Want to Dual~Boot Fossa Pup 9.5 and CentOS 7 !!!!

[chilibowl]

[style][/style]

Hello Fellow Linux USERs <puppy> and derivatives .

Irecently installed FOSSA pUP 9.5 on my old HP DC5100 Machine.

I used Gparted to split the Hard drive into 2 sections @ 152.60 gb -So it is a originally a 320 Gb drive <sata>.

I installed Fossa in First sda1 partion <was a EXT4 partiton>, made BootFlaggable. Made a spare sda2 partition same size and ext4 also.

Used GRUB4DOS as my bootloader -do not remeber all the technical terms /lists.

Can I install my CENT os onto the second partition with little problems or will i have to go RE-installing Fossa PuP 9.5 all over again??

btw - I did the FULL install option - why use a Frugal installation?????!!!

reagrds -Chili

[puppy_apprentice]

why use a Frugal installation?????!!!

It is flexible and portable method to install linux systems. You can easily add another system without repartitioning HDD and exchange save file/directory between computers, flash cards and usb sticks.

Frugal and full installations - what's the difference?
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=979

Frugal vs full installation: any difference in speed?
https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=72889

[wiak]

Though there are many useful advantages to use of frugal installs, I think it is worth stating a potential disadvantage:

Upgrading can be difficult, for example when it involves glibc and/or kernel-modules upgrade.

As far as kernel upgrades are concerned, it is sometimes the case that the initrd needs to contain some modules (not so bad with huge kernels which is an attempt to store all drivers in the kernel itself). Then when kernel gets upgraded that initrd also needs upgraded since modules are compiled kernel-specific.

Other problem is that frugal installs often rely on squashed filesystem addons to build up their distro root-filesystem in layers - these are read-only - any upgrade goes into a read-write upper-layer, but, for example, a new glibc may well not work with some libs installed in a lower layered core sfs (e.g puppy....xxx....sfs) - such an upgrade can thus break the distro...

A full installed distro on the otherhand gets overwritten during upgrade, so everything can be overwritten to match upgrade needs without issues. This is a major advantage/convenience of full installs - much easier to upgrade without breaking underlying system. Major disadvantage is that if you corrupt the filesystem somehow in a full installed distro, it might be difficult to fix... and you can't simply remove your save persistence file or folder to get back to a basically working system.
.
Also full installed distros tend to use less RAM, working particularly well when installed onto modern fast media such as SSD devices. But the main point of this post is to mention the upgrade issue that tends to be problematic with frugal installs.

[bigpup]

I agree, updating any operating system can have issues.
Get out of the idea that you are going to have to constantly update in Puppy Linux.
I never update anything, unless I need some feature, the update is offering.
I never do any kind of general system updates! Never!

To answer your question.

How CentOS 7 does the install is really going to determine what you will need to do.
I know nothing about it.
If it has it's own installer process.
Usually these want to setup the drive the way it wants it to be (partitions and format) and install it's own boot loader setup.

Usually what works best is install CentOS 7
Then install a Puppy Linux version.
Install Grub4dos boot loader to boot both.
Grub4dos Config program, tries to make a boot menu entry, for any operating systems, it finds on the drive.
No problem for Puppy versions, but not 100% will get it correct, for all possible, other operating systems.

Frugal installs:

Can be put on any partition any format, any type storage device.

They load more of Puppy into RAM.
Runs faster.

Easier to backup, because all changes, settings are in the save. The core Puppy files never change. Only what is in the save changes. All you have to do is copy the save to have a backup.
If Puppy really gets messed up. Just delete the save and replace it with the backup save.

You can easily load or unload SFS program packages.
This lets you use a program without actually installing it to Puppy. You will have to use this option to fully understand it.

Some features of Puppy only work in a frugal or live install.

All of Puppy is placed in a directory (folder).
You can have many Puppies on one partition.
All completely separate from the other.
All in different directories (Linux term for folder).
The Puppy directory(folder), can be placed inside another operating system install, and be completely separate from it.
to the other operating system, it is just another directory(folder).

Full installs:
Must be installed to a Linux formatted partition.
Uses the entire partition.
Main advantage is it uses less memory to boot to desktop.
Does not use layered file system.
Works best for compiling.
Does not run into size limit that a save file has on a fat32 format.

