Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi, all..

I've been using Puppy Linux for 15+ years and while it's generally been easy enough to boot additional frugal installations of various flavours, I've hit a problem recently.

I'm trying all this out on an old (ancient) IBM ThinkPad R32 laptop (Pentium 4, 1.5 GHz, 512MB RAM) and I'm currently using a few different puppies on this machine via 'legacy' grub 0.97, the 'main' installation being Slacko 6.3.2 (including the 'devx' sfs package, so I can run some Perl scripts).

The gist of the issue is that when I set-up an installation of 'Slacko 7.0' or 'BionicPup32-8.0' (which is referenced in the FTP archives as 19.30?) in similar directories, the main .sfs file isn't found (see the photos). If I place the 'system files' in the root of the boot disk, everything works Ok. This leads me to think there's something extra needed in the 'menu.lst' entry for these newer puppies.

Directories for the working Slacko 6.3.2 Frugal installation:-

/initrd/mnt/dev_save/puppy632:
total 3275188
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  148729888 Jun 22  2016 devx_slacko_6.3.2.sfs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    1332073 Jun 21  2016 initrd.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  178573344 Jun 21  2016 puppy_slacko_6.3.2.sfs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   37183488 Jul 16  2014 qt-4.8.2-stripped.sfs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   36622336 Aug 13  2014 skype-4.3.0.37-slacko14.0.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2845413376 Jul  7 10:57 slackosave-632-PROD-L.3fs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   67108864 May 17  2020 slackosave-TEST-3fs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4688240 Jun 21  2016 vmlinuz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   30801952 Jun 21  2016 zdrv_slacko_6.3.2.sfs

...and its associated working 'menu.lst' entry:-

title Slacko Linux 6.3.2 rover (on /dev/hda3)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /puppy632/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=idehd
initrd /puppy632/initrd.gz

Directories for the non-working BionicPup32-8.0 Frugal installation:-

/initrd/mnt/dev_save/upupbb19.03:
total 648744
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  21716992 Jul  4 11:22 adrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 115142656 Jul  4 11:18 devx_upupbb_19.03.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  20320256 Jul  4 11:22 fdrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2586305 Jul  4 11:22 initrd.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 205553664 Jul  4 11:22 puppy_upupbb_19.03.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root       491 Jul  4 11:22 README-extra_sfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 268435456 Jan  1  1988 upupbbsave-ttestrsts.4fs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   5528448 Jul  4 11:23 vmlinuz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  24334336 Jul  4 11:23 zdrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs

...and its associated non-working 'menu.lst' entry:-

title Bionic Beaver Linux 19.30 rover (on /dev/hda3)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /upupbb19.03/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=idehd
initrd /upupbb19.03/initrd.gz

So, is there something missing somewhere? Should I chuck the whole grub 0.97 thing and do something different with grub2 and 'FrugalPup' or something?

Boot disk (/dev/sda3) is an ext2 partition on a disk with vfat and swap partitions.

Thanks a heap.

Hello.

I'm not an expert when it comes to grub4dos, so i don't know what root=/dev/ram0 does...
What i think is missing in your menu.lst is psubdir=upupbb19.03 on the kernel line

HerrBert wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 1:40 pm

I'm not an expert when it comes to grub4dos, so i don't know what root=/dev/ram0 does...

For an explanation about that, see How Puppy Works. It's basically about how Puppy starts-up in a RAM disk - it's all about speed...

What i think is missing in your menu.lst is psubdir=upupbb19.03 on the kernel line

Well, that certainly made things work... Fanx!

...but the question is why do these 'newer' puppies need that command line switch?

From the lilttle bit of reading I've done, it seems Woof-CE has undergone some changes (to separate hardware/firmware/etc dependencies) since the time of Slacko 6.3.2 and similar... so maybe the file searching mechanism has changed, making the psubdir switch a requirement... just guessing, o'course.

Anyway, things are working now... So, again, thanks a lot for your help.

HerrBert wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 1:40 pm

I'm not an expert when it comes to grub4dos, so i don't know what root=/dev/ram0 does...

That stopped being a valid argument around Puppy 2.

Sorry, I'm trying to see the "https://wikka.puppylinux.com/HowPuppyWorks" link, but it says "The certificate expired on 26/06/21 18:59. The current time is 09/07/21 18:21. ". Who needs to fix this to make me be able to look at that?

I'm really trying to check what is the hardware my old device has, in order to get the better distro that may I run in it. Any advice will be regarded. (what about the "basic" commands i may run now? ... Uups, begining with my actual distro... the device has its screen broken, then just after i got the advice to boot it with an external monitor i was able to start it "now")

Chalancito,

You need to start your own topic, about your issues.
One issue to each topic, is much easier to help someone.
Plus, no one is going to see your post, unless they read this complete topic.

We can always use this info in helping you.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=218