Installing Bionic Puppy Linux to hard drive

@VanillaCoffee :-

Yep, I thought so. Lord Boltar WAS on the right track. That particular set of "wee" error messages simply shows you haven't flagged the partion where the bootloader lives as being "bootable".

That should fix the issue. It appears to have done for others with those same "wee" number codes.


Mike. ;)
 


I'm not sure I like the sound of that plus I really don't want a USB drive hanging off the side of the netbook every time I use it also USB flash drives can become corrupted when used to many times like this. I'd much prefer to have the Puppy OS on SSD.
My response to this is two-fold.

Back in 2003, when Puppy first appeared on the scene, NAND flash - the type of memory you find in flash drives - was still rather 'delicate'. Excessive I/O read/write operations could very easily wear NAND out.

Modern NAND is very, VERY much more 'durable'. I've run Puppies from the same flash drive for years & years without issue. It does help to buy a good brandname if you're going to do this, of course. I've always had success with SanDisk, especially the current USB 3.1/3.2 Ultra 'Fit' nano-drives.......which are so tiny you can leave them plugged-in permanently, and you hardly notice they're there.

And Puppy doesn't constantly read from / write to its home drive in the same way that a mainstream distro will. You can configure her to only write to your 'save-folder' every 30 minutes or so.....or even, to only 'save' the session changes when you go to shut down. She runs from, and records all changes in, RAM itself UNTIL you're ready to save it.

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Normally, I won't recommend Puppy to beginners for one simple reason; she employs a lot of unique concepts which are different to almost every other distro out there. If you cut your teeth with Puppy, then decide you wish to try a more mainstream distro, you've basically got to learn stuff all over again.

And that, to me, doesn't make a lot of sense.

Usually, I'll recommend to start with a mainstream distro, learn your way around that, then move across to trying Puppy as & when you feel ready.

However, certain hardware - like yours - because they're pretty low-resource to begin with, could almost have been built with Puppy in mind! Even a lightweight mainstream distro is going to be pretty tough on that hardware. So in a case like yours, Puppy actually makes a lot of sense.

Mike. ;)
 
I did try Fossa Puppy but it failed to load. I'm going to scrap Bionic Puppy and try Lupu Puppy Linux which is the more traditional flavor. I'm going to install it to SSD and I understand I need two partitions one for SWAP of 4GB and the other partition in exFAT for the OS.

I wonder if there is any reason why the developers of Puppy Linux have made it so difficult and complicated to install.

I remember installing Puppy to hard drive years ago and all's I did was partition the hard drive and installed the system and it was done. I can't remember exactly how I did it but it wasn't overly complicated. This was about 7 years ago. Things have changed since then.
I have run Puppy off and on over the years and have always greatly enjoyed it.
Often I would install it to the hard drive even though that is not the 'recommended' method.
It worked perfectly.
In my opinion, when all these various 'flavors' of Puppy started appearing is when things started changing.
To me it seemed that they were straying from Barry Kauler's vision of what Puppy is.
A couple years ago I noticed he had a new project going in a similar vein.
 
Some people can't stand dongleware. But I have never understood the hate for a "flash" drive plugged in which serves as the system. It could be the only way to have Linux OS because installing it could be an expensive complication. Even for somebody who totally gave up MacOS or Windows. Take it from me, I ran Solus for three months last year and that does something to the ESP which I'm not able to explain but certainly isn't like what is done by eg. Debian. Sadly Fedora are becoming more this way, expecting an ESP of at least 1GB.

For at least two years I have run 32-bit Ubuntu Studio "Precise Pangolin" on a 16GB Kingston drive, because the computer I was using had a dead hard disk. Windows7 killed that hard disk. I couldn't afford anything else since I was unemployed.

Sorry if I keep changing the subject. There was nothing like running EasyOS on a 16GB external disk. On the first time a disk is booted, after the "IMG" was copied into it, the OS formats automatically into an "ext4" partition nearly all of the available space, which could be neat for beginners who could deal with the GUI and the "Puppy-isms". It's mostly my fault that I didn't keep it because I was uncomfortable with it.
 
What would be the best latest puppy version to go with? it has to be 32-bit.
EasyOS, it does have a 32 bit version.
Or Tahrpup but you may have to learn how to update the kernel (I never did that).
If you want to live with Puppy, avoid getting itchy for latest and newest stuff.
 