Warning:
No one is really making sure a full install is 100% fully functional.
All the new features, operations, software coding, etc.... is designed around Puppy Linux as a frugal or live install.

[mikeslr]

Hi chilibowl,

wiak has an infinitely greater knowledge about Linux --all versions and their internals-- than I. But I think his post may be somewhat misleading. Technically correct, it is comparing a Full Install of Linux distros designed to be run as Full Install with a Puppy Linux's 'Frugal Install'. Puppy Linux was never designed to run as a Full Install.
It was originally created to co-exist on a computer manufactured and marketed to run ONLY Windows. Initially, the only means to escape that limitation was that in order to install Windows one had to be able to boot from a CD [or floppy-drive]. So the original Puppys were created to boot from a CD.

What happened next was that someone figured out how to relocate Puppy's system files from a CD to a hard-drive, and edit Window's boot-loader so as to offer a choice of booting Windows or the Puppy now on the Hard-drive. The next steps were (a) the development of a means by which additional applications and data could be preserved without regard to what media Puppy booted from > what other distros when booted from a USB-Key refer to as 'Persistence'; and (b) the development of boot-loaders automating the establishment of a boot-loader offering the choice of what system to boot.

That was, and still is, all that a Frugal Install is: The location of system files on a hard-drive or USB-Key which provide a means of preserving additions to that system. Even today it is rare that there will be more than 8 system files. From a layman's viewpoint, what appears to happen on boot-up is that the files within those system files are 'merged in ram': analogously to the way graphic programs manage layers. For a more technical explanation read, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 827#p55827

A dozen or so years ago --when computers sold rarely had more than 256 Mbs of RAM and even dual-core CPUs were in their infancy-- someone realized that it would take less time to boot Puppy and open applications if the system files were decompressed and their contents written as individual files to a hard-drive. Today, that difference is measured in micro-seconds. That's what a 'Full install' of a Puppy does. The Full install mechanism has never been upgraded: nor --once you appreciate the benefits of a Frugal Install-- has there been any reason to.

A frugal install on a Linux formatted partition can use a SaveFolder. A SaveFolder will automatically expand to make use of the entire available space on that partition, if necessary. Almost all the benefits of a ‘Full Install’ without any of the detriments. [The only justifications I’m aware of for still using a ‘Full Install’ is if you intend to compile large applications or transcode large video files. There a Frugal Puppys employment of RAM will slow the process to some extent].

Puppys operate as Root/Administrator, although programs can be set up to run as 'Spot', a Limited User. Full install Linuxes operate as a limited user with the ability to switch to Administrator by issuing a password. One difference is that even when running Puppy as a Full install, except for assigning applications to Spot, there is no built in restriction as to what a hacker or malicious program can access or do. Web-browsers are often published to 'run-as-spot' for that reason.

There is no easy way to fix a broken or corrupted Full Puppy Install. If at all possible, fixing it will involve many hours of detailed examination, analysis, and manual editing without any reasonable assurance of success. A frugal install, on the other hand, consists primarily of READ-ONLY system files and ONE Read-Write SaveFile-or-SaveFolder. The READ-ONLY system files can not be corrupted. And it only takes a couple of seconds (maybe a minute or 2 depending on its size) to back-up a SaveFile/Folder. Problem? No problem. Ditch the 'broken' SaveFile/Folder and put the backup to use.

As bigpup wrote, there's rarely a reason to 'update/upgrade'. But he refers to 'the system as whole'. Individual applications can be updated. The update will be written to the SaveFile/Folder and have priority in the 'merge file system'. With a Frugal Puppy, a problem update can be uninstalled, once again allowing you to make use of the 'built-in' application. But the install of a update to a Full install over-writes the old files; and uninstall will leave you with nothing.

A Frugal install can, a Full install can't, make use of applications packaged as an SFS. An SFS can be loaded/unloaded. When a new version becomes available, you can unload the old, load the new and if not satisfied, revert to the old.

Puppys system consists of between 4 and 8 'system files'. Among those are 2 or 3 referred to generally as 'the kernel'. These are vmlinuz --the kernel, itself, being analogous Linux's engine and the platform upon which the rest of the system is built; drivers --being kernel-specific files by which vmlinuz communicates with your computers hard-ware; and firmware, also needed to communicate with hardware, but not kernel-specific. While there is rarely a need to upgrade kernels, newer kernels may offer some newly developed advantages and security benefits. There's an application you can use to update [or 'down-date' if there's a problem] a Frugal Puppy's 'kernel', it takes less than 5 minutes to manually do that. Updating a Full install may leave you with the not-infrequently experienced condition of updating 'major distros': a borked system.

