Should the terms 'Frugal' and 'Full' be changed, to what & how

[mikeslr]

Anyone who isn't 'brand spanking new' to Puppy Linux knows the problems caused by Puppy Installer. It offers two options: 'Full' and 'Frugal'. And for over a decade both reviewers of Puppy and 'newbies' have misunderstood what those 'terms of art' mean. Countless newbies have made choices against their better interests. Countless posts have been written to remedy that mistake. But, AFAIK, discussions have taken place on treads not directly confronting the problem. Such as on this thread beginning here and following: https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 934#p67934

Such posts and explanations get buried and nothing changes.

Tomorrow another newbie will do a 'Full Install' then post about his/her problem.

So, let's have it out. Read the above cited post and the replies that followed it on that thread. Then give us your '2 cent's' worth: Should the Terms 'Frugal' and 'Full' be changed?
If so, to what?
How can we effect that change?

There's nothing we can do about the Web-posts by reviewers which have already been published. There's nothing we can do about the thousands of ISOs 'in the Wild' which employ those terms. But eventually those posts will get buried and the ISOs of 'Old Puppies' will fall into disuse.

What can we do to avoid the problem in Puppies yet to be published?

Ultimately, unless I'm mistaken, some change to Woof will be required in order to change the content of future ISOs. But if we can reach a reasonable consensus they can be informed of it and figure out how to proceed. If they don't make changes we will know who to blame.

[bigpup]

Do not offer or even talk about a full install.

Stop using the Puppy Universal installer or re-code it to only do what is a frugal install.

A frugal type install
Just call it an install or normal install.
Having all the needed Puppy files from the Puppy ISO placed inside a folder/directory.
A boot loader installed to boot it.

You are forgetting one type that is universal.
Live install.
The Puppy ISO has everything to do a live install.
The Puppy OS files and the boot loader to boot it.
All the files in the ISO placed on a USB drive or image burned to a CD/DVD.

Again, to make any name change, is also going to require code change, in any of the Puppy installers, that do frugal installs.
Same for any Puppy documentation.
Same for any programs that use the name frugal.

[wiak]

You are forgetting one type that is universal.
Live install.

Another odd piece of terminology. What exactly is 'Live' supposed to mean? Such as 'electric' or 'a sentinel being'? No.

Simply seems to mean: can be booted from CD or usb stick or some other removal media - but what exactly is unusual or special about that - these are just installation media and boot loaders such as grub2 can boot from pretty much any media. That is, to most mainstream distros, 'live' seems to indicate booting from removable media, and you then get the choice to 'install', by which they generally mean a so-called 'full install' 'to your hard disk', whatever type of technology your hard disk employs. Live doesn't mean 'frugal' or 'full' in terms of how it is arranged on the boot device - it could be either, but often seems to be 'frugal' in nature (since its root filesystem is often provided in squashfs form, and often in addon layers). Frugal definitely means 'layered' - more than one layer involved (most often being read-only but usually, but not always, with one as read-writable), which is what provides its special flexible functionality. 'Standard' or 'Normal' install implies nothing at all - what is normal to you may be odd from some other distro's point of view and so-called 'noobs' come with different backgrounds and expectations.

By all means, keep the name 'frugal' despite it sounding like 'has less facility' but then very important to define what it is very clearly to remove that negative 'less' connotation. It was a terrible name choice for the technology employed - who on earth came up with that named it very badly and hence the pain caused today.

[wiak]

It seems I am not alone in my thoughts about 'frugal' ... Some of the other guys in the following thread are clearly from Puppy Linux forum, using their definitely suspect terminology that was learned here. Other distros such as AntiX have picked up the terminology, probably from Puppy usage/history. As a term 'frugal' will almost certainly confuse any Windows refugee, but unlikely to confuse those who are familiar with other similar distros as Puppy, such as AntiX amongst many other external-to-this forum distros who have similar boot arrangements:

https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php ... 4d#p725901

Re: How to make frugal install?
#14 Post by cuckooflew » 2020-08-16 17:04

I think the netinstall https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ and just install the base, with no DE, etc. Only ssh server , if wanted, is about as "frugal" (strange term in my opinion) as you can get, or the installer, https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
The , there is also this: https://github.com/Head-on-a-Stick/newer-buster
It boots, and works, one could use it as a base on a usb stick, and build on it , and add what they want...but , also it is not a "official Debian", option H_O_A_S provides it, I have tried it and used it as my boot media on a qemu VM,..
For a full Debian install, but minimal, I use the netinstall image. If want a Live USB device, I install the Debian base to a usb stick, I then have something that will boot a PC, and can be used as system, and can be written to, packages added, etc...