And that, to me, doesn't make a lot of sense.
If you are not for capitalism, it doesn't mean you have to be communist.:)

I dual boot Easy and MX on most of my computers.
Easy for daily surfing (safe like hell) and MX when I am stuck with what I can't do in Easy. No I won't and can't learn anymore from Puppies.:(

On my more powerful PCs , I even use Windows in VM (including XP) without prejudice. Saving my scanners , printers from the e-waste is more important for me than rules and correctness.
 
@VanillaCoffee :-

What would be the best latest puppy version to go with? it has to be 32-bit.

If you want up-to-date, stable, rock-solid, regularly maintained/updated and with access to the huge Debian repositories - in this case, the "Buster" repos - along with the traditional 'apt-get' package management mechanism, then it's a no-brainer. You want Vanilla DPup. Take a look here:-

https://vanilla-dpup.github.io/

It's available in both 32-bit & 64-bit builds, and is regularly updated & maintained by Dima Krasner, the lead Woof-CE developer. This is Dima's personal side-project, and he's fanatical about everything being bang up to date & ultra-secure. He's also the only Puppy dev who's putting any effort into making Puppy compatible with GTK+ 4, Pipewire AND Wayland.

It'll be a bit different to 'standard' Puppy, but.......I think you just might like it.

@ML_113 :-

If you want to live with Puppy, avoid getting itchy for latest and newest stuff.

Mmm.....that was true in years gone by, though not so much these days. Puppy is starting to move away from the "frozen snapshot in time" paradigm of its past, and is steadily approaching the stage where regular system upgrades are becoming the norm, along with the ability to run the very newest software. Dima's Debian-based DPups and the Void-based "Kennel Linux" series are both prime examples of this.....Kennel Linux being the personal project of our Puppy Forum Admin himself, rockedge.

It's quite an exciting time to be a Puppy user, because new stuff/ideas are coming out every other day, it seems. Even my own series of 'portable' Chromium-based browsers - including Chrome - will mostly now update via their included updater scripts; a couple which I wrote myself, several others which have recently been added by my good friend & fellow Puppian, fredx181 (thanks, Fred!)

Many of my 'portable' packages are built with the latest versions, and have all the included necessary extra libs (via LD_LIBRARY_PATH) that are necessary to allow them to run on as wide a range of Puppies as possible. Some even have built-in newer versions of the glibc, along with newer versions of libstdc++/dbus/libssl/certs, etc., to permit use of up-to-date software by quite elderly Puppies that couldn't otherwise handle them.

Add to this the several veteran Puppy gurus in the community who are willing to produce fixes/workarounds and even complete utility/app solutions more or less at the drop of a hat, along with the frankly unbelievable quantity of different software Puppy is capable of running nowadays, annnd.....well; it's fair to say that 'our Pup' is very much underrated by the Linux community as a whole, many of whom regard Puppy as little better than a toy, or a "curiosity" at best.

(That's why I can't stand the snotty, superior attitude of many of the members over at LinuxQuestions.org, most of whom have been there like forever, and who look down their noses at anyone who isn't a full-blown, fully-paid-up, veteran Linux geek. These guys still snarl "RTFM!" at noobs, even today...) :rolleyes:

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I tried EasyOS, but Barry's used just TOO many new concepts, all at the same time, for me to really get my head around it. It's a bit OTT for my liking.....but to put the shoe on the other foot, my 'daily driver' is a re-mastered 64-bit build of one of Barry's early 'Quirky' experimental series. Almost 10 years old now, it STILL functions beautifully with most of today's current software (following a kernel upgrade from 3- to 5-series, a glibc upgrade, and updated dbus/libssl/certificates, etc.)

It was years ahead of its time when Barry released it, and most built-in libs, etc, were the very latest cutting-edge versions, all compiled & built from source. Most current brand-new software is still happy with them, even today. :)

In my book, despite vacating the role of 'benevolent dictator' to the Puppy community years ago, he is still the "PuppyMaster". He always will be.


Mike. ;)
 
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I love it when Mike talks canine. ;)
 
Thanks all... I downloaded Vanilla Puppy I had no idea there were new versions I always saw Puppy as a very small Distro that is made for old computers but I learned its much more than that. Hopefully with the new version the installer will be easier to work out.
 