As far as I know, the only thing(s) which can't easily be updated in a Frugal Install are the glibc libraries and other libraries which depend on them. This is the limitation to which wiak referred. glibc is a 'foundation' system. An operating system, itself, can only use one and some 'builtin' applications will depend on a specific version. Replacing it will break those. Most applications don't. Indirectly, web-browsers do. Openssl accepts only a range of glibc and openssl is the mechanism used by web-browsers to communicate with web-sites. Someday, your Puppy --any Puppy-- will not be able to run a web-browser whose openssl is acceptable to some websites. Someday. But not today. Currently most websites will still allow access to web-browsers a half-dozen years old. And when that day comes you will still have the option to run web-browsers in a 'Chroot' --an application which uses its own glibc libraries, isolated from your main operating system.

Why Centos 7? If you must have Centos 7, it’s far easier to set it up first, then install a Puppy rather than the other way around. This is true of any ‘Major Linux’ because they don’t ‘understand’ Puppys, and recognized them as an operating system with which a hard-drive is to be shared. Puppys, on the other hand, are designed to ‘co-exist’ with one, more or many other operating systems.

But if you’re not wedded to Centos 7, may I suggest you take a look at wiak’s weedogit application. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 074#p50074 weedogit enables a user to setup [theoretically any, but] –currently 43-- ‘major’ distributions to function ‘with persistence’ very much (from a User's prospective) like a Frugal Puppy Linux. But Centos 7 isn’t among those 43. These are:

distro01="WeeDog anypup (default vdpup64)"; subdirectory01="KL_vdpup64"
distro02="PopOS64"; subdirectory02="WDL_pop-os"
distro03="EndeavourOS XFCE"; subdirectory03="WDL_endeavXFCE"
distro04="manjaro-xfce"; subdirectory04="WDL_manjaXFCE"
distro05="manjaro-kde"; subdirectory05="WDL_manjaKDE"
distro06="manjaro-gnome"; subdirectory06="WDL_manjaGNOME"
distro07="MakuluLinux-Shift-x64-Ubuntu"; subdirectory07="WDL_makuluU"
distro08="MX-21_X64 XFCE"; subdirectory08="WDL_MXxfce"
distro09="MX-21_X64 XFCE ahs"; subdirectory09="WDL_MXxfce_ahs" # advanced hardware support - newer PCs
distro10="MX-21_X64 KDE"; subdirectory10="WDL_MXkde" # with ahs for newer PCs
distro11="MX-21_X64 fluxbox"; subdirectory11="WDL_MxFlux"
distro12="MX-21_386 fluxbox"; subdirectory12="WDL_MxFlux32" # 32bit variant
distro13="Zorin Lite XFCE"; subdirectory13="WDL_zorinlXFCE"
distro14="NeonKDE"; subdirectory14="WDL_neonKDE"
distro15="GarudaSway"; subdirectory15="WDL_garuSWAY"
distro16="Bodhi Std"; subdirectory16="WDL_bod"
distro17="MassOS"; subdirectory17="WDL_masso"
distro18="TinyCoreLinux64 flwm"; subdirectory18="KL_TCL64"
distro19="KLV-Airedale64"; subdirectory19="KLV-Airedale64" # frugal install from official iso
distro20="Intel Clear Linux"; subdirectory20="WDL_intclear"
distro21="Ubuntu_live"; subdirectory21="WDL_bunt"
distro22="Mint Cinnamon live"; subdirectory22="WDL_mintCin"
# --- NEW ---
distro23="linux-lite"; subdirectory23="WDL_linlite"
distro24="bunsen-lithium"; subdirectory24="WDL_bunsenlithium"
distro25="LXLE-Focal"; subdirectory25="WDL_LXLE-Focal"
distro26="tails-amd64"; subdirectory26="WDL_tails-amd64"
distro27="Debian_live"; subdirectory27="WDL_debi"
distro28="Regata_OS"; subdirectory28="WDL_regata"
distro29="Kodachi"; subdirectory29="WDL_kodachiXFCE"
distro30="SysLinuxOS"; subdirectory30="WDL_syslinuxMATE"
distro31="4MLinux"; subdirectory31="WDL_4ML" # extremely experimental WDL conversion!
distro32="austrumi"; subdirectory32="WDL_aust"
distro33="Fedora Rawhide cmdline"; subdirectory33="WDL_fedraw"
distro34="Xubuntu"; subdirectory34="WDL_xbunt"
distro35="Lubuntu"; subdirectory35="WDL_lbunt"
distro36="Mabox"; subdirectory36="WDL_mabo"
distro37="Sparky mingui"; subdirectory37="WDL_sparkmingui"
distro38="Sparky lxqt"; subdirectory38="WDL_sparklxqt"
distro39="Sparky mate"; subdirectory39="WDL_sparkmate"
distro40="Sparky xfce"; subdirectory40="WDL_sparkxfce"
distro41="Sparky kde"; subdirectory41="WDL_sparkkde"
distro42="Sparky gameover"; subdirectory42="WDL_sparkgameO"
distro43="Sparky multimedia"; subdirectory43="WDL_sparkmultimed"