[bigpup]

Live install name does go back to when all you could make is a bootable CD install of an operating system.
But now that you can also boot from a USB drive, it can also be a live install.

A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive.

All the files in the Puppy ISO installed on the CD/DVD disk or a USB stick.
The Puppy ISO has the Puppy OS and the boot loader all in the ISO.

In the Puppy world, a live install was always just putting all the files from the Puppy ISO on a CD/DVD or a USB stick.
Look at what is on it and all you see is a bunch of files. Nothing in folders or on different partitions.
Just the contents of the ISO placed on it.

An install of a operating system to the internal drive of a computer.
The operating system.
A boot loader to boot it.

The boot loader used is completely different from the one that is provided by the Puppy ISO.
This is not about the name of the boot loader. The setup is totally different.

As you can see the name live install seems now to indicate booting from an operating system on some type of removable USB, SD card drive or a CD/DVD.

A Puppy full install is the only type that does not load into memory or work in layers.
Live CD/DVD, frugal, live install on a USB, SD card, all work the same as to loading in RAM and in layers.

[wiak]

Live CD/DVD, frugal, live install on a USB, SD card, all work the same as to loading in RAM and in layers.

This is simply misleading or incorrect, but don't worry about it. You can full install onto a usb stick and boot it fine. Any media.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1217832 ... ep-by-step

Frugal install does not imply storing anything in RAM - that is optional.

The nonsense is the attempt to create a fictional Puppy Linux 'view' of the world, when there is no such differentiator in reality.

Knoppix has had live boot media since year 2000; nothing to do with Puppy view of the world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoppix

Knoppix was one of the first Live CDs available, and is known as the "original" Debian-based Live CD

https://polishlinux.org/choose/live-cd/

Here the term “LiveCD” means that the system’s Linux distribution can be stored on removable storage devices, such as CDs and USBs. The data does not need to be stored on the hard disk. This makes it easy to borrow things, to test out new things and to carry out rescue operations for the lost data on the computer.

Union filesystem type arrangements have been around since at least the 1980's on various UNIX systems. More recently, here is a 2004 article that describes how to use/implement UnionFS, which is pretty much what any distro dev will recognise as much the same as setting up layering via aufs or overlayfs today (in fact Puppy didn't use any type of union filesystem in first releases, but then used unionfs prior to adopting aufs):

https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7714

Unionfs recursively merges several underlying directories or branches into a single virtual view. The efficient fan-out structure of Unionfs makes it suitable for many applications. Unionfs can be used to provide merged distribution ISOs

This is not some Puppy LInux view of the world - lots of distributions have been using these technologies, but there is no mention of the term 'frugal' in the above, or anywhere else - I have a feeling the term was misleading coined indeed in the early Puppy description of unionfs in operation. Perhaps best to just live with the term, which was another piece of nonsense presumably to make out something well known (filesystem layering) was suddenly unique. Poor descriptive terminology just misleads and causes longterm confusion - as we see.

[wiak]

Foss Linux certainly does not use the term 'frugal'. Instead it simply compares "full install" to "persistent live". The only problem with that terminology is that persistence is actually optional in a layered installation.

https://www.fosslinux.com/49280/persist ... -drive.htm

But to be fair, they do qualify that description by saying:

Unknown to many, there is data persistency mode in the Live session

i.e. persistence being an optional mode

Overall the fosslinux article is good and technically accurate (unlike bigpup's claimed "Puppy View of the World" !! )
Excellent article in fact. You should read it and check your understanding maybe.

In fact I think I would now vote for terminology 'Persistent Live' since it is widely understood and pretty much an accurate description of how distros like Puppy do what some are referring to as their normal or standard installation method. Problem with terminology 'Layering', albeit much superior a description compared to meaningless/mis-leading 'frugal', is in fact that there is nothing to stop a developer using layering with a full installation as I have commented and demonstrated many times myself.

