FrugalPup v41, very flexible Puppy frugal installer, supporting i18n

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FrugalPup v41, very flexible Puppy frugal installer, supporting i18n

Post by gyrog »

------------About FrugalPup------------
The current release of FrugalPup v41, DiskPup v41, StickPup v41 and f2StickPup v41 - Puppy frugal installer, along with e3StickPup v41 and e4StickPup v41,
is announced here, viewtopic.php?p=98498#p98498.
It can be downloaded from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup

More information about FrugalPup can be found at http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/fru ... index.html.
Or by running FrugalPup and selecting 'Help'.

FrugalPup contains 6 GUI's:

The simple install wizards, with minimal options, 'StickPup', 'f2StickPup', 'e3StickPup', 'e4StickPup', and 'DiskPup', that do a complete frugal install of a single Puppy.

And the 'FrugalPup' GUI, that is supposed to be the "Swiss army knife" of Puppy frugal installers, to manage the installation of multiple Puppy frugal installs, with every possible useful option.
It might not have reached it's ultimate goal yet, but it seems to have enough to be useful.

All 6 GUI's share the same set of back-end scripts that actually do stuff.

------------About this topic------------
I am not the original author of this topic, since I came to this new forum after this topic was started.
But as the "maintainer" of FrugalPup I have been granted access to this first post.
This is so I can edit this first post to reflect the latest release of FrugalPup,
as has been common practice in the Puppy forum.

------------Original first post by @mikeslr------------
Rockedge, please move where ever you think appropriate.

Bigpup has discussed it here, viewtopic.php?p=950#p950. More information and instructions can be found here, http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/fru ... index.htmland information about MOK (Machine Owner Key) manager here, http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/fru ... p-mok.html

As of this writing the latest version, frugalpup_20.sfs, is available here. https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup. It is strongly recommended that you use the latest version. Your Puppy may have an earlier version built in. Note that frugalpup_20 is an SFS: your buitin version would have priority. If I remember correctly, Bionicpup's Quickpet has been updated to not only install the latest version but, as a preliminary, remove links to the earlier version. In other Puppies with builtin versions, it may be necessary to run Menu>Setup>Remove Builtin packages in order to frugalpup_20.sfs to be recognized.

Last edited by gyrog on Tue Sep 12, 2023 12:40 pm, edited 17 times in total.
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Re: Frugalpup Boot loader -- for UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

Frugalpup is an installer program to use to do frugal installs of Puppy.

It also gives option to install a boot loader.
UEFI boot loader.
Legacy bios boot loader.
Or both.

For UEFI with secure boot enabled.
It can install a puppy security key (required by secure boot).

Last edited by bigpup on Wed Jun 02, 2021 6:40 am, edited 3 times in total.

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? Wrong Boot partition offered by Diskpup ?

Post by mikeslr »

Hi bigpup, gyro & all,

I've just begun using Frugalpup in building Frugal Installs to USB-Keys. So, there's a good chance (a) I did something wrong; (b) failed to do something; or (c) there was probably an easier way I didn't know about.

You may recall that I don't have a UEFI computer. My wife does. But as my exploration locked her out of Windows 7 for a while on one occasion a couple years ago :oops: she guards it zealously. :roll: While I have do exploring on my computers, I can test booting on hers (if I'm quick about it :lol: ) and knowing that a Puppy can boot from a UEFI computer is somewhat of a necessity.

At any rate, I decided to install Puppy on a USB-Stick with three partitions. Puppy had assigned that Stick sdd. I was running Bionicpup64 from a hard-drive, sdb. The 3 partitions were sdd1, a small fat32; sdd2, a 1.5 Gb fat32 to be used in transferring data between Linux and Windows computers; and the rest, sdd3 Linux Ext3 to hold Puppy's system files, and anything Puppy related.

I should mention that as I did not want to overwrite the Window's bootloader on sda, I boot into Puppies using sdc which just holds grub4dos and a menu.lst. It was still plugged in.

I selected Frugalpup's DiskPup module to perform the installation. My intention was to install the bootloader to sdd1. DiskPup offered sdc1. But I don't recall the 'slider' offering me a choice. Maybe I panicked. I closed DiskPup, removed sdc, and restarted Diskpup [which produced a functioning Puppy without further incident). But if the slider doesn't work to offer choices, I figured you should know about this serious bug.