[williwaw]

Usually what works best is install CentOS 7
Then install a Puppy Linux version.

presuming a frugal install is now what you want, and wish to install centos first.
1. is your machine UEFI or an older Bios only boot?

Can I install my CENT os onto the second partition with little problems or will i have to go RE-installing Fossa PuP 9.5 all over again??

Can you boot from a USB and make a copy of your fossa savefile/folder? Once your save is safely backed up to the usb, try to run the centos installer and see if you can install it to the desired partition. A reinstall of fossa is easy once your save file/folder is backed up. alls you have to do is copy it back to the directory on the partition where you installed the fossa iso.

[puppy_apprentice]

He did full install so he doesn't have save file/folder. But he installed Puppy recently (didn't save to much on Puppy's partition) so maybe it won't be a big pain if something go wrong with Centos

So try to install Centos on second partition and if everything will be ok write tutorial in How-to section

[chilibowl]

WOW!!! Thanks for the Explanation WIAK, Iwas sort of thinking along the same lines . Definetley the Occurence/reality that A full install relies less on Memory than the Frugal install thingy.. Thanks ~~chilibowl

Though there are many useful advantages to use of frugal installs, I think it is worth stating a potential disadvantage:

Upgrading can be difficult, for example when it involves glibc and/or kernel-modules upgrade.

As far as kernel upgrades are concerned, it is sometimes the case that the initrd needs to contain some modules (not so bad with huge kernels which is an attempt to store all drivers in the kernel itself). Then when kernel gets upgraded that initrd also needs upgraded since modules are compiled kernel-specific.

Other problem is that frugal installs often rely on squashed filesystem addons to build up their distro root-filesystem in layers - these are read-only - any upgrade goes into a read-write upper-layer, but, for example, a new glibc may well not work with some libs installed in a lower layered core sfs (e.g puppy....xxx....sfs) - such an upgrade can thus break the distro...

A full installed distro on the otherhand gets overwritten during upgrade, so everything can be overwritten to match upgrade needs without issues. This is a major advantage/convenience of full installs - much easier to upgrade without breaking underlying system. Major disadvantage is that if you corrupt the filesystem somehow in a full installed distro, it might be difficult to fix... and you can't simply remove your save persistence file or folder to get back to a basically working system.
.
Also full installed distros tend to use less RAM, working particularly well when installed onto modern fast media such as SSD devices. But the main point of this post is to mention the upgrade issue that tends to be problematic with frugal installs.

[chilibowl]

WELL your No Slacker When it comes to describing the Situation,, Sounds Really Advanced the knowledge You have & Wiak -especially with that that Frugal bootloader script thingy for All those recent Distros.



Seroiusly the reason Imention CENTos is the fact Iuse a Old "forK' of Cent OS /RHEL called "Stella" Linux -it worked seamslessy in my "google Mini-server" desktop project - no issues so far -just that the Software Repository has been A.W.OL.!!!

So Since ilike the features of Stella why not go for Cent Os -its closest Relative?? <but now I beleive its CENtos STREAm or Rocky LINUx!!!