There certainly seems to be no perfect solution/answer though - the term "full install" is itself problematic - still implies "more", but I'd certainly chuck out 'frugal' as meaningless in every way or please explain what it means descriptively as a word??? Yes, 'live' doesn't exactly mean much either, but it does seem to be universally understood in the linux bootable distro world.

[bigpup]

I am talking about what Puppy does specifically,

So what if it can also be done by some other operating system.
They seem to be coping what others have done in being able to boot from just the ISO on a USB drive.
Have persistence to store changes.

Puppy Linux can do that too. Well the newer versions can.

All operating systems can run a computer, so what. It is specifically how they do it.

Why can't Puppy use terms the way it wants to use them?

Linux had to use directory for folder.
Well, now Microsoft seems to be OK if everyone just uses folder.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Live CD/DVD, frugal, live install on a USB, SD card, all work the same as to loading in RAM and in layers.

This is true.

Puppy operates the same basic way as to loading the complete operating system into RAM and loading the different sfs files into layers in the final file system.

Not as a full install you could call a live install on a USB.
You could call it a live install.
But to understand what install it is, you would need to say it is a full install on a USB stick.

Again.
In the Puppy world, a live install was always just putting all the files from the Puppy ISO on a CD/DVD or a USB stick.
Look at what is on it and all you see is a bunch of Puppy SFS files and boot loader files from the ISO. Nothing in folders or on different partitions.
Just the contents of the ISO placed on it.

That was how it was talked about in this and the old forum.

It was found for best understanding of how you had Puppy installed, to talk about a live install as being this way.

Not as a generic term for booting an install from a removable disk or drive.

I could get into the operating differences from booting from an install on a CD/DVD, SD card, SSD, USB, hard drive.
How RAM is used.
How a save is handled.

But none of the differences apply to a full install.
It only works one way.

[wiak]

Despite my above comments, there is a reason you should probably just keep the terms frugal and full install:

Similar distros such as Porteus, AntiX, and TinyCoreLinux have adopted the term 'frugal', I presume after long such usage at Puppy Linux websites ... oh well.

Nietzche:

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.

EDIT: MXlinux also using 'frugal' now... https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/frugal-installation/

[Feek]

It seems to me that the word "frugal" correctly expresses this method of installation, because compared to a full installation, this method is really frugal.

Let's say I'm a newbie and I visit the official website of Puppy linux, I click through to the installations.
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/install.html
Then I simply see that in the first place is:
1. Frugal install (Recommended)......
in second place:
2. USB install (Recommended)......
In the last place there is a full installation with this text:
3. Full install
This is a traditonal Linux install to its own dedicated partition. If you don’t have a suitable partition then you can use the included graphical partition manager GParted to shrink and move partitions as necessary to created a partition for your installation. You must use a Linux filesystem. Once this is done you are prompted for the location of your boot media files (either an iso image, optical media or just the files themselves) and once confirmed these are expanded in your chosen partition. A bootloader is then installed and once finished you can reboot into your new system.
Once booted this will act like any other Linux installation.

We can see that the first two installation types have the word "recommended" in brackets, the full installation does not.

However, a full installation is described as a traditional Linux installation, and there is nothing to suggest that it is strictly not recommended.

Most people use a full install on their computers (be it windows, linux or another OS) and seem to find another type of installation mysterious and prefer to choose what they know well.

Maybe it would be enough to change the text of the full install (put "not recommended!" in parentheses and explain why)?

[wiak]

Maybe it would be enough to change the text of the full install (put "not recommended!" in parentheses and explain why)?

Yes, there is already too much documentation out there already to start trying to change it now - sometimes you just have to accept accidents of history.

[puppy_apprentice]

This should be part of Puppy ISO. There is a Readme file on eg. Slacko 7.0 but an info like this above (in html format) should be included in a directory Help or Installation or Important. But i'm afraid that most people don't read help files, like me when I first installed Puppy in Full mode (but on VirtualBox).

[wiak]

Not sure if I should blame Robert Shingledecker of TinyCoreLinux for 'frugal' terminology - seems he wrote most of the following in June 2004, so the term been in use for a LONG.... time; Puppy Linux NOT to blame:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/flop ... stall.html

http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/cur ... al_lite.sh

Code: Select all

echo "Installing the compressed image..."
cp -r /mnt/iso/KNOPPIX /mnt/$TARGET

Finally run the frugal_lite.sh like this:

ash frugal_lite.sh
Follow the prompts.