With my objective in mind, 3 partitions, would you suggest a different module than DiskPup?
Last edited by mikeslr on Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

Drive labels are going to depend on number of drives on the computer.
So, you do need to be careful to select the correct drive label, when offered to select.

This is what I do.

Use Gparted program.
Setup the USB stick with 2 partitions.
First one, small 300MB, fat32 format, flagged boot, esp. (location for boot loader files, boot partition)
Rest of drive, whatever other partition(s), but one ext3 or 4 format. (location to put frugal installs)
(this is UEFI standard requirement, and some computers, look for a fat32 partition, for boot loader files)

Run Frugalpup Installer main program.
On the main window are selection buttons.
Select the Puppy button, to do the install.
Go through install process, selecting to install to the ext formatted partition.
Note:
When selecting the partition to install to.
A window pops up, giving option to make a directory, to put the frugal install in.
I make this directory and usually name it, the name of the Puppy version.
Carefully read that windows info.
Press enter, makes the directory, not the OK button.

complete the install.

When it gets back to the main Frugalpup window.
Select the boot button.
Select the location of the frugal install, on the USB stick.
Select the small 300MB partition on the USB stick, as location to install the boot loader. (may need to scroll the selection window)
Select the boot loader type.
UEFI
mbr ->legacy bios boot
both

You can install the UEFI for UEFI computers.
mbr for legacy bios computers.
both, to boot anything. (best option for USB drives installs)

The UEFI will also install the needed files, to support secure boot enabled in UEFI.

When you first boot the USB stick, on a UEFI computer, with secure boot enabled.
A process will start, to allow you to install the Puppy security key, to the computer.
It will add this Puppy key, to the other ones, loaded on the computer.

Note:
Not all UEFI computers are the same, for booting from a USB stick.
Some may require secure boot disabled, CSM enabled, or legacy boot enabled, to be able to boot from a USB stick.
So, for those computers.
The mbr boot loader will work, because the UEFI bios, is basically in, legacy bios operation.

To put more frugal installs on the same USB stick.
Run Frugalpup Installer.
Do the complete Frugalpup Installer process again, for the new Puppy version.
When you run the boot loader install.
It will make boot menu entries, for all installs it finds, on the USB drive.

Last edited by bigpup on Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:25 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

Diskpup seems to do an install of both boot loaders, UEFI, mbr.
But, i see nothing for the Puppy security key.
So, it probably requires secure boot disabled, CSM enabled, or legacy boot enabled in UEFI bios setup.

Wonder if gyro needs to fix Diskpup to provide the Puppy security key? :idea:

Note:
I setup a USB stick using Diskpup.
Booting on a very new UEFI computer.
Tried booting with secure boot enabled or disabled.
No problem booting with secure boot disabled.
Secure boot enabled - would not boot.
However:
If the computer had already had the Puppy security key installed on it.
It would boot with secure boot enabled.

Note, note:
Some UEFI computers will not allow booting from a USB with secure boot enabled.
I have one, that will not even see a USB drive, as a boot device, if secure boot is enabled.
Also, look in the UEFI setup, for option to enable/disable, USB booting.
Last edited by bigpup on Thu Aug 06, 2020 4:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

Warning:
The boot loaders installed by Frugalpup installer are not configured to setup Windows for booting.
Not configured for duel booting Windows and Puppy.
As the Frugalpup installer help says:
Warning:
When using FrugalPup or DiskPup to install Puppy on a uefi computer with Windows already installed, it is not recommended to install Grub2 on the fat32 partition that contains the Windows boot. Grub2 should be installed on the first partition of some other bootable device, even if that is a small USB stick.

A computer with only Puppy Linux, no other OS
.
Using Frugalpup Installer main program.
I did this same procedure, to setup a UEFI computer, with only Puppy Linux on it.
Same partitioning on the internal drive.
Installed only the UEFI boot loader to internal drive, small first partition, formatted fat32.
Puppy frugal installs on 2nd ext4 formatted partition.
Secure boot is enabled.
Have several frugal installs on the internal drive.

First had to boot with Puppy on a USB drive.
Secure boot disabled, so computer would boot from USB.
After Frugalpup installer completed the install of a Puppy version and the UEFI boot loader.

Removed the USB.
Rebooted computer to UEFI setup.
Enabled secure boot.
Started booting the Puppy on the internal drive.
Process pops up to install the Puppy security key.
Installed security key. (only needed one time)
Computer rebooted, so key would now be found.
Boots to working desktop.

