Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

So I got an older computer working and I used a harddrive I've used with the computer before that had puppy ready installed.

But then the mouse didn't work, so I tried starting the computer in: SAFE MODE (without X).

So after that I installed puppy from there onto a USB and it works to start up and everything and the mouse works.

Then I wanted to remove permanently some files that are part of the main sfs file (puppy_linux...sfs). So I did the:
# unsquashfs puppy_linux...sfs command in terminal, deleted the files and then did the:

# mksquashfs squashfs-root puppy_linux...sfs command in terminal to save to a new main sfs.

Then I deleted the old sfs and put in this new one where the old one was.

The main sfs file and kernel is in:

mnt/home

So then after save and restart I check and the files that I deleted are back! The are like under:

/root .... and so on.

Why are they not deleted? Is this because I loaded from a USB? and it still reads in files from the harddrive?

Or doesn't the unsquashfs and mksquashfs commands work as I thought are there any other files I have to change other than the main sfs file?

Is it because I installed puppy on the USB from the safe mode (without x)?

Check you savefile/save folder, they may be in there.

There aint no save folder I saved to the whole partition of the USB at first shutdown.

I noticed that the main: pupp_linux...sfs file was also in :

/

And not just in:

mnt/home when I restarted the computer from the USB. So it seems to have been copied there automatically it was not there on the first restart. Weird?

Can you show a tree diagram of how your system is laid out (filesystem only)
Including any base .sfs files located on other partitions/devices.
And you don't have a savefile/savefolder? (Savefiles are typically .2fs, .3fs, or .4fs)

Hi Mike3,

I don't know which Puppy Linux distribution you are using, so will provide some commands that should work across all versions. If you run "df -h | grep initrd", you should see some mount points that puppy uses for system level SFS files. For example, on FossaPup 64, I get the following

df -h | grep initrd
/dev/loop0      132M  132M     0 100% /initrd/pup_ro2
/dev/loop1       40M   40M     0 100% /initrd/pup_f
/dev/loop2       27M   27M     0 100% /initrd/pup_z
/dev/loop3      1.1G  1.1G     0 100% /initrd/pup_a

The main Puppy Linux is usually mounted read-only at /initrd/pup_ro2. If you can see the files that you thought your removed in that folder, then

• You did not remove the files from the SFS file. One test to do is to create a new blank file somewhere that will be visible when re-creating the SFS file again. This way you can confirm you are looking at the right SFS file content on reboot. Then you can remove the file from the SFS file and try to see if it goes away

• Your system is mounting a different SFS than you think during boot up. This can happen, for example, when booting from USB, but have your main SFS file also located on an internal hard drive. Puppy will prioritize the hard drive version of the same file

• Even though you did remove the file correctly from your wanted SFS file, a different SFS file might have that file, and is loading it

• Even though you did remove the file correctly from your waned SFS file, your savefile might have that file, and is loading it

• Some code might be generating the file you are removing automatically. We would need to know a filename you are having problems with to research this

I modifiy my SFS files all of the time, so it is possible. I don't use the unsquashfs commands, but don't think that is your problem.

Hi snoring_cat

Ok so it seems a lot of the file system is duplicated so I have a lot of the same files in the top directory:
/
as I have in the
/mnt/home directory.

I assume this is because the top directory is RAM and USB is copied there at start is this so?

I have attached pictures of the two folders.

I also did the: # df -h | grep initrd and did see that there is a pup_ro2 file.

There is a bunch of files I wanna delete. But for starters i want to get rid of the: pnscan files.

snoring_cat wrote: ↑Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:31 pm

Your system is mounting a different SFS than you think during boot up. This can happen, for example, when booting from USB, but have your main SFS file also located on an internal hard drive. Puppy will prioritize the hard drive version of the same file

If that's the case how do I make it boot from the sfs on the USB? Can it be done with some setting?

snoring_cat wrote: ↑Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:31 pm

Even though you did remove the file correctly from your wanted SFS file, a different SFS file might have that file, and is loading it

So I have to unsquashfs all sfs files? Which ones should I go for normally? The; adrv, fdrv & zdrv.sfs's or other ones?

snoring_cat wrote: ↑Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:31 pm

Some code might be generating the file you are removing automatically. We would need to know a filename you are having problems with to research this

How do I find this code if so?

snoring_cat wrote: ↑Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:31 pm

I modifiy my SFS files all of the time, so it is possible. I don't use the unsquashfs commands, but don't think that is your problem.

