WUBI is a kind of frugal install. No partitioning is needed.
But your still installed on the Harddisk which can be nfts

Puppy linux have two ways of doing it. I use Lin'nWin described here
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/lin...00-linnwin.htm

I even made a lot of questions about it here in LQ.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...p2-how-653426/

But I made a confused question that none answered. So I try again.

What I want is as many examples as possible on successful such frugal
installs.

Nimblex has an enthusiast that made a description. Nimblex is a slackware
style version so I am not so used to it so I failed to do as he suggested.

http://geocities.com/cpsoft.geo/index.html

He make the description in the Nimblex forum for both win 98 and win xp
computers. I fail to find his sample now. Look for posts by Gianni.

I doubt that I'm alone in seeing the merit of doing frugal install. My Packard Bell Laptop lose it's recovery feature if one do a partition.

A lot of people have such situation. Due to School or Job or family they
need to keep windows.

One thing that complicate having many frugal installs are that they look for same filname
and take the first they find. The programmer didn't see any need to make it related to a
unicque indentifier for the version. It look for a file and even if it beong to another prog
it just take it. Which goes wrong.

One solution is to open the file and rename an file ending in the .gz name.
Described here from goblinx forum.

http://forum.goblinx.com.br/viewtopi...9d78d550df2b64

Not the most elegant solution and only works for that set up.

I need a better way to handle such. A more consistent that we can have in future.

I know nothing about computers but I think a kind of added program that keep a catalog
of the installed programs and point to the files needed and which monitor the search
and redirect it if it find the wrong file by comparing in its database.

If don't match look further don't use this one again in this search.

It should not be necessary to have many partitions. Just one should be needed.
MBR should not be corrupted. Here is how he describe the solution.

Here is how it looks at my computer just now

add this in the end of boot.ini

c:\grldr="Start Linux"

in menu.lst add these


title Puppy Linux 4.00
kernel (hd0,0)/puppy400/vmlinuz PMEDIA=satahd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy400 keyb=se
initrd (hd0,0)/puppy400/initrd.gz
boot

title Nimblex 2008
root (hd0,0)/nimblex
kernel /nimblex/vmlinuz-nx08 from=/mnt/hda1/nimblex/NimbleX-2008.iso ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=791 autoexec=telinit~4 changes=/nimblex.data
initrd /nimblex/initrd-nx08.gz

title Slax 2007
root (hd0,0)/slax
kernel /slax/vmlinuz from=/mnt/hda1/slax/slax-6.0.7.iso ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=791 autoexec=telinit~4 changes=/slax.data
initrd /slax/initrd.gz


title SliTaz cooking
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null vga=normal
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/rootfs.gz



title Windows XP SP2 Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

(End of quote)


Three different ways of doing boot without changing the partition.
All of them except SliTaz can save. But that is how SliTaz wants it.
They write in their forum that they want one to save on a memory stick
and not on the hd.

Windows in the end is for if you have to go back to windows for something
related to winxp.

Slax and Nimblex are so close that I could use the nimblex.data file and copy and
rename it and do a similar set up and it all worked. Slax catched my Swedsh keyboard
map from Nimblex old copied .data file. Nimblex seems to be Slax with enhancement
in codecs and added Firefox and other such changes.

What is so good about this way of doing it is that one don't have to be fluent in
doing partition.

title Puppy Linux 4.00
kernel (hd0,0)/puppy400/vmlinuz PMEDIA=satahd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy400 keyb=se
initrd (hd0,0)/puppy400/initrd.gz


title Nimblex 2008
root (hd0,0)/nimblex
kernel /nimblex/vmlinuz-nx08 from=/mnt/hda1/nimblex/NimbleX-2008.iso ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=791 autoexec=telinit~4 changes=/nimblex.data
initrd /nimblex/initrd-nx08.gz


title GoblinX
root (hd0,0)/goblinx_nooby
kernel /goblinx_nooby/boot/vmlinuz init=linuxrc from=/mnt/hda1/goblinx_nooby/GoblinX-2.7.iso ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw load=user run.x vga=791 locale=english splash=silent changes=/mnt/hda1/goblinx_nooby/changes/
initrd /goblinx_nooby/boot/initrd.gz

title Muppy0083f a puppy variant
root (hd0,0)
kernel /muppy0083f/vmlinuz PMEDIA=satahd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=muppy0083f acpi=force layerfs=aufs
initrd /muppy0083f/initrd.gz
boot

title Puppy 301 PcPuppyOS
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /puppy301/vmlinuz PMEDIA=satahd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy301
vga=normal keyb=se
initrd /puppy301/initrd.gz
boot


The following are still in early Alpha, only for those who like to experiment.

title Zenlive Linux 5.2 zenwalk-live-5.2.iso
root (hd0,0)
kernel /zenboot/vmlinuz keyb=se ramdisk_size=7000 root=/dev/ram0 rw splash=silent vga=791 max_loop=255 changes=/dev/sda1/zenlive/persist/save512
initrd /zenboot/initrd.gz

(save512 are a file you make from zenlive they describe it in a FAQ.
You could make it 128MB or 256MB or 512MB. )


title Vector VL5.9-SOHO-preview.iso by Uelsk8s with 59SPinitrd.gz
root (hd0,0)
kernel /sohoboot/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=7000 root=/dev/ram0 rw splash=verbose vga=791 max_loop=255 init=linuxrc load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 changes=/dev/hda1
initrd /sohoboot/59SPinitrd.gz

( 59SPinitrd.gz is a new file that Uelsk8s have made and you find
it in a thread I started on their forum. )

Comment

Both zenlive and Vector save and make use of what they saved
last time so that part works as expected but something goes wrong
at shutdown. They hang ... so one need to do Hard reboot holding
down the power button such could go bad if one are unlucky so only
use them on own risk.

That they hang on my equipment doesn't mean they hang on your set
up. But I have no way to know. They didn't hang for those who wrote
the FAQ and not for Uelsk8s or else they would not have recommended it. Many distros do hang on my gear cause something is wrong with
the ACPI or APM. That is why AOpen in their texts says they only
recommend it to be used with two modern windows who does shut down.

I asked about Ubuntu and frugal install on their forum.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=888911
But no answer so far. I guess that frugal install is a rather unusual way of
doing linux install. Most people do partitioning which is not to be recommended
on laptop machines that have warranty for their windows install having hidden
partition for recovery.

Or if you borrow a machine or at work. While frugal install is easier to set back
to earlier state without leaving a trace. Which is much harder for a newbie to do
on a machine that sense if you temper with its partition.

Ubuntu who are such heavily supported distro and I have only found two references
on google to frugal install that I could use on my machine and I quote one of them
in that text. I have not tested them. And teh one I quoted use another partition too.

so none of them looks like the plain and easy frugal install. You need to know a
UUID number. Where do you find such? None of the other distros makes it that hard.