Used Frugalpup installer process, to install other Puppy versions, and update the boot loader menu.
Have now 7 different Puppy versions frugally installed on internal drive.

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by garnet »

Grub2 in Frugalpup can boot Windows.
One only needs to tell it to chainload to the correct bootloader.

Code: Select all

menuentry "Windows 10" {
	search --set=root --file /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
	chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

Hope that helps ^_^

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Manually editing grub.cfg

Post by mikeslr »

bigpup wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:17 pmUsed Frugalpup installer process, to install other Puppy versions, and update the boot loader menu.
Have now 7 different Puppy versions frugally installed on internal drive.
That's probably the wiser --certainly the easier-- way to obtain a multi-boot. Perhaps it's downside is that it is re-writing all the components of the boot-loader. As I intend to redo the USB-Key install I posted about, anyway --this time following your advice-- I figured I had nothing to loose by some further experimentation. One of the things I rather like about grub4dos is that once it was installed its menu.lst could be manually edited --basically: cut, paste, Search & replace-- to offer additional Puppy choices. [After, of course, copying the additional Puppy's 'system' files into a folder].

Three grub.cfg files had been written to the key. But the two within folders called the one at the top of the partition. I was able to edit the latter and boot into a second Puppy.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

The grub.cfg at the top of the partition, is the one with the menu entries.
Any boot menu entry editing, is done in it.

After I do a new added frugal install.
When I again, run the boot loader install, to make an entry for the new frugal install.
It seems to run a lot quicker, than the first time, installing the boot loader.
I wonder if all it is doing, is just adding an entry, into the grub.cfg.

Not sure why gyro setup those boot directories/folders.
Kind of goes along with the UEFI standards, for boot loader files, locations.
Plus a directory for the legacy bios boot files and one for the UEFI boot files, does keep it uncluttered.
Especially if both boot loaders are installed.

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Re: Frugalpup -- Customizing Boot-loader's Splash

Post by mikeslr »

Hi all,

After playing with it a bit, I'm really growing fond of Frugalpup. I have to congratulate gyro for his vision and persistence, and bigpup for all the help he provided in its development. And thanks to a couple of others who I remember posting to its "cutting edge thread" on John Murgha's Forum. You know who you are. :) Unfortunately, I don't remember. :roll:

Obviously, as it must deal with UEFI, it is more complicated that grub4dos and, consequently, has a longer learning curve. But, in the end it appears that a User can make use of it almost as simply as grub4dos enabled under much simpler circumstances.

One thing: not a matter of functionality, but rather of aesthetics. There was a relatively simple to method for customizing a splash screen for grub4dos: create a image in xpm format (there were some restrictions) and add a line to menu.lst such as

splashimage=/splash.xpm

Customizing a splash screen under grub2 running, say, Ubuntu, is complicated. But it seems the "Big Distros" like to make projects unnecessarily complicated.

My guess is that there should be some simple way to create a splash screen usable by whatever version of grub Frugalpup employs. (1) create an image in some file format (probably subject to some size or color depth limitations) and (2) add a line or a couple of lines to grub.cfg.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to go about that? Perhaps, more importantly, as it may require a fair bit of 'trial and error' and trials of boot splash would ordinarily appear only when booting, does anyone know how to test the viability of a boot splash without having to reboot?
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bullpup »

Setup the USB stick with 2 partitions.
First one, small 300MB, fat32 format, flagged boot.
Rest of drive, whatever other partition(s), but one ext3 or 4 format.
Been doing this for weeks as per BigPup's directions. Following by the letter to no avail.
I have NO idea what I am doing wrong but as soon as I want to install the bootloader I get "No puppy install directory found" or something to that extent. even when I create a single partitioned USB and put the bootloader in there (just to see what would happen) I get the same message.

I have created 100's of usb's with Puppy for friends and such with 'multibootusb' and it works flawlessly but I do need an OS on the host which I want to ditch. Wanna go Puppy all the way IF I can use FrugalPup. Which I can't.........it just refuses to install a distro.

Using Bionic64 8.0, RAM only...........

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

Are you doing this when doing the Puppy frugal install?
When selecting the partition to install to.
A window pops up, giving option to make a directory, to put the frugal install in.
I make this directory and usually name it, the name of the Puppy version.
Carefully read that windows info.
Press enter, makes the directory, not the OK button.
as soon as I want to install the bootloader I get "No puppy install directory found" or something to that extent.
If you do this to install a boot loader. It should work.
That error is usually if you do not pick the correct location of the Puppy frugal install.
This step:
Select the location of the frugal install, on the USB stick.