How do you do it if you don't use the unsquashfs command?

Mike3 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:35 am

Then I wanted to remove permanently some files that are part of the main sfs file (puppy_linux...sfs). So I did the:
# unsquashfs puppy_linux...sfs command in terminal, deleted the files and then did the:

# mksquashfs squashfs-root puppy_linux...sfs command in terminal to save to a new main sfs.

If you really need to remove something from the main sfs file, I saw a method for it from taersh (see on the picture).
I personally never needed to do this.

It seems that the linux partition is important here to achieve proper result with UExtract and PackIt.

There are more types of compression of mksquashfs in PackIt and I don't know which is the right one.

Ok, so I changed the search thing in pFind (advanced -> took away excluded which was the pup_ro2) and it turns out the pnscan file is in the pup_ro2 folder also.

Also when I do the usquashfs thing from terminal it seems that the unsquashed files end up in different places:

/squashfs-root/...
/initrd/mnt/dev_save/squashfs-root...
/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/squashfs-root

Do I have to delete the file from all these folders? In effect when I mksquash I just use one of these files, the /mnt/home/squashfs-root, right?

Hi again Mike3,

OK this post will just be some background. The next one will address your problem specifically

Puppy Linux mounts many filesystems (as visible from the df -h command), and layers them on top of each other. In some situation you might see duplicates, when in fact there is only one iteration of a file that is being displayed multiple times. If you think you are using a 10MB file 10 times, you might be just using 10MB of disk space.

In your situation with pnscan, you might have it in multiple locations. This is how you can check

find /initrd/pup* -type f -name "pnscan" -ls

    26925     31 -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        30776 Aug 14 20:47 /initrd/pup_a/usr/bin/pnscan
    26925     31 -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        30776 Aug 14 20:47 /initrd/pup_ro2/usr/bin/pnscan
    98732      1 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root           32 Aug 14 20:48 /initrd/pup_a/var/packages/builtin_files-norm/pnscan

Notice the above command returns 3 lines, meaning that there are 3 files called pnscan mounted. From observation, the actual pnscan program is in fact being duplicated at /initrd/pup_a/usr/bin/pnscan and /initrd/pup_ro2/usr/bin/pnscan. If you remove one of those from an SFS file, you would still see /usr/bin/pnscan on your system after rebooting. To remove it, you'd have to remove all iterations of the program in puppy.sfs, adrive_puppy.sfs, etc.

The SFSfiles that should containt files you want to remove are

• puppy.sfs - which shows up as /initrd/pup_ro2 - contains the base puppy install and applications

• adrive_puppy.sfs - which shows up as /initrd/pup_a - contains "applications" that are extra to the base puppy install.

[ Disclaimer: this method is a bit advanced, and should not be encouraged as the way to modify SFS files for most users ]

Mike3,

I think there are some problems with the way you unsquashed your files. This is what you should see at the root of your disk

vmlinuz
initrd.gz
puppy.sfs
adrv_puppy.sfs
fdrv_puppy.sfs
zdrv_puppy.sfs

When you did an unsquashfs, you put the files in the same root folder as the Puppy Linux. You should put each of the unsquashed SFS file content into individual temporary folders. Then you can inspect and change the contents of each SFS file individually. For example, you can check each temporary folder for the pnscan application, and then remove it.

Unsquashing

mkdir -p /unsquashed/puppy
cd /unsquashed/puppy
unsquashfs /puppy.sfs

mkdir -p /usquashed/adrv
cd /unsquashed/adrv
unsquashfs /adrv_puppy.sfs

You must make sure that when you unsquash your SFS files, that you unsquash them on a Linux filesystem

Resquashing
After you are done making modifications to files under the /unsquashed folder, you have to squash the contents back again, so that Puppy Linux can find/use the files.

mkdir /newfiels
mksquashfs /unsquashed/puppy /newfiles/puppy.sfs
mksquashfs /unsquashed/adrv /newfiles/adrv_pppy.sfs

Then you can backup and replace the original files with the same name in root with the files in /newfiles/. Note that the SFS files have to have the same name as the files you go from Puppy Linux. Also note that you cannot replace any of the working files if they currently are in use booting your Puppy Linux. Hopefully you managed to boot with Puppy Linux copying all SFS files into RAM (as is evident in the bootup on-screen messages)

Some background
When you originally unsquashed files into the / root folder, you mixed unsuashed files with your original Puppy Linux files. When you go to resquash, the new SFS would be about twice the size. To prevent this, we put our files under /unsquashed to prevent this duplications

Hi again snoring_cat

I followed your instructions and there are two copies of the squashfs-root folder being created.