Thanks soo much fellow Puppy Geeks!! ~ adios -chilibowl

Hi chilibowl,

wiak has an infinitely greater knowledge about Linux --all versions and their internals-- than I. But I think his post may be somewhat misleading. Technically correct, it is comparing a Full Install of Linux distros designed to be run as Full Install with a Puppy Linux's 'Frugal Install'. Puppy Linux was never designed to run as a Full Install.
It was originally created to co-exist on a computer manufactured and marketed to run ONLY Windows. Initially, the only means to escape that limitation was that in order to install Windows one had to be able to boot from a CD [or floppy-drive]. So the original Puppys were created to boot from a CD.

What happened next was that someone figured out how to relocate Puppy's system files from a CD to a hard-drive, and edit Window's boot-loader so as to offer a choice of booting Windows or the Puppy now on the Hard-drive. The next steps were (a) the development of a means by which additional applications and data could be preserved without regard to what media Puppy booted from > what other distros when booted from a USB-Key refer to as 'Persistence'; and (b) the development of boot-loaders automating the establishment of a boot-loader offering the choice of what system to boot.

That was, and still is, all that a Frugal Install is: The location of system files on a hard-drive or USB-Key which provide a means of preserving additions to that system. Even today it is rare that there will be more than 8 system files. From a layman's viewpoint, what appears to happen on boot-up is that the files within those system files are 'merged in ram': analogously to the way graphic programs manage layers. For a more technical explanation read, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 827#p55827

A dozen or so years ago --when computers sold rarely had more than 256 Mbs of RAM and even dual-core CPUs were in their infancy-- someone realized that it would take less time to boot Puppy and open applications if the system files were decompressed and their contents written as individual files to a hard-drive. Today, that difference is measured in micro-seconds. That's what a 'Full install' of a Puppy does. The Full install mechanism has never been upgraded: nor --once you appreciate the benefits of a Frugal Install-- has there been any reason to.

A frugal install on a Linux formatted partition can use a SaveFolder. A SaveFolder will automatically expand to make use of the entire available space on that partition, if necessary. Almost all the benefits of a ‘Full Install’ without any of the detriments. [The only justifications I’m aware of for still using a ‘Full Install’ is if you intend to compile large applications or transcode large video files. There a Frugal Puppys employment of RAM will slow the process to some extent].

Puppys operate as Root/Administrator, although programs can be set up to run as 'Spot', a Limited User. Full install Linuxes operate as a limited user with the ability to switch to Administrator by issuing a password. One difference is that even when running Puppy as a Full install, except for assigning applications to Spot, there is no built in restriction as to what a hacker or malicious program can access or do. Web-browsers are often published to 'run-as-spot' for that reason.

There is no easy way to fix a broken or corrupted Full Puppy Install. If at all possible, fixing it will involve many hours of detailed examination, analysis, and manual editing without any reasonable assurance of success. A frugal install, on the other hand, consists primarily of READ-ONLY system files and ONE Read-Write SaveFile-or-SaveFolder. The READ-ONLY system files can not be corrupted. And it only takes a couple of seconds (maybe a minute or 2 depending on its size) to back-up a SaveFile/Folder. Problem? No problem. Ditch the 'broken' SaveFile/Folder and put the backup to use.

As bigpup wrote, there's rarely a reason to 'update/upgrade'. But he refers to 'the system as whole'. Individual applications can be updated. The update will be written to the SaveFile/Folder and have priority in the 'merge file system'. With a Frugal Puppy, a problem update can be uninstalled, once again allowing you to make use of the 'built-in' application. But the install of a update to a Full install over-writes the old files; and uninstall will leave you with nothing.

A Frugal install can, a Full install can't, make use of applications packaged as an SFS. An SFS can be loaded/unloaded. When a new version becomes available, you can unload the old, load the new and if not satisfied, revert to the old.

Puppys system consists of between 4 and 8 'system files'. Among those are 2 or 3 referred to generally as 'the kernel'. These are vmlinuz --the kernel, itself, being analogous Linux's engine and the platform upon which the rest of the system is built; drivers --being kernel-specific files by which vmlinuz communicates with your computers hard-ware; and firmware, also needed to communicate with hardware, but not kernel-specific. While there is rarely a need to upgrade kernels, newer kernels may offer some newly developed advantages and security benefits. There's an application you can use to update [or 'down-date' if there's a problem] a Frugal Puppy's 'kernel', it takes less than 5 minutes to manually do that. Updating a Full install may leave you with the not-infrequently experienced condition of updating 'major distros': a borked system.