Upon completion the system will reboot off the DSL boot floppy and start loading DSL.

Note: If the script fails to fetch the iso image with the error "bad header line: 500 GET not understood", change the PROTOCOL in the script back to "ftp" and run the script again.

Be sure to boot with the following:

boot: dsl vga=normal
Note: After you get your system running from boot floppy (poorman's) then you can install again into the other partition using the standard frugal_instal.sh giving you much more control of your system. Use the (L)ive CD install option as the poorman's is a virtual liveCD.

Or if the other partiton is large enough then do a regular dsl-hdinstall.

If you do this re-install into the other partition either frugal or full install then you can get rid of the poorman's by using fdisk to change it totype 82 (swap) and then format it for swap by using the mkswap /dev/hdaX

[wiak]

This should be part of Puppy ISO. There is a Readme file on eg. Slacko 7.0 but an info like this above (in html format) should be included in a directory Help or Installation or Important. But i'm afraid that most people don't read help files, like me when I first installed Puppy in Full mode (but on VirtualBox).

Yes, probably install instructions should simply say DO IT THIS WAY and leave the optional possibility of a full install to some buried forum thread where it probably belongs.

It is interesting to note that none of the mainstream Linux distros, Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat seem to EVER have used the term 'frugal' install. Rather they talk about union-type filesystems (be that unionfs, aufs, overlayfs and so on) and remark that these are often used to implement live installation CD/DVD iso-style media. Of course the point is that union filesystems have nothing per say special to do with booting, though they can be used during boot. All overlayfs or aufs or unionfs does is provide a way to layer several distinct filesystems together in a merge - can use the overall merge as the whole root filesystem or can use an overlay of directories as filesystems when running in a full installation. Only small live booting distros like Puppy seem to assume layering means something necessarily to do with booting and call it a 'frugal' boot for some bizarre and confusing reason. Mainstream makes no distinction at all really - a root filesystem is a root filesystem - how you arrange its filesystems and boot from it is up to you. I believe the technique of booting from an image file of some sort (which could be a squashfs) used to be called 'a poor man's install' and Debian once used that term though seems to have updated its docs so neither that nor 'frugal' is mentioned even in Debian Live docs. Poor man's install didn't necessarily involve any layering however.

I'm having second thoughts again - whilst full installed is truly well-established only these wee distros use the awful term 'frugal'; maybe good if the Puppy forum at least gets rid of the term at last?

Layered or virtual filesystem on Linux:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... m-on-linux

[cobaka]

On "full" vs "frugal"
My English teacher, Mrs Colliss terrorised the students in her English classes.
She did it, of course, in the nicest possible way.

She would put an essay on the desk in front of some unsuspecting student.
Then, pointing to a sentence she would ask: "Did you really mean to say that?"

Remembering the difficulties mentioned by @bigpup in re-coding etc I believe Puppy would benefit if "full" became "legacy". Frugal (I believe) refers to the relationship between disk usage and Puppy Linux. At this moment I don't understand the advantage of a "full" installation - if there is an advantage now.

Thinking about a word to replace "frugal" the word "standard", "stock", "regular" could be used. However, if only a single (frugal) installation is to be used then a modifying adjective should discouraged. My argument against "standard" would be: if the method changed (in the future) then "standard" would no longer be 'standard' and hence another problem would arise.

Basically I'm with @mikeslr.

собака

[mikeslr]

... My argument against "standard" would be: if the method changed (in the future) then "standard" would no longer be 'standard' and hence another problem would arise...
собака

Actually, that's a plus for the use of 'standard'. If the standard changes, the 'new standard' would be THE standard. The 'old-standard' --if offered at all-- would have to be renamed but probably wouldn't make it into new ISOs or however Puppys are then deployed.
There, of course, is nothing we can do about 'ISOs' then already 'in the Wild' which used the 'old-standard'. But newbies will be drawn to using 'standard': herd mentality and 'why should I be different' -- a commonly used concept in advertising: 'In a blind taste test more people preferred Pepsi'. And on the of-chance that a newbie has a question after doing-and-about the 'standard' of XYZ puppy, we'll know which 'standard' (s)he means.

bigpup is right. Yesterday I setup an experiment, I burned Racy to a two CDs creating 'Live' versions. I left the CD's 4 inches apart on a shelf overnight. This morning not only were they closer together but next to them were 6 racy mini-CDs.
Seriously, there is nothing 'live' about 'live'. Whoever first used the term may have done so in a context where it was clearly understood as a 'term of art'. Used out of that context it is either meaningless or misleading. We have no reason to perpetuate that circumstance.

