Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi, I'm a newbie, so maybe this question is a bit silly. Recently I installed puppy linux BionicPup32 8.0 on my old laptop and it was great. Work light and fast.I installed it to the hard drive with full installation.

But I have a question. During the boot process to puppy, the display will be filled with the inscription boot progress. Is there a way to make a loading screen appear on boot? Like a splash screen will appear during the boot process until the desktop appears, and the boot process itself runs in the background.

Once again, thank you, Puppy linux is awesome work

@Raihan7210 to the forums!

Do you mean the verbosity of text lines ending with "...Done!" ????

There might be a way. Will have to look in to it,

There is probably a way to get those to not show.

However as soon as you do it.

When the day comes and something goes wrong with the boot.

You will want to have those messages showing, so you can see what is not working.

What are you going to tell us if it does not boot one day.

It will not boot.

Or this:

It boots to the point of seeing this message and I get this error.

We give fixes for boot issues, all the time, based on what people report seeing, as it does the boot process.

I suggest you just not look at the screen when it is booting.

The idea of seeing or not seeing these messages, went back and forth, in the early days of Puppy.
It finally settled on, better to see them, than not see them.

Puppy has several ways to install and several ways to boot.

What it does as it boots, is big clues, as to what it is doing, and type of install you have.

@Raihan7210, before you get 'deep into the weeds' with your 'Full Install' I STRONGLY recommend you replace it* with a 'frugal' install. Puppys are/were-never designed to run as Full Installs. They run as Root --you and hackers can delete/modify everything-- and lack the protection built-into operating systems designed to be 'full installs'. A broken --infected-- Full Install Puppy is almost impossible to fix. A Full install can't use SFSes --applications loaded/unloaded but not installed-- conserving the need for RAM.
The 'Full-Install' technique was developed over a dozen years ago when the internet was less threatening and computers had less powerful CPUs, and importantly, often sold with less than 256 Mbs of RAM. At that time it enabled 'shaving-off' a couple of second in the amount of time it took to boot. Today, with more RAM that difference is measured in micro-seconds.
A 'Full install' and a 'Frgual install' are exactly the same operating systems, providing the same applications. They differ only in how they are deployed.
While a 'frugal install' can be located on any media (and on a partition only needs its own folder) a Full Install requires its own Linux Formatted partition. But if you have a Linux Formatted partition you can run a frugal install with all the benefits of a full install and none its disadvantages.
When you shut-down a frugal install the first time you'll have the opportunity to create either a SaveFile (which can be located anywhere) or a SaveFolder (which requires a Linux formatted partition). If you chose the latter a directory will be created which, initially empty, will expand to the entire space available on the partition if later needed: so 'mimics' what a 'Full install' does. While you probably don't need to, you can limit the amount of RAM a frugal install uses for a SaveFolder by editing the boot menu to include the 'nocopy' argument. see, viewtopic.php?p=14683#p14683

About your interest in a customized 'boot-screen' since you use grub4dos as your boot-manager this post should help, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 98#p167298.

Basically, you can open any desired graphic in mtPaint, Convert To Indexed. Set indexed colours to use to 14 (this will ruin any fancy gradients if you used more than 14 colours), and click on OK. Save it as an xpm named splash.xpm. Locate it on the boot-partition, next to menu.lst. Edit menu.lst to read:
splashimage=splash.xpm
[or splashimage=/COMPLETE-PATH-TO/WHATEVER-NAME-YOU-GAVE-IT.xpm

-=-=-=---
* To replace it: (a) Create a folder on your Linux partition with a unique name. (b) Left-Click/mount the Puppy ISO. ( c) Copy initrd.gz, vmlinuz and ALL FILES ending with '.sfs' into the folder you created. (d) Run grub4dos from the menu, replacing your current listing. (e) Boot into your frugal install. (f) delete everything from your Linux partition EXCEPT the folder you created (and anything relating to grub4dos if on the same partition). Run grub4dos again to update your boot-menu.

Nicely explained @mikeslr
It would also be wise to make a backup copy of your save file/folder when you have completed your setup.
That way if you ever do have an issue you can restore you whole system by deleting your current (broken) save file/folder and restore the backup.
Now you are back up a running in just a few minutes and a couple of reboots

d-pupp wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:33 pm

Nicely explained @mikeslr
It would also be wise to make a backup copy of your save file/folder when you have completed your setup.
That way if you ever do have an issue you can restore you whole system by deleting your current (broken) save file/folder and restore the backup.
Now you are back up a running in just a few minutes and a couple of reboots

IIRC, Bionicpup32 has tools for creating a backup on its Utilities Submenu. You can't just copy a SaveFile or SaveFolder while it's being used. But there are other ways --great for experimenting-- I explained here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 020#p85020

My prediction:

Soon or later, you gonna need it, so don't hide this info looking for a nice screen.

You will gain in beauty, but some day you are going to swear trying to find where the error is.

Remember, Boot information enables troubleshooting: If there are issues with the boot process, such as hardware failures or software errors, the boot information can be used to troubleshoot and fix the problem or give info to other puppy user who can help u.

Bear this in mind

Raihan7210 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:19 am

Hi, I'm a newbie, so maybe this question is a bit silly. Recently I installed puppy linux BionicPup32 8.0 on my old laptop and it was great. Work light and fast.I installed it to the hard drive with full installation.

But I have a question. During the boot process to puppy, the display will be filled with the inscription boot progress. Is there a way to make a loading screen appear on boot? Like a splash screen will appear during the boot process until the desktop appears, and the boot process itself runs in the background.

Once again, thank you, Puppy linux is awesome work

IIR, Saluki has an intense-looking doggie splash screen and the (boot step)..... Done parade is in a small font which is less offensive?? and takes place around the foreground doggie.

Note here that I haven't dug out my EeePC 701 in a while and therefore cannot copy you the menu.1st for reference just yet, but however Jemimah did it is both very attractive on an 800x480 screen, and no doubt food for thought. IMHO.

great, thanks a lot. you all really helped me
Oh, and also an explanation about why the blot progress text appears is needed, it make me understand more deeply. It adds to my knowledge. Also about Full install and normal install those explanations are very useful. During the first install, I was really worried about puppy not running fast, so I opted for the full install. But after reading your explanation, I think I gained some deep knowledge. Once again, thank you so much. You all help