As far as I know, the only thing(s) which can't easily be updated in a Frugal Install are the glibc libraries and other libraries which depend on them. This is the limitation to which wiak referred. glibc is a 'foundation' system. An operating system, itself, can only use one and some 'builtin' applications will depend on a specific version. Replacing it will break those. Most applications don't. Indirectly, web-browsers do. Openssl accepts only a range of glibc and openssl is the mechanism used by web-browsers to communicate with web-sites. Someday, your Puppy --any Puppy-- will not be able to run a web-browser whose openssl is acceptable to some websites. Someday. But not today. Currently most websites will still allow access to web-browsers a half-dozen years old. And when that day comes you will still have the option to run web-browsers in a 'Chroot' --an application which uses its own glibc libraries, isolated from your main operating system.

Why Centos 7? If you must have Centos 7, it’s far easier to set it up first, then install a Puppy rather than the other way around. This is true of any ‘Major Linux’ because they don’t ‘understand’ Puppys, and recognized them as an operating system with which a hard-drive is to be shared. Puppys, on the other hand, are designed to ‘co-exist’ with one, more or many other operating systems.

But if you’re not wedded to Centos 7, may I suggest you take a look at wiak’s weedogit application. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 074#p50074 weedogit enables a user to setup [theoretically any, but] –currently 43-- ‘major’ distributions to function ‘with persistence’ very much (from a User's prospective) like a Frugal Puppy Linux. But Centos 7 isn’t among those 43. These are:

distro01="WeeDog anypup (default vdpup64)"; subdirectory01="KL_vdpup64"
distro02="PopOS64"; subdirectory02="WDL_pop-os"
distro03="EndeavourOS XFCE"; subdirectory03="WDL_endeavXFCE"
distro04="manjaro-xfce"; subdirectory04="WDL_manjaXFCE"
distro05="manjaro-kde"; subdirectory05="WDL_manjaKDE"
distro06="manjaro-gnome"; subdirectory06="WDL_manjaGNOME"
distro07="MakuluLinux-Shift-x64-Ubuntu"; subdirectory07="WDL_makuluU"
distro08="MX-21_X64 XFCE"; subdirectory08="WDL_MXxfce"
distro09="MX-21_X64 XFCE ahs"; subdirectory09="WDL_MXxfce_ahs" # advanced hardware support - newer PCs
distro10="MX-21_X64 KDE"; subdirectory10="WDL_MXkde" # with ahs for newer PCs
distro11="MX-21_X64 fluxbox"; subdirectory11="WDL_MxFlux"
distro12="MX-21_386 fluxbox"; subdirectory12="WDL_MxFlux32" # 32bit variant
distro13="Zorin Lite XFCE"; subdirectory13="WDL_zorinlXFCE"
distro14="NeonKDE"; subdirectory14="WDL_neonKDE"
distro15="GarudaSway"; subdirectory15="WDL_garuSWAY"
distro16="Bodhi Std"; subdirectory16="WDL_bod"
distro17="MassOS"; subdirectory17="WDL_masso"
distro18="TinyCoreLinux64 flwm"; subdirectory18="KL_TCL64"
distro19="KLV-Airedale64"; subdirectory19="KLV-Airedale64" # frugal install from official iso
distro20="Intel Clear Linux"; subdirectory20="WDL_intclear"
distro21="Ubuntu_live"; subdirectory21="WDL_bunt"
distro22="Mint Cinnamon live"; subdirectory22="WDL_mintCin"
# --- NEW ---
distro23="linux-lite"; subdirectory23="WDL_linlite"
distro24="bunsen-lithium"; subdirectory24="WDL_bunsenlithium"
distro25="LXLE-Focal"; subdirectory25="WDL_LXLE-Focal"
distro26="tails-amd64"; subdirectory26="WDL_tails-amd64"
distro27="Debian_live"; subdirectory27="WDL_debi"
distro28="Regata_OS"; subdirectory28="WDL_regata"
distro29="Kodachi"; subdirectory29="WDL_kodachiXFCE"
distro30="SysLinuxOS"; subdirectory30="WDL_syslinuxMATE"
distro31="4MLinux"; subdirectory31="WDL_4ML" # extremely experimental WDL conversion!
distro32="austrumi"; subdirectory32="WDL_aust"
distro33="Fedora Rawhide cmdline"; subdirectory33="WDL_fedraw"
distro34="Xubuntu"; subdirectory34="WDL_xbunt"
distro35="Lubuntu"; subdirectory35="WDL_lbunt"
distro36="Mabox"; subdirectory36="WDL_mabo"
distro37="Sparky mingui"; subdirectory37="WDL_sparkmingui"
distro38="Sparky lxqt"; subdirectory38="WDL_sparklxqt"
distro39="Sparky mate"; subdirectory39="WDL_sparkmate"
distro40="Sparky xfce"; subdirectory40="WDL_sparkxfce"
distro41="Sparky kde"; subdirectory41="WDL_sparkkde"
distro42="Sparky gameover"; subdirectory42="WDL_sparkgameO"
distro43="Sparky multimedia"; subdirectory43="WDL_sparkmultimed"