Puppy is starting to move away from the "frozen snapshot in time" paradigm of its past, and is steadily approaching the stage where regular system upgrades are becoming the norm, along with the ability to run the very newest software.
But will that make Puppies less safe ?
 
I have noticed that with a lot of light Linux Distros although I wouldn't say they were frozen in time. Most Distros are in the GB now instead of the MB making them no longer light weight so older machines like single core atom processors and even dual core 2 systems will run slow and as the internet expands requiring faster hardware then Linux desktop environments are no longer the alternative but text based Linux should still be good for many years.

I really got into Ubuntu 8.04 when it was the latest release and ditched Windows. I used Ubuntu right up to 10.04 until it starting changing with its eye candy bloat, then I moved to Lubuntu on my main system and that was good until Lubuntu 9.04 came along with lots of bugs. I then moved onto another Linux OS on my main machine. I have lots of computers so I enjoy testing out different Distros to see how they run on different hardware.
 
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I have noticed that with a lot of light Linux Distros although I wouldn't say they were frozen in time. Most Distros are in the GB now instead of the MB making them no longer light weight so older machines like single core atom processors and even dual core 2 systems will run slow and as the internet expands requiring faster hardware then Linux desktop environments are no longer the alternative but text based Linux should still be good for many years.

I still use devices on occasion that have only 1GB (or 1.5GB) of RAM, being pentium M laptops from 2003-2004. I have a device with intel atom n270 CPU (i386 only; though dual thread) that I still use though rarely (I dislike it's 91% reduced-size keyboard the main reason I ignore it).

I also used a c2d box from 2005 in QA-testing of Ubuntu Desktop mantic (what will be released as 23.10 in October) and it ran I felt very well, though if it was me I'd use a lighter desktop than GNOME (though I'm just happier using other choices too). I'm using a 2008 dell optiplex running c2q currently which was also used in my QA-testing of Ubuntu mantic desktop today & I can say this box ran it really well & I enjoyed running Ubuntu Desktop on this system (both the c2d & c2q ran it equally, but the faster c2q was just more 'fun').

Key in being light is not I believe the distro or desktop itself, but selecting the desktop/WM & toolkit/libraries it uses and matching that with the apps you'll use on that system. Some browsers (or maybe more specifically the sites you visit on those browsers) will need GB of RAM to operate as that's just how the pages work; offloading all the work to your system displaying the page instead of their servers (that only serve the files).

I don't think there is that much in the distribution choice, and I'm not sure what you mean by GB/MB in that I don't know if you're talking about disk size or RAM size.

I don't care what my distro will use at install in most cases; as I'll adjust it post-install to be what I want (with regard packages & what's stored on my disk & gets upgraded). As for what's in RAM, that I consider my job - but I tend to bloat my systems (on disk) in that I make them multi-desktop/WM installs & self-manage what's in RAM myself in the decision as to if I'll load another app, OR which app will be most efficient given what I've already put in my RAM (ie. ensuring the apps share tk/libs). When you're still using single-core devices with only 1GB of RAM, you tend to consider that automatically.
 
I have a couple of old Panasonic ToughBooks with good batteries they are both the Cf-28 but slightly different one is a MK1 the other is an MK3 so they both have different boards inside despite being the same model.

The Panasonic ToughBook CF-28 MK1 is very under powered and I don't think there is very much this old Laptop could do in terms of Linux because even if I did find something to run on it, its never going to get online or have much use for the internet side of things. Naturally this would be a retro DOS/Win98 machine for retro windows fun and running old programs however the MK1 requires drivers for it to work properly with Windows and the only way to get drivers for the MK1 is to have the restore CD but Linux will work ok on this just fine. I've had the old version of Puppy Linux on this and TinyCore plus installed to CF cards that I used on this laptop The specs of the MK1 are:

600MHz CPU
SSD CF Card 16GB via the IDE connector
384MB RAM "Maximum limit"
No USB booting it will only boot from the optical drive

The MK3 is better because I can put Windows 98 right on this without needed drivers apart from the touch screen. Specs are:
1GHz CPU
Intel 32GB IDE SSD
768MB RAM "Maximum limit"
No USB booting, only booting is from the optical drive.