When it gets back to the main Frugalpup window.
Select the boot button.
Select the location of the frugal install, on the USB stick.
Select the small 300MB partition on the USB stick, as location to install the boot loader. (may need to scroll the selection window)
Select the boot loader type.
UEFI
mbr ->legacy bios boot
both

You can install the UEFI for UEFI computers, mbr for legacy bios computers, or both, to boot anything.
.
.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by Clarity »

Where are those instruction you are using?
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by peebee »

Am I correct in thinking that the frugalpup-20.sfs contains both 32-bit and 64-bit "components"?
Is this so 32-bit systems can be installed from 64-bit systems and vice-versa?

I am wondering if a .pet version should be available on ibiblio - presumably under noarch if the .pet is able to run on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems? (it appears that a .pet is on ibiblio in the fossapup64 directory....) it could then be installed via ppm.....

Or is there any logic to say that a 32-bit system only needs the ability to install a 32-bit system?? This would presumably allow the .pet to be a bit smaller than the current 3MB (maybe half size 1.5MB?)?

Just musing / wondering
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

I think the OS being 32bit or 64bit does not matter to run it.
All of the stuff in Frugalpup Installer, that is doing the work, are just a bunch of different script files.
Those should not care about what bit the OS is.
Some of that size is the stuff that provides the ability to install and setup the Puppy security key in a UEFI computer.
Gyro is the one to ask.
He developed it.

Note:
I tried the frugalpup_20.sfs in several 32bit Puppies.
Works in Bionicpup32 8.0
Xenialpup 7.5 and Tahrpup 6.0.5 It did not work, In terminal it had error about button layout and some other stuff.
Probably needed dependencies are too old, wrong versions, or not there.

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by peebee »

bigpup wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:27 am All of the stuff in Frugalpup Installer, that is doing the work, are just a bunch of different script files.
......
Gyro is the one to ask.
Hi bigpup

If you look inside the .sfs there are also archive files which contain both 32-bit and 64-bit executables......

I don't think gyro has appeared on the new forum yet?

Thanks for the tests.

Cheers
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by bigpup »

I think you are looking at the GRub2 stuff.
It has 32bit and 64bit Grub2 in it.
Here is the original topic in the old Puppy forum
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 66630cacb6
5. "grub2-efi" seems to be missing from current woof-ce 32bit puppies, i.e. upupbb.
So, the sfs contains it's own copy of "grub2-efi".

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

peebee wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:03 am Am I correct in thinking that the frugalpup-20.sfs contains both 32-bit and 64-bit "components"?
Is this so 32-bit systems can be installed from 64-bit systems and vice-versa?
The 32bit and 64bit components have nothing to do with running FrugalPup or the Puppy it is running under, FrugalPup itself is just scripts.
They are both there so whaever file is expected by the uefi (bios) installed on the motherbord, is present in the boot partition.
I have a small uefi Lenovo that refused to recognise any uefi bootable usb stick until I included the 32bit uefi binaries in '/EFI/boot'. It's a 64bit processor but comes with 32bit windows.

On FrugalPup as a ".pet":
I much prefer to install packages as ".sfs" files, since they can easily be updated by simply replacing the file, or introducing a "fix" sfs that is loaded above the original, (also why I like to be able to add as many ".sfs" files above the Puppy ".sfs" files as I want).
So, if the ".pet" is internal to Woof-ce so that it gets included in the 'puppy...sfs', that would be brilliant.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

Some comments:

1. FrugalPup assumes that Puppy is booting from an ALTERNATE boot device, not the main Windows "esp".

2. A facility to detect a Windows install and include an appropriate entry in the generated 'grub.cfg' would ne nice, maybe in a future version.

3. While a splash screen facility might be nice, I've never worked out how to do one in grub2.
All the screens you see during boot are produced by grub2, grub4dos is only present in a non-uefi boot, to chainload grub2,
(writing a grub2 mbr is a lot more painful than writing a grub4dos mbr).

4. The 'grub.cfg' to edit, is the one in the root of the boot partition, the others are just insurance.

5. On older puppies, FrugalPup sometimes fails because the installed version of 'yad' is too old to support some of the 'yad' parameters used by FrugalPup, so can be fixed by installing a newer yad, just copy the one from ScPup32 or ScPup64.