[wiak]

But Centos 7 isn’t among those 43

Because Redhat itself has its own initramfs boot mechanism that its root filesystem tends to need to work properly. Most Redhat derivatives tend therefore to be almost impossible to use in a weedogit type configuration. But there is, surprisingly, one interesting exception, which is included in the weedogit script, that being for Fedora Rawhide (the absolutely rolling distro version from Fedora). At first sight that may seem of limited use, since starts as being a commandline based distro only (no default X or Wayland or desktop environment built in at initial install). However, as I pointed out when first adding that to weedogit.sh, once you get it running (assuming you manage to get it connected to Internet) then you can simply run the following commands and it will add a pretty complete XFCE-based desktop to the build (you could add alternative desktop environments provided by Fedora in Rawhide repos instead if you so wish). Previous to Fedora Rawhide I was myself frustrated that no 'normal' Redhat based rootfilesystem/iso download could be successfully/easily weedogged. The reason that Fedora Rawhide image is usable is that it was specially put together (by Fedora) for use as a docker image, and that, happily, is able to be weedogged! Also it is a very interesting (very up-to-date) RedHat-based distro. If you are also interested in trying out the latest and greatest new ideas/software then Fedora Rawhide is a good way to do that (including via its frugal installable weedogit version):

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5205

Fedora Rawhide (Rolling release - includes GTK 4.x.x I think)
For various details: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora

You can use nmtui to connect Fedora cmdline to wifi (or other connection). However, you may first need to track down your wifi firmware .ucode and put it in 08firstrib_rootfs/usr/lib/firmware
Once you have a connection (e.g. via command nmtui) you can install X and desktop, for example, with dnf filemanager command:

Code: Select all

sudo dnf groupinstall "Xfce Desktop"

(actually you don't need sudo since logged in as root anyway...)
then use startxfce4 to start it up (see attached for the result - it is pretty much complete actually).

By the way, you can check available group packages with command:

Code: Select all

dnf grouplist

Best to consult a Fedora dnf package manager tutorial though the Xfce Desktop install does provide a GUI for package management.

[wiak]

Definetley the Occurence/reality that A full install relies less on Memory than the Frugal install thingy.

Yes, but the additional RAM usage required for frugal install is tiny so pretty much irrelevant. Certainly default Puppy Linux boot includes copying all the main sfs files into actual RAM (and thus uses a lot of RAM), for the simple reason that older hard disks tend to be painfully slow (or older usb flashstick technology such as usb2), so putting all main files actually into RAM first slows down boot but makes them all quick to access thereafter (since access to RAM is fast even on old machines). Problem is that older machines often have the problem of not having much actual RAM to begin with... Catch22 situation. But Puppy allows you to turn off that loading of sfs files into RAM (and instead suffer slow hard disk or slow usb stick access) via its pfix=nocopy (at least that's what I remember was the kernel/linux argument required?). With newer computers with fast external drives, I would personally most usually elect to use pfix=nocopy since it is no longer of any real benefit (just eats RAM unnecessarily).