Of course Win98 has no TRIM support for solid state drives but Linux has and there is a Linux OS called Batocera I'm yet to try out. I used to program a lot of old Motorola and Tait PMR transceivers and the programming software relied on a slow processor and COM port so old machines like these are very useful for that purpose.

What I meant by MB and GB was that most light weight Linux Distros are no longer in megabytes they are in gigabytes its the same with RAM and general specifications also I'm noticing some Linux Distros only supporting 64-bit
 
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Getting back to Puppy Linux I still haven't managed to get it installed as there is options to select other than to make a USB bootable flash drive in the universal installer. I don't want to make a USB flash drive as I am already booting from one.

I have the 2023 updated version of Puppy Linux.

How do I install puppy Linux to hard drive?
 
Getting back to Puppy Linux I still haven't managed to get it installed as there is options to select other than to make a USB bootable flash drive in the universal installer. I don't want to make a USB flash drive as I am already booting from one.

I have the 2023 updated version of Puppy Linux.

How do I install puppy Linux to hard drive?
Use the Universal Installer on your booted Puppy and follow the instructions.

Do you have windows installed on your target drive? Then you have to create a ext4 partition and a small Fat32 partition (the bootloader gets there). You can use Gparted for that from your already booted puppy.

Be advised the installation of Bionic (or any other puppy) is NOT like any other Linux distro. There is a learning curve.

Also within Bionic there is a great "help" file (you will find it in the menu) which will tell you how to go about to install to HD which is still NOT recommended.
 
@VanillaCoffee WHY is it that you want to install Puppy to your hard drive? Just because you don't want to have a USB stick protruding from your machine? Is it because of memory specs or other hardware limitations?

You know there are ways to use Puppy as if you did a full install to disc, right?
Puppy is not a main stream distro and shoud be treated as such. That being said it IS just as versatile and usable as the "big" distros. while being virtually bullet proof. (When used correctly and according to it's intended development) ;)
 
Use the Universal Installer on your booted Puppy and follow the instructions.

Do you have windows installed on your target drive? Then you have to create a ext4 partition and a small Fat32 partition (the bootloader gets there). You can use Gparted for that from your already booted puppy.

Be advised the installation of Bionic (or any other puppy) is NOT like any other Linux distro. There is a learning curve.

Also within Bionic there is a great "help" file (you will find it in the menu) which will tell you how to go about to install to HD which is still NOT recommended.
I'm using the new Vanilla Puppy Linux I had gone into the universal installer several times trying to work it out but there are just simply no options to select to install to hard drive. It displays one option and that is to create a live USB which I don't want to do. I have checked and unmounted drives and also re-mounted the drives but its still not giving me any option to install to hard drive. Its driving me bonkers so I'm going back to Bionic Puppy and then once I figure out how to install Bionic Puppy to hard drive then maybe I can upgrade from there to a newer Puppy Linux.

I have installed Puppy Linux to hard drive in the past so I'm aware that the process is different and I did this some years back and things have changed in the newer versions.

So with Bionic Puppy I get stuck on with booting into Puppy once its installed which has something to do with the boot flag not being set.
 
So with Bionic Puppy I get stuck on with booting into Puppy once its installed which has something to do with the boot flag not being set.
That's just a part of the aforementioned learning curve.

And as far as I know Vanilla Dpub cannot be installed to hard drive. ( I might be wrong on that but dont think so)
 
@VanillaCoffee WHY is it that you want to install Puppy to your hard drive? Just because you don't want to have a USB stick protruding from your machine? Is it because of memory specs or other hardware limitations?

You know there are ways to use Puppy as if you did a full install to disc, right?
Puppy is not a main stream distro and shoud be treated as such. That being said it IS just as versatile and usable as the "big" distros. while being virtually bullet proof. (When used correctly and according to it's intended development) ;)
What is the point in booting from a flash drive every time to run an operating system? in my opinion its silly. Flash drives are not designed for that sort of use and they will wear out fairly quickly. I don't want to be booting from a USB drive every time I use my netbook. I have a hard drive for a reason. I don\t want a USB drive sticking out the machine the whole time. If this is what the new Puppy Linux has turned into then baffled as to why... I just don't see the logic in it.

How can I do a full install when there are no options to do so?

I'm going back to Bionic puppy to see if I can work out how to install it.
 
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