From a technical viewpoint, creating a boot-able 'live' deployment to a CD/DVD requires a different program than creating a boot-able 'frugal' deployment to a hard-drive or USB-Key. But from a newby-User's viewpoint what you end up with in both instances is (a) some boot-loader and (b) initrd, vmlinuz, and one or more SFSes on the media [from which that Puppy will be booted to create a layered file-system in RAM]. The boot-loader isn't Puppy. Puppy is the files on the media. Live vs. Frugal is a distinction without a difference.

I placed [from which... in RAM] in parenthesis because while Devs must know that and Users should know that, a newbie having to decide which of two choices to make doesn't have to know that.

Devs have to know different methods and the technologies which provide them. Someone unfamiliar with Puppy should not have to become a Dev or learn the evolution of terminology just to deploy it.

You can't create a 'Full' Install using unetbootin, rufus, or AFAIK* any other 'foreign' operating system deployment application. Only by selecting it from Puppy Installer. It is we, ourselves, who create the problem.

Maybe bigpup and amethyst are right. The problem is that Puppy offers a choice. If --not already having Linux-Mint or AFAIK any other 'Major' distro-- I want it, I will first* have to burn it to a CD/DVD or USB-Key [the latter with or without persistence]. No choice. Having booted into that Distro from that media, I can then install it to a Hard-drive using an application it provides. That applications walks me thru the installation process slowly, methodically with choices and information about those choices displayed or 'Help' being a click away. [Frankly, compared to Puppy, it's a PITA. And if your choices are not just whether or not to keep Windows and how, you have to opt for 'Custom' and are pretty much on your own. But those are not Puppy's problems].

"Full" could simply be eliminated as a choice from Menu>Setup>Puppy Installer. It could be offered as an application on the Utility or separately on the Setup Menu of the 'Frugal' Puppy you've booted into. Those who start that application will fall into two categories: (a) Unfamiliar with what a 'Full Install' means and (b) Familiar but want it anyway. Rather than immediately triggering the creation of a 'Full install' it would trigger the display of a document spelling out the pros and cons of proceeding, ending with 'Continue' 'Cancel' boxes. Those familiar can quickly scan down to the 'Continue' box. Those unfamiliar will at least have the opportunity to find out what they are getting themselves into.

Rename what we've been calling a 'Full' Install an 'Unlayered Install' on the Menu: A clue to the technologically sophisticated, an name to intrigue the curious, but not so compelling as to start newbies down a path they wouldn't willing choose.

We end up with two menu listings: Standard Install and Unlayered Install.

Perhaps (Guessing only) all that's needed from a technical standpoint is some modification, perhaps division, of the current "Puppy Installer" code or its parts; plus, of course, two /usr/.../desktop files.

-=-=-----
*There is another method of deploying Puppys: use Ventoy and/or SuperGrub2 to boot directly from an ISO. IIRC, Grub2, itself, can do that. We have no control over what their creators do. And AFAIK, none of those mechanisms enable the deployment of what we call a 'Full' install.

[wiak]

The problem remains that newcomers to any distro introduced for major discussion on the forum may already be using other Linux distros for which a 'standard' or 'normal' install is a full install - and full install is a well-known term everywhere; frugal as a term is not used by most distro teams - just now a few who seem to have picked it up from each other starting maybe with Knoppix, Damn Small Linux, or Puppy Linux.

Thinking about frugal install further, whilst it is not required that the filesystem itself ends up in RAM, it is true that the juggling about of mounts/inodes is organised in RAM by the kernel prior to accessing the underlying parts. I don't know what 'live' is really supposed to mean, despite what it means in terms of how it is used - perhaps it meant all that frugal juggling about of mounts/inodes 'lives' in RAM, but I have no idea - 'live' remains an odd choice of terminology to me.

