Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello all:

An associate - i'll call him "K" works with another fellow - "B" to supply 'rescued' PCs to people. Windows is "their thing"; occasionally a 'problem child' turns up. "K" told me about a Toshiba put to one side as a 'problem child'. Model L750 laptop, about 2012 vintage with 4GiB RAM. A major problem - non-functioning touch-pad (mouse).

Only a weak and unimaginative mind could fail to consider such a 'victim' a blessing sent from god to be nourished to full life (and service). In an age when a few words can 'trigger' a victim into deep depression I decided this PC probably heard some-one say: Oh, modern PC's are much lighter and more elegant than this this. "Toshy" thought, "I'm just trash." That was the source of the problem. Poor self esteem. So "Toshy" arrived in my workshop.

Soon she booted Windows 7 (home edition) and the touch-pad was working too. I installed FossaPup 64 on a thumb-drive; internet connection via cable (ethernet port) worked. I left 'Fossa' running for a day or so. At this stage I should give some detail.

Hardware: Toshiba, L750. RAM 4GiB. OS - Windows 7 (Home edition) on HDD (capacity unk).
Since "K" seemed interesed in crossing over the the dark side I left Windows/HDD untouched.

Installation: Done on my working PC (I'm typing on it now). Installation using MikeSLR's 'manual+ROX' drag and drop. Boot-loader: GRUB for DOS. At this point I think I booted the (not too recent) 8GiB thumb drive on my (this) desktop PD. Oh! Better mention this.
Partition using gParted, from Bionic64.
P1 as FAT32, 48MiB - BOOTLOADER.
P2, ext3 for 6GiB.
P3 - as ext3, about 2048MiB. SYSTEM.
USB2. Formatted in the order P1, P2, P3 (of course). Boot-loader flag for P1, of course.

Booted the Toshiba (an unremarkable exercise). "Toshy" was running; booting as expected. I connected to the internet; looked at the weather a bit. Toshy sat on the table for a few days. She gained confidence and self esteem simple because she was 'doing her thing' and not being triggered by other lighter, more modern laptops. Then so - thinking all was well, and knowing that "K" might be a source of PCs for a worthy cause in the future I took "Toshy" around to "K's" well ordered home.

Before I go any further: (Just to clarify). I believe I shut down Windows fully - I didn't click 'hibernate/sleep'.

"K" explained that his fingers didn't do well with touch-pads; he produced an extension USB hub. (We needed that because Toshy's USB ports felt 'mushy' and the mouse (with cord) didn't seem to work in them. Now Toshy booted from a thumb-drive in the extension hub. Mouse was working.) At this point: a major mistake on my part. I didn't make a written note of what I did/saw. Another thing. "K" produced a rather nice monitor. More about that later.

Now - when Toshy booted - I found the drive allocation (identification if you like) was 'up a well known creek'. I couldn't find the partitions on the thumb-drive (although FossaPup was running). I expected to see "sda" - the 'Windows' hard drive and "sdb" - the USB2 thumb-drive. I looked for /mnt/sdb3/FossaPup_OS/adrv_fossapup64 (etc). I couldn't see it.

The external monitor worked, but (not always). "K" said: "I think Toshy's HDMI socket is intermittent." I said, "Could be. Connection seems jumpy" And here's 'sump-un'. You know FossaPup's desk-top? On the external monitor the 'Puppy' wasn't visible. What???

Now "K" said: Let's try Windows. (Windows? What's that?) His comment triggered me, but when my hands stopped trembling, I said, o-o-o-OK in a weak, faltering voice.) Firefox said: Time to update, and it did. Surprise! Windows 7 ran SBS 'on demand' and YouTube. I watched a full session of the Bach/Bussoni Chaconne by Polina Osetinskaya and felt a little better. I told "K": I betta talk with Big-Pup about the Puppy problems. For me, they don't compute. "K" said, "Who's Big-Pup?" I thought, "Everyone knows the name of the king of England". (hint: think 'charles'.) How could some-one not know Big-Pup? Still, as Ned Kelly said, "Such is life."

I will re-install Fossa64 on a (different) clean thumb-drive and run Toshy.
I have another idea. I'll install uPupBB (not FossaPup) on a second drive and boot from that too.

Meanwhile: anyone got a list of observations I need to make to figure what's going on here. My two points of complaint: 1. Performance is down, compared with how FossaPup ran on my work-bench. (2) Thumb-drive names on the desk-top don't appear with ident I expect.

Should I use a different method to install Puppy? (The ROX+manual from MikeSLR never failed before.)

That's my Q. What observations will tell what's going on here?

Cobaka.

cobaka

Because of comments about connecting stuff to computer and connection ports maybe having issues.

I would take the back cover off.

clean it out if needed.
Look for corrosion on contacts,
Any connections pull loose and reconnect.
Check the USB ports very closely for anything inside, bent pins, corrosion, etc.......

For sure, make very sure Windows is not shutdown in hibernate.

I assume when using Windows and you shutdown.
Do a complete power off shutdown for at least 1 minute before booting with Fossapup64.
That will make sure the memory is totally empty before booting Fossapup64.

Some of what you are saying about Fossapup64 9.5 is kind of things you see if the install of it is not 100% good.
Strange issues will sometimes be fixed by starting over fresh with a new download of the iso and clean new install.

Try booting not using the save to see if that has any affect on the issues.

Drive icons on desktop display.
Check settings in Puppy Event Manager -> Rox Icons