6. I don't understand how "DiskPup' could produce a uefi boot partition without a "puppy.cer" file.
All the FrugalPup varities call a script called 'fruglpup-dobootpart' to do the actual writing of the files to the boot partition.
And it gets all the uefi boot files by extracting the contents of 'grub2-efi.tar.xz'.

7. I can't stress enough that, as bigpup has said many times, "If you create a new folder with FrugalPup, you must hit the 'Enter' key, otherwise the folder is not created." Sorry, it's a yad thing.

8. FrugalPup v23 is in the pipeline, although not my current top priority.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by mikeslr »

gyrog, "7. I can't stress enough that, as bigpup has said many times, "If you create a new folder with FrugalPup, you must hit the 'Enter' key, otherwise the folder is not created." Sorry, it's a yad thing."

Frugalpup isn't '2nd nature' already. I'm easily confused if I have to read instructions and immediately respond to them.

:idea: Which is why, after I use gparted to format the 2 or 3 partitions on the USB-Key, on the partition which will house the Puppy, I create the folder which will house it. Then, when frugalpup is running, all I have to do is select the folder.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by peebee »

@gyrog
All of my builds include:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... 8-fd64.pet
which puts
/usr/share/grub2-efi/grubia32.efi
/usr/share/grub2-efi/grubx64.efi
into the builds.

Are these compatible with what frugalpup expects?
Should the noarch pet be updated?
Should this pet be removed from the build if frugalpup is included?

Thanks
peebee

Builder of LxPups, SPups, UPup32s, VoidPups; LXDE, LXQt, Xfce addons; Chromium, Firefox etc. sfs; & Kernels

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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

mikeslr wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 2:11 pm :idea: Which is why, after I use gparted to format the 2 or 3 partitions on the USB-Key, on the partition which will house the Puppy, I create the folder which will house it. Then, when frugalpup is running, all I have to do is select the folder.
Great way to go, nicely avoids any confusion in the FrugalPup gui.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

peebee wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 3:21 pm @gyrog
All of my builds include:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... 8-fd64.pet
which puts
/usr/share/grub2-efi/grubia32.efi
/usr/share/grub2-efi/grubx64.efi
into the builds.

Are these compatible with what frugalpup expects?
Should the noarch pet be updated?
Should this pet be removed from the build if frugalpup is included?

Thanks
peebee
That pet and it's contents are ignored by FrugalPup so they could be removed if frugalpup is included, but it would only be for saving space.
It might make sense if the following fruglpup files:
/usr/local/frugalpup/grub2-efi.tar.xz
/usr/local/frugalpup/grub2-mbr.tar.xz
are included in normal releases. These could then be used by other install utilities, or even manually, to setup a boot partition, like frugalpup installed one.
In both cases simply extract the contents of these files into an empty vfat partition, and then add an appropriate 'grub.cfg' to the root of the partition. To boot both uefi and non-uefi, simply extract the files from both archives.
So maybe a '/puppylinux/pet_packages-noarch/grub2.pet' is in order.
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

@peebee
I have a pet 'grub2_frugalpup-20.pet' that puts Grub2 files in '/usr/share/grub2/'.
The version 20 relates to the version of FrugalPup they are taken from.
I couldn't attach it, since it's too large, I'll upload it fo "MediaFire" and get back to you.

Edit: It's at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup.

Last edited by gyrog on Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Frugalpup requires your main SFS to be named Puppy-something

Post by mikeslr »

I ran into this problem with puli:

"frugalpup-installer's complaint that it could not find a "puppy" was to be read literally: it only looks for a puppy-version.sfs beginning with the name "puppy". viewtopic.php?p=6276#p6276

Mike Walsh also ran into that problem with 10wt3ch's Studio13.37. viewtopic.php?p=7286#p7286

Puppy's main sfs contains its window manager, file-manager, infrastructure and the 'usual' applications. It is very unusual for a Puppy not to follow this naming convention: e.g, the "main" SFS of Bionicpup64 is named puppy_bionicpup64_8.0.sfs. Emphasis added.