Both full and frugal install types are entirely technical by nature and no amount of complaining about that helps avoid finding correct terminology that at least has some meaning. My audio system has stereo mixer controls, along with treble, base and the tv has channels and frequencies that need scanned - all technical terms that couldn't be avoided and worse than the issue surrounding simple layering of filesystems to provide a merged actual filesystem like a merged graphic image of layers.

Currently, a full install is Standard for most distros, except with the likes of non-standard installed Puppy. 'Standard' simply doesn't fit the bill.

[wiak]

The fact that a truly popular distro like MXlinux has adopted the term 'frugal' is a bit of a bummer in terms of 'case law'...

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/frugal-installation/

They've even added to the terminological mess with "frugal_static" whatever that means...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... inological

More examples
There have been efforts to rectify problems caused by terminological confusion, usually by substituting new terms for the old ones.
This is a dangerous terminological inexactitude.
Such terminological discussions, in my view, are typically poorly motivated, add little to the inquiry, and confuse matters more than anything else.
To see that this difference is not merely terminological, note the following.
The terminological complications make the book somewhat risky to give to students without providing quite a lot of extra scaffolding.

NOTE WELL, however, that

MX uses the antiX live system

i.e. blame wee antiX for this usage case.

[mow9902]

Besides clarifying the terminology (and naming) perhaps there might also be some advantage in clarifying why the user would want to choose one install method over the other ie give the user a brief summary of what the chosen install will do, and how it differs from the other. I know this is something I'm always interested in before deciding - perhaps something which covers these points? Just a thought:

Puppy Specific Install (Recommended)
• Can be Installed to
◦ removal USB
◦ internal HD
◦ external HD

• Objectives
◦ x
◦ x

• Will Create
◦ x
◦ x

• Advantages
◦ x
◦ x

• Disadvantages
◦ x
◦ x

Generic Linux Install
• Can be Installed to
◦ removal USB
◦ internal HD
◦ external HD
•
• Objectives
◦ x
◦ x
•
• Will Create
◦ x
◦ x
•
• Advantages
◦ x
◦ x
•
• Disadvantages
◦ x
◦ x

[bigpup]

Already in the FAQ at puppylinux.com
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/install.html

But it could use some tweaking to provide a little more detailed info.

But just like me and a lot of other people.
We do not need to read no stinking info or directions

[mikeslr]

Edit: Skip down to the section below the word "Rethinking"

The problem only exists because of how the application "Puppy Installer" operates, both its coding and its display. Puppy Installer, and only Puppy Installer, offers the choices of 'Frugal' or 'Full'.

However a newbie boots into his or her first Puppy, it's a Frugal install (or the equivalent, an ISO deployment with the option to create 'persistence' via a SaveFile/Folder). Only from that first Puppy can a 'Full' install to a hard-drive* be created. That's when the newbie discovers Puppy Installer.

It doesn't matter what other distros are doing; what terminology other distros may use. The newbie may have heard of 'Full install' and 'Frugal install'; or not. It doesn't matter if those choices aren't offered by Puppy Installer. If the only choices offered are one Menu listing for 'Standard' Install and another Menu listing for 'Unlayered' install my guess is that not having any reason to do otherwise the newbie will opt for a 'Standard' install.

To do an 'Unlayered' install there's a good chance that the newbie will first have to use gparted to restructure the hard-drive to prepare a partition for it [and if Windows is to be kept, first boot back into it to create 'unallocated space']. Creating an Unlayered install is not something done on impulse. Having the 'Unlayered' install application open with a GUI explaining the process, providing the pros and cons and requiring confirmation to proceed is not an undue burden to place on anyone. I think it would be welcomed.

I don't have the skill to create the GUI. But I'll be glad to provide a draft of the text to be displayed. Emphasis on the word draft. I don't know what the technical details are or need to be included. Those of you who have read my advice to newbies will know that I only think an Unlayered Puppy may be appropriate under these circumstances: (a) intention to compile large applications; (b) intention to render videos where it is necessary to change codex or containers; (c) or more generally on a computer having less than 512 Mbs of RAM. [Should that be increased now that many Puppys recommend 1Gb as a minimum?]. You may also have run across posts where I suggested that for situations (a) and (b) a Frugal install also be deployed and used for all other activity. Are there other circumstances when a Full install would be superior to a Frugal?

