Hi guys,

I'm new to this forum and linux too.
I thought of installing a lightweight distro of linux and did some research on the net where I found people recommending Puppy Linux. Plus it is (theoretically speaking) possible to run it from a USB (flash) drive which I decided to try out but it seems like it's not that simple a task as a lot of people (all over the internet) say it is.

What I tried so far is this: installing it into a thumb drive using unetbootin follwing a youtube tutorial (which basically showed how to download an iso of puppy, use unetbootin to make the thumbdrive bootable and install puppy on it). It didn't work. The USB wasn't recognized as a bootable device. I know for sure it can be booted from it since I tried ubuntu from the same USB and the same Laptop (which is able to boot from USB).

I thought that something with the Flash Drive not OK so I tried to use a windows installer to install puppy like other windows programms but this didn't work either. This time Puppy was recognized because there was an option to boot either Puppy or Windows 7 but when I chose to boot from Puppy nothing happens just a screen flash, some letters in the top left corner saying something like NTSC or NTSF (I can't read it properly because it goes away too fast) then after the screen flash the whole thing again (boot from win 7 or Puppy I choose Puppy again the flash... basically a loop).

Any ideas what I'm doing wron or what the problem is?

Thank You for any replies.

This probably needs moving to the puppy forum, ask a mod to move it, also why not just download and burn an install CD rher than mucking about with flash drives?

1 members found this post helpful.

Sorry, I searched a bit for a Puppy forum but couldn't find one. How exactly do I ask a mod to move this? Do I need to find one a PM or just edit my post?

I don't have a cd at hand right now. Can't wait till morning because then it's too late, I need to use some certain sofwtare that shouldn't acces the internet but can't quit using internet neither. So I thought I might use one (linux) for internet and the other (win 7) to work with that software.
Thnx for the answer.

Maybe reformat the usb from windows before installing puppy with unetbootin will help

I did reformat it, fat32 several times the first time. No luck.
Thnx anyway.

Try using yumi instead of unetbootin, I have never had any trouble booting puppy with yumi.

I don't think that the problem is with the flash drive, (highly probably) it has something to do with puppy itself because even when I tried to install it inside windows (like any other windows program, from an .exe file) the same thing happened, I get the option to choose what OS to boot from but when I choose puppy it doesn't work(see question). Besides I used unetbootin, Linuxlive usb creator, universal-usb installer... . The same thing.

I asume you are doing this on a Windows machine, didn't know there was a Windows version of unetbootin, not perfect even when created on Linux. Some 'distros' have their own pendrive creators but don't know if they will work from a live cd/dvd but cd's/dvd's created from iso downloads are a 'safer' bet than unetbootin.

Fred.

How you using the latest version of puppy? There are several different flavors/versions of puppy and some work better than others

What not use ubuntu since you got it to boot?

Because it was running at 90% cpu with only firefox open. The computer was getting way hotter then it should. So I was looking for a more lightweight version of linux. That's why puppy.

I'm open for any suggestions you or anyone else may have. Not tied to the latest version of puppy. Actually until now I've tried a few versions like alphaos, tahr... didn't manage to run a single one of them.

Yes I'm using windows. No cd's at hand right now.

The laptop wouldn't happen to have duel/hybrid graphic cards. If so try using Xubuntu trusty

No it doesn't have hybrid graphic cards. As for xubuntu, is it lightweight? I'm looking for something lightweight, tha's why I went through all the trouble in the first place.

Graphics card issues sounds quite possible some older ones do not have sufficient "accelleration" to cope with things like compiz which seems run in the background on Ubuntu whether or not you use all its features.
Xubuntu uses Xfce desktop which is lightweight but Lubuntu is possibly even lighter and designed that way.

Fred.

1 members found this post helpful.

I've already resolved this issue. Somehow, after days of trying, I installed Lubuntu first on my computer then from inside Lubuntu managed to install Puppy onto my thumbdrive. The problem was that Puppy didn't like the fat32 formating of my USB Flash drive, while I couldn't format it as ext4/3/2 from inside windows. I formated it as ext4 from Lubuntu, after first installing Lubuntu on my hard drive of course, which resolved the problem.

To be honest I formated my thumbdrive after only two hours of testing Puppy. I kinda didn't like it plus it was making my Laptop run hot, strangely even without using too much CPU(??!!).

Thanks for the answer though.