The firsts ends up in:

/unsquashed/puppy according to terminal instructions.

Then there is the duplicate at:

/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/

So it seems to have made a duplicate of the folders made also. But when I delete the 'squashfs-root' file from the directory created (/unsquashfs/puppy), it also automatically deletes it from: /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/

And I also tried deleting a single folder from the first location and then it also is deleted from the second automatically.

So it seems that I won't have to delete files in both: unsquashfs/puppy/squashfs-root and: /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/unsquashedfs-root, but just in the first location?

And if, isn't it better to just delete the whole copy folder ( /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/unsquashedfs-root)? I mean otherwise I would just find duplicate copies of everything when searching with pFind. Pr is the duplicate folder needed for something? Does it serve a purpose here?

Also, do you think the rest of files that should be deleted are located in:

adrv_puppy.sfs

Or does one usually have to check all four .sfs files (i.e. also the fdrv...sfs & zdrw...sfs).

Being no further advance than an 6 year old playing with blocks, to remaster I use one of amethysts' tools. viewtopic.php?p=12983#p12983. That post specifically mentions 2. But the Suite includes an older third.

.

They automate all the 'grunt' work and the mistakes I'd make doing that. Something worth considering.

Mike3 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:29 am

Hi again snoring_cat

I followed your instructions and there are two copies of the squashfs-root folder being created.

The firsts ends up in:

/unsquashed/puppy according to terminal instructions.

Then there is the duplicate at:

/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/

So it seems to have made a duplicate of the folders made also. But when I delete the 'squashfs-root' file from the directory created (/unsquashfs/puppy), it also automatically deletes it from: /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/

And I also tried deleting a single folder from the first location and then it also is deleted from the second automatically.

So it seems that I won't have to delete files in both: unsquashfs/puppy/squashfs-root and: /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/unsquashedfs-root, but just in the first location?

And if, isn't it better to just delete the whole copy folder ( /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/unsquashed/puppy/unsquashedfs-root)? I mean otherwise I would just find duplicate copies of everything when searching with pFind. Pr is the duplicate folder needed for something? Does it serve a purpose here?

Also, do you think the rest of files that should be deleted are located in:

adrv_puppy.sfs

Or does one usually have to check all four .sfs files (i.e. also the fdrv...sfs & zdrw...sfs).

unsquashfs makes an extracted copy of the sfs you select in an output directory squashfs-root. mksquashfs will repackage the squashfs-root directory as an sfs of a name you select. Nothing extra is being added, when the mksquashfs is executed.

You're seeing different views of the same thing. That's why when you delete from one, the other vanishes also.

In rox, click the adrv and, you will see it creates a new mount point, something like /mnt/+mnt+sdb2+adrv_yourpuppy.sfs. You can then 'view' the files which it contains. Maybe do this with all your Xdrv's + application.sfs's (select to view content, don't select to install), have a look to know what files they actually contain.

Note: Clicking on the sfs again will then unmount it. If you click on the mount point after the sfs has been unmounted, you will see an empty directory, as it is only a mountpoint, the contents has been 'removed' when the sfs is unmounted.

It worked a couple of times but now I have issues finding the puppy.sfs main file when unsquashing.

I first make a new directory on my USB with:

mkdir -p /mnt/sdg1/unsquasged/puppy

This makes the new directorys unsquashed and puppy no prblem but when I do the:

The I go to the directory with:

cd /mnt/sdg1/unsquashed/puppy (sdg1 is my usb).

But when I do the command

unsquashfs /puppy.sfs , it doesn't work. It sais:

Could not open /puppy.sfs, because no such file or directory

What is wrong here, it used to work. I am not that great with the commands in the terminal, but why cant it find the puppy.sfs file? How do I make sure it sees it (the puppy.sfs file) with the correct command and how do I make sure the unsquashed file ends up in the right directory?