Keep in mind, the text, though clear and informative, should be as short as possible. I'll try to.

If anyone thinks its worth doing, I'll write-up a draft and post it for comments, criticisms, and suggestions for revision.

Rethinking
This is something I should have done before writing anything: Run Puppy Installer. It's been years since I've used it; and perhaps it's been changed as I wasn't what I recall. It's late now. But tomorrow I'll do run it again, post screen-shots and ask questions. So, maybe hold of commenting until we all know exactly what we're now dealing with.

[wiak]

Already in the FAQ at puppylinux.com
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/install.html

But it could use some tweaking to provide a little more detailed info.

But just like me and a lot of other people.
We do not need to read no stinking info or directions

Hmmm... that's the trouble being relatively new; I didn't know that page existed

[dancytron]

Admittedly I didn't read the whole thread, but I prefer "layered" and "legacy".

Layered because it's descriptive of what is going on and legacy because it will discourage people by letting them know it really isn't a feature.

[amethyst]

The first time I used Puppy (must be around 2007), I used the universal install script and did a full install. Coming from Windows and have never used Linux before, that was the "logical" choice for me at the time (I mean you are going to do what looks familiar to you). I still recall spending about half a day trying to get grub configuration right, couldn't understand the numbering of the partitions. BTW - I had a look at the universal script yesterday. It shoudn't be too difficult to remove or comment the full install parts. Lots of frugal vs full install reference in that script. Also the term standard referring to frugal but for a newby from Windows that will not be a logical deduction. I would rather think that when a Windows user read "standard" it would mean full install. Again - my suggestion is to provide only the frugal install method and just call it Puppy Install.

[stevie pup]

I must admit I'm one of those that doesn't normally bother reading help files, and this is simply because with all the other Linux distros I've installed the procedure has been like this:

1) Boot live USB
2) Click "install" icon on desktop
3) Follow whatever come up on screen

That's it, job done, and I can't say I've had any significant problems either.

Also I don't think it's a good idea to completely abandon "Full" installs. Although I've never needed to do one with Puppy I realise that some people do. My understanding is that this is often the case with old, resource limited machines.

As for different names, to be honest I would be scratching my head more over "layered" than I would over "frugal", but that might just be me.

[geo_c]

It always seemed to me that in the days of Lucid the term "frugal install" had more to do with the idea that the install could sit on a partition formatted for Windows, in that it used a "savefile" rather than a "savefolder," and in that way "frugal" always meant to me that you could save your Windows install and run puppy right along side with no harm done. At least that's what I took it to mean in the early days, and I certainly installed that way quite a bit, until late 2019 when Fossapup was so solid and versatile that I didn't feel I had to have a Windows install to fall back on.

Perhaps "frugal" could mean a savefile on a Windows partion, and everything else is just a puppy install, either with a savefile or savefolder, which could be called "Folder install" or "File install", with no option in the installer routines to do a "full install."

[wiak]

It always seemed to me that in the days of Lucid that the term "frugal install" had more to do with the idea that the install could sit on a partition formatted for Windows, in that it used a "savefile" rather than a "savefolder" and in that way "frugal" always meant to me that you could save your Windows install and run puppy right along side with no harm done. At least that's what I took it to mean in the early days, and I certainly installed that way quite a bit, until late 2019 when Fossapup was so solid and versatile that I didn't feel I had to have a Windows install to fall back on.

Perphaps "frugal" could mean a savefile on a Windows partion, and everything else is just a puppy install, either with a savefile or savefolder, which could be called "Folder install" or "File install", with no option in the installer routines to do a "full install."

Exactly. Being able to put a different distro alongside another one is actually the key difference (technically we use layering to achieve that, but actually layering can also be used for other purposes with full install distros - in fact union filesystems were designed simply as a merge filesystems facility with no particular boot install mechanism in mind and no doubt at all by people mainly using full installed distros with plans to use layering as part of that - not so-called 'frugal install' reasons at all). Just a pity someone, someday long ago, chose that often term 'frugal' to describe the install type since as we've commented, frugal can infer 'less'.

