Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

How would I multiboot different puppies from a usb drive?

There does not seem to be any puppy utilities, to allow you to do this.

Lassar wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:55 am

How would I multiboot different puppies from a usb drive?

There does not seem to be any puppy utilities, to allow you to do this.

Hi @Lassar

in fact there are, but I have not tested others

This link that I share with you is my process which until today has worked without problems following the mechanics of the process

viewtopic.php?p=7067#p7067

I hope it works for you and don't be afraid to try and even if you fail, remember that failures are nothing more than learning how not to do a process that way and so you will fill your life and mind with wisdom.

Cheers !!

Lassar wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:55 am

How would I multiboot different puppies from a usb drive?

There does not seem to be any puppy utilities, to allow you to do this.

multiple puppies can be installed on a single usb if installed "frugally"
https://puppylinux.com/install.html has some info on the basics.

if you mention which puppies you would like to have installed on the same usb, someone can make a recommendation for an installer included in one of the pups.

It might help to also mention the age and model of your computer.

Yes, please provide info on what OS you are currently booting from on USB, as well as what other OS's you want to boot up as well. If you know what type of boot loader your USB is using, please supply that as well. That last request might be too geeky. If it is, please let me know if you have any of the following on the USB drive

• /menu.lst

• /boot/syslinux.cfg

• /boot/grub.cfg

With that information, I will try to give you the steps necessary to multi-boot from the USB drive.

You are correct. Puppy Linux does not have tools to easily and dynamically multi-boot a USB drive. Manually setting up the USB drive has always worked for me.

I use rufus in Windows to boot multipup Puppies.

Has my boot menu entries as well there.

viewtopic.php?p=31004#p31004

::::::::;

rcrsn51 has a booter for Puppy but its name escapes me.

Cheers....Chris.

@Lassar :-

Yep; 'frugal' is the way to go for this.

Partition your flash drive with a small (256 MB is heaps) 1st partition, formatted to FAT32. This will let you boot MBR AND UEFI Puppies, as well as between different machines. This is where the bootloader will go.

Then format the rest of the drive to either ext3 or ext4, depending on your preference.

You can add a small 'swap' partition at the end, if you wish. Depends on how much RAM you've got to play with, really.

Install each Puppy into its own sub-directory on the main partition; give each one a distinctive, easy-to-use name. (Just copy the ISO contents across to each respective directory, that's how I do it.)

As for which boot-loader, well; I'll let others help with that. There's several options nowadays..!

Mike.

Hello @Lassar

Here is the simplest, fool-proof, effort and method of USB that supports as many modern PUPPY or DOG distro found on the forum. It comes pre-loaded with a couple of PUP-DOGs ready to boot.

IT IS A FRUGAL. Except you need not do any mechanics to achieve it.

Make your USB using the steps. Add as many different modern PUPs/DOGs ISO files that you choose. Boot any at your leisure without ANY of the problems normally associated getting PUPs to boot. NONE!

Try it and you will easily see its benefit to avoiding issues and problems.

Post ANY issues you find, there, should you experience any. So far, its foolproof.

Created a unetbootin but it was a disappointment.

It did not even support xenialpup64

It had only up to Ubuntu 14.00 support.

Any one have any other ideas for a good multiboot usb utility in linux?

You could give Ventoy a try https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html. It is a brilliant way of trying OSs on a USB stick. You just load the whatever iso you want onto it and boot. Ventoy then presents you with the list of iso's for you to select which one you want to use. If you don't like one then just delete it. If you want to try one then just load it onto the USB stick. It works with most Linux Distros and even Windows.

Lassar wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:04 pm

Created a unetbootin but it was a disappointment.

It did not even support xenialpup64

It had only up to Ubuntu 14.00 support.

Do not try to let Unetbootin download a version of Puppy Linux.

You download the Puppy version ISO you want to use.
manually tell Unetbootin to use that ISO as the source of Puppy install files.
but Unetbootin is not designed for doing multiple installs..
.
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