But if your choice of Puppy doesn't a work-around is:

(1) Decompress the ISO using UExtract [either via Right-click or Menu>Utility]. This will create an extracted folder containing all the files found in the ISO.
(2) Right-Click your Puppy's main SFS, select Rename and add "puppy_" --without the quotes-- to the beginning of its name.
(3) Frugalpup can obtain the necessary system files from the above extracted folder. [But if you are using some other bootloader-installer you can repack the contents with dir2iso via Right-click, or into a zip file with packit, also via Right-click].
(4) Don't discard the unpack folder until after frugalpup has copied the required files to your output folder and you've checked that all necessary files are there. [I don't know if 'mis-named' adrv.sfs, ydrv.sfs etc. will be copied].
(5) In your outpup folder rename your main SFS by removing the 'puppy_'. If necessary, copy any adrv.sfs, ydrv.sfs etc. from the extracted folder to the output folder.
Last edited by mikeslr on Sat Oct 10, 2020 2:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Adding extra boot entries to 'grub.cfg' generated by FrugalPup utilities.

Post by gyrog »

Every time you run the "FrugalPup->Boot" facility, it re-installs the boot loader files.
So it you do this to simply update the 'grub.cfg' it works, but it's rather inefficient.
(One of the things I'm looking at for the next version.)

For now, I use the CLI utility 'bootentry', which is part of FrugalPup and used by it to generate the boot entries for 'grub.cfg'.
However you can run it as a standalone utility. In a console, enter "bootentry" to see a "Usage" message, this includes some examples.
Basicaly, you can get it to append new boot entries to an existing 'grub.cfg', and then directly edit 'grub.cfg'.

Note: FrugalPup always calls 'bootentry' with an 'fs' "boot-type" parameter.
(This makes a little more sense after you have read the "Usage" message.)
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Re: Frugalpup Assembling Frugals with Boot loader on UEFI & Bios Computers

Post by gyrog »

FrugalPup is safe to play with.
Before it actually does anything, it displays a "confirm" dialog which shows what it is about to do, so you can "Cancel" out if thigs don't look to be what you expect, or you are just on a "training run".
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FrugalPup v23 is now available

Post by gyrog »

FrugalPup 23, DiskPup 23, StickPup 23 and f2StickPup 23 - Puppy frugal installer.

Download extra sfs 'frugalpup_23.sfs' (or 'frugalpup-23.pet') from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rdyc5l ... /frugalpup (2.9 MiB).

This release is mainly to take advanage of the "SAVESPEC" and "AUTOSAVE" facilities recently introduced via the "init-experiment" branch of woof-ce.

So, if you choose a "Separate save partition" in the "Puppy" facility of "FrugalPup", you will now be offered an option to store the save location in a "SAVESPEC" file in the install directory, instead of a boot parameter.

'f2StickPup' now makes use of the "AUTOSAVE" facility. This should result in the automatic creation of a savefolder in the f2fs partition, on first shutdown, of the installed Puppy.
So there should be no dialogs after the "Save/NoSave" dialog.
(Provided that the 'shutdownconfig' file in the installed Puppy includes the "AUTOSAVE" patch.)

'f2StickPup' now creates the install directory 1 level down, e.g. /puppy/UPupGG+D.
This makes it a better example of a directory structure suitable for multiple frugal installs.
(Thanks to 01micko for suggesting something like this some time ago.)

'DiskPup' also makes use of the "AUTOSAVE" facility if the selected install directory is on a Linux partition.

gyro

Last edited by gyrog on Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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FrugalPup - todo

Post by gyrog »

Things that still could to be done in FrugalPup:

1. A facility to replace the main 'grub.cfg' file with a newly generated one,
but leave the other grub2 files alone. (Unlike the "Boot" facility.)

2. A facility to append a Windows boot entry to 'grub.cfg' if a Windows install is found.

3. What happpens if FrugalPup writes it's boot files to the Windows EFI partition (ESP)? (Currently un-defined.)
I have not been in a position to test this.
Current FrugalPup is supposed to clobber only corresponding files, so the Windows EFI stuff should remain in-tact.
If it does, what happens on re-boot? Do you get a choice, or does it continue to boot Windows, or does it boot Puppy Linux?
I would like to get to a situation where I have a uefi machine with a fresh install of Windows, so it can be re-installed if things go wrong.
Then install a Puppy Linux, specifying the Windows EFI partition (ESP) in 'FrugalPup->Boot'.
Then try re-booting.
Then using fossapup64 on a USB HD, with 'efivarfs', 'efivar', 'mokutil', and 'efibootmgr' from PPM,
to see what can be done with 'efibootmgr'.

gyro

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