Full installed distros are also sometimes better - depending on my needs and purpose I often run a full installed distro. Main thing for me is ease of upgrade. Frugal installed distros are notoriously difficult to upgrade sometimes because key files are inside the initrd, which is compressed, or inside one of the compressed layer addon sfs files or whatever and simply writing upgrade to topmost read-write layer isn't always sufficient when glibc upgrades or kernel upgrades may be involved.

Main reason I often use frugal is convenience to allow me to try out new ideas and then not bother save them (save persistence 'tricks' using RAM-only based sessions) if I don't like them and similarly simply to make it convenient to test out other distros without having to make new partitions for each and every one of them or multiple usb-sticks, but plenty reasons frugal installed distros do not replace full installed distros as universal preference (and aside from anything else, odd things can happen with frugal installs when different types of formatted filesystems are involved - technical issues with inodes that can cause issues with overlaying I personally cannot say I understand fully but do know exist and are documented about, xino and so on, in the likes of kernel overlayfs docs).

[geo_c]

So in other words the terms:

Frugal Install/user-file on windows partition - it's frugal, because you're protecting your existing Windows installation with the finnicky Windows partioning scheme, and you're being 'frugal' about tampering with it. And in fact, this type of install is somewhat more limited, in that not being on a linux partition, the save file must be a set size (though expandable) and certain functionality like symlinking outside the pupsave on the ntfs partition is not possible. It's still flexible in that multiple saves can be used for backup, multi-user, and alternate versions.

Compressed Install/user-file on linux partition - it's a compressed install because it's upper-changes are a compressed user file system, It's flexible because it's portable, and files can be reproduced to allow for multiple users and versions, and can co-exist with other distribution installations (Although I've never used that option on an linux ext partition, I think some people do) It's limited in that the file size must be set and expanded manually.

Open Install/user-folder on linux partition - it's more flexible because it's portable, and uses whatever space is available on the drive. It's open because it's upper changes are in a folder which can be accessed easily from outside the save, and folders can be reproduced to allow for multiple users/versions, and can co-exist with other distributions and installations.

Full Partition Install/system owned partition (possible but not supported) - it claims a partition and is not flexible in terms of being portable or multi-user in the case of running-as-root puppies.

[wizard]

I think we are to late to change the terminology because we cannot undo the past. To many legacy program references on the web and in existing Puppy's that can't be undone. I do think we can do a better job of defining what Frugal means in a Puppy install.

@rockedge
I would propose we add a "Installing Puppy, README FIRST" as the very first item on the Board Index page and it be coded to stand out. Here is suggested content for the entry:

Puppy Linux is not just one distribution. Instead its developers use a "recipe" to create small, fast and flexible Linuxes built from a parent like Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware or other large distribution.

If you are a MS Windows user and new to Linux or if you have used another Linux distribution you will find Puppy Linux does some things that are different.

Install Types:
Frugal = Puppy's standard and recommended install (it is a complete install)
Full = Not Recommended, reserved for very old, very low power computers

Unlike Windows or large Linux distributions that install thousands of individual files on your drive, Puppy puts only a few compressed SFS files that are like “Zip” files in Windows (this method is called a “Frugal” install for the efficient way it uses the computers resources). When Puppy boots up, the SFS files are copied into ram memory and Puppy runs completely from ram.. The original compressed files are “read only” so they always remain in like new condition. This goes a long way into making Puppy more stable, secure and bullet proof than other operating systems.

When you make changes, download files, add programs or create documents, etc. they are saved into another file/folder called the save file or save folder.

This all makes Puppy Linux more flexible to use than almost any other operating system. With its small size it can:
- run completely from a CD or DVD drive
- run completely from a USB flash drive
- run completely from its ISO on a USB flash drive (using special tools)
- run completely from a SD Card (if the computer supports sdcard boot)
- run completely from an external USB hard drive
- run completely from an internal hard drive in its own partition.
- run completely from an internal hard drive in the same partition as MS Windows or another Linux (called dual booting).
- run completely within a Virtual Machine

In addition, you can run more than one Puppy Linux in the same partition. If you like you can have configurations or Puppy’s for different purposes. Such as, web surfing, one for games, one only used for financial transactions, one for audio/video processing, one for graphics, etc.

wizard

[tosim]

@wizard IMHO-What you have just posted IS IT. @rockedge PLEASE READ(and heed?) what wizard just posted.