So, my main statement in why full install can still sometimes be more useful is to do with ease of upgrade. Often that advantage is also not very meaningful (if you don't upgrade often), but if you are using say a rolling-release distro that continually can be upgraded (though it remains optional to do the actual upgrade usually) then full install tends to be easier to use. Otherwise, frugal install's many save-persistence advantages make it a great choice and more flexible choice overall - most specially that you don't need to bother shrinking partitions and creating new ones for each full installed distro... rather you can simply store all your frugal installed distros in same partition you already have and boot whichever one you wish, full or frugal, via whatever existing boot loader such as grub you already have (and really with very very almost irrelevantly small additional RAM usage in practice for those you boot as frugal installs).

[bigpup]

personally most usually elect to use pfix=nocopy since it is no longer of any real benefit (just eats RAM unnecessarily).

The RAM is there to use.
It does absolutely no purpose to keep it from being used.

RAM is there to use, so use it!

If you are doing something, where you run out of RAM.
That is not caused by Puppy, loaded into RAM.

[wiak]

personally most usually elect to use pfix=nocopy since it is no longer of any real benefit (just eats RAM unnecessarily).

The RAM is there to use.
It does absolutely no purpose to keep it from being used.

RAM is there to use, so use it!

If you are doing something, where you run out of RAM.
That is not caused by Puppy, loaded into RAM.

I disagree. RAM is best left for Linux to allocate and use dynamically (i.e. via storing items in RAM cache and auto-releasing them when and if necessary). Loading sfs files into RAM is a static use of RAM - once you load the sfs files there they continue thereafter to waste that precious RAM space. Certainly we want to use as little CPU resource as possible (for the health of the computer - helps keep temperature down) but RAM doesn't and shouldn't need to be used until called for. When, for example, you are doing a RAM-hungry Blender rendering, Linux will free RAM from cache when it is thus needed, and similarly if you are browsing heavy web sites, but that release cannot happen to the statically held RAM held by unnecessarily loaded into RAM Puppy sfs files.

Back in the day the point was to trade some available RAM in order to get increased access speed than slow hard disks could give you - that's what people mean about 'faster' to run from RAM, but nowadays on many newer machines that benefit is hardly true at all - modern SSD external drives can be accessed very quickly so no need to waste RAM by static copy2ram procedures. In fact, on older machines, despite it being faster to run from RAM rather than slow hard disks, the mechanism had a huge drawback - older machines tend to have very limited RAM in the first case so using it to statically hold/load sfs files limited actual available RAM for actual work, which was hardly an ideal situation.

Nowadays we hardly need to waste useful RAM by such a resource-inefficient manner. I never do that on my machines (even on my 14 year old Core2duo cpu machines, which tend now to have 4GB RAM installed). Certainly weedog initrd bootable distros also allow w_copy2ram of all sfs files, if anyone wants to do that for some dubious reason, but I hope that mechanism is hardly ever used and never by default - it is certainly not an 'advantage' nowadays, it is just a waste of usable RAM.

And actually, if you are doing something that needs a lot of RAM, such as video rendering or heavy number of heavy web-page tabs open, you may well suddenly run out of RAM and Puppy cannot release that wasted statically loaded into RAM resource and your machine will freeze, whereas if you had used pfix=nocopy you still would have that extra RAM available (with Puppy that would currently be around 400MB RAM you have unnecessary used up via copy2ram the sfs files - that is quite a significant amount) - the freeze in such cases is indeed caused by Puppy loaded into RAM using up needed RAM resource wastefully. It is a choice, but lets not bluff away the disadvantage, when most of the time there is no advantage to copying into RAM prior to running the system nowadays.

Example vupup:

puppyXXX.sfs = 178 MB
fdrvXXX.sfs = 84.6 MB
zdrvXXX.sfs = 82.7 MB
bdrvXXX.sfs = 13.3 MB
kbuildXXX.sfs = 20.8 MB
total = 379 MB

[sameerar]

Hey there, I saw your post about installing FOSSA pUP 9.5 on your HP DC5100 machine. I'm impressed with your technical skills and the way you've split your hard drive. I'm not as familiar with GRUB4DOS as a bootloader, but I have some experience with different Linux distributions. Regarding your question about installing CentOS on the second partition, it's definitely possible, but you'll want to be careful during the installation process. Also, I suggest you check out tuxcarie.com for extended lifecycle support for CentOS 7. Good luck with your setup! Let us know how it goes.