable usb" from the right click menu you get from selecting the iso file. This has always worked for all the other Linux iso's I've tried, so I tried it with Puppy Linux. After creation, I booted the usb stick again, and again I was greeted with just a grub command prompt. Weird. I've never encountered this problem before. So as a last resort, I used Gparted again to clean the usb stick again, and then tried a 3rd time writing the iso using BalenaEtcher to write the iso. It wrote then validated the flash and said it was completed successfully. Again I booted the usb stick and again I'm greeted with just a grub command prompt. I've never had this much trouble writing a Linux iso to a usb stick before.

Looking at the usb stick directory everything appears to be there.
adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs initrd.gz vmlinuz
boot isolinux.bin Windows_Installer
fdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs zdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs
grub.cfg README.txt

So why isn't it booting and running Puppy Linux? I followed the official installation instructions to create the usb stick. Is there a bug in this iso?

@lonegunmen Hello! Welcome.

With Mint run GParted and format the stick to ext3 and set the BOOT flag.

What needs to happen is the contents of the Fossapup64 ISO need to be copied to the USB stick to the root of the partition you've flagged as BOOT.
All the files needed to boot are already in the file system iso.

so in Mint as the "root" user sudo -i to become root and open a terminal where the Fossapup ISO is.

mkdir -p /mnt/iso-disk
mount -o loop fossapup64-9.0.5.iso /mnt/iso-disk

with a file manager go the directory /mnt/iso-disk and copy the all of the contents to your USB stick boot partition.
Close the file manager.

in the terminal

umount /mnt/iso-disk

Now reboot the computer and select "F2" or what ever key combination it takes to get to the boot device selection and choose the usb stick. This will allow the machine to directly boot from the usb stick.

on shutdown or reboot Fossapup will prompt for a making a save file or folder. Most likely choosing "folder" is the best bet, since this will allow the entire partition to be used for persistence storage

There are other ways to do it and also a method to make Fossapup a "frugal" install on the USB stick and uses Grub4Dos to create the files needed to make it boot. This has the advantage of being able to put more than one Puppy Linux on the stick.

Some other members of the forum will certainly have some even better ideas to get you going and probably will add some advice.

Use Gparted to look at the USB drive.

Select view->Device information
What partition table is being used?
It needs to be msdos.

Is the partition marked as boot?

If there is more than one partition.
The first one needs marked boot and have the Fossapup files on it.

Is the partition formatted fat32?
Some computers do not see a USB drive as boot-able if it is not fat32.

Try using Unetbootin installer
http://unetbootin.github.io/
Use the Fossapup64 9.5 iso as source
(UNetbootin has built-in support for automatically downloading and loading Puppy Linux, but better to use the iso you downloaded).

Any chance the Fossapup iso is stored on a drive partition that is fragmented?
Any partition Windows ever uses will get fragmented.
Puppy isos are sensitive to fragmentation.
If stored on a fragmented location, it will also fragment the iso.

I will also chime in that some USB sticks will not boot if w32 is selected as the file system. Some SanDisk's are notorious for this. In ext3, those should boot.

Regards
8Geee

I tried all the steps above and none worked. I either get greeted with the grub command prompt or the PC stops during bootup as soon as it tries to boot the usb stick. The "mount -o loop" command above produced an error stating that a loop couldn't be created to the iso file. I tried UNetbootin and afterward the usb stick wouldn't boot at all, no grub command prompt, just the PC stopped as soon as it tried to boot the newly created usb stick. I used Linux Mint 20.1's Disk Image Mounter to mount the iso, and copy all the files to the usb stick that had a MSDOS partition and formatted to fat32. Still didn't work. I tried dd command again, still didn't work. I tried to let UNetbootin download the new Puppy Linux version but it couldn't find the iso file to download online and using the iso file itself didn't work either. Been trying for hours. Made sure the partition was MSDOS, formatted for fat32 and marked as BOOT. Nothing! Still either boots to a grub command line or won't even boot that far after using UNetbootin. I tried various partitions formatted for fat32 or ext4, BOOT flag or not flagged, nothing works to boot into Puppy Linux. Can't believe a simple iso usb write has become a waste of hours of time and still no bootable Puppy Linux. I've never seen anything like this, or had any trouble using any other Linux iso's. I've concluded that either Puppy Linux is incompatible with my PC or there is something wrong with how the Puppy Linux iso is created. Anyway, thanks for trying to help. Looks like I'll be moving on and try and find a different lightweight Linux distro, since I can't get Puppy Linux to work.

Fossapup64 9.5 may not be compatible with the hardware on this computer.
It is made to better support very new or newer computers.

Not all Puppy versions work on all possible computers.
That is why there are several versions of Puppy Linux.

See if Xenialpup64 7.5 will work
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pu ... 5-uefi.iso

The specific specs of the computer would help.
Proceesor
Memory
Graphics hardware
Make and model we can look up specs for.

Not exactly sure what Mint could be doing.
But several people have reported problems trying to do things in Mint OS.

When they try to do the same things using another operating system.
It works OK.

Puppy is Linux, but it is also Puppy Linux.
It does not do everything the normal Linux way.

Anyone care to suggest he use the SG2D approach and boot the ISO file to desktop?

No issues, no writing concerns, he already has the ISO file, GRUB2-EFI is built-in. With minimal guidance he can boot this and other PUPs by a mere ISO download.

It should get him around the machine issues no matter if his USB or his internal storage is MSDOS or GPT.

This assumes getting him/her to desktop to be the most important issue.

I continue to recommend STICKPUP which comes OOTB with Bionicpup64, which can be run as a LIVE USB to frugally install a variety of Puppies on a second USB. Used it last night to install Fossapup64 on a USB.

1) Load/Copy the desired Puppy ISO - in this case Fossapup, into a convenient directory
2) Plug in the target USB
3) Run Stickpup from the menu.
4) Select the required Puppy ISO
5) Select the USB drive

It wont take long to reformat the USB in FAT32 and setup a fully functioning frugal Fossapup64 OS. Stickpup is a great option for beginners making their first Puppy Linux USB installation. Stickpup can also be accessed as an option in FrugalPup, which also allows more complex, multiple Frugal installations.

See viewtopic.php?f=105&t=337&start=30

hallo fellow puppy people,

what i have worked out so far, and please note that i am NOT very savvy about all the inner workings of anything computer minded, is that i have to add a file to the USB stick once i have either dd done it or using a couple of other linux software or copying files by hand and then edit it, like so:

make a new file and name it: syslinux.cfg

open file with text editor and write this:

default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash

save and close editor

note it is vmlinuz and not vmlinux

I also add another file to the stick and name it: usbflash

You might need administrator rights to do any of that but you can get that by right clicking and selecting Open as Administrator and putting your password from there, which most of you probably know.
I was able to get this info from the oldforum.puppylinux.com How to Make a Puppy Flash Drive using Another Linux
the part about the syslinux.cfg file

The usbflash file i remembered from years ago while doing some earlier puppy stuff.

Give it a fair go and if you succeed you will enjoy a very fast load of yet another top class Puppy that the world should know about but sadly still don't!!
mind you, if Puppy was that well known it would soon getdefiled by the masses.

all the best,

Ed

That is good info to consider.

But, you should have a working USB install of Fossapup64 9.5, if all the files in the Fossapup iso, got correctly written to the USB.
Every needed file is in the iso.
Everything is there to make it a working USB live install.

Why some people have problems making a working install to USB, seems to be a strange issue, that usually gets fixed, when this is answered.
What you do not tell us is usually the clue to fixing the problem.

I can confirm that "fossapup64-9.5.iso" does not work out of the box on my pre-UEFI netbook.
I switched to "bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso" and that worked just fine.
I have no clue why, just reporting here.