Full installation (without frugal) on hard drive with Slacko Puppy 7.0 not possible?

TheOuterLinux · 06-25-2021, 12:01 PM

When selecting to do a full install on a computer's hard drive using Slacko Puppy 7.0 (32-bit; no EFI), it still does a frugal install. I have also tried using different formats with GParted and it does not help. I have also tried seeing what happens when using the install to USB option and then the dd command to put it on the computer's hard drive, followed by resizing with GParted and though it boots just fine, it still turns out to be a frugal install. What happened to the universal installer?

I would also like to note as an interesting tidbit that every link I have been able to find in regards to this either returns a "Google 404" error or was removed by the original poster, which I am finding incredibly odd.

colorpurple21859 · 06-25-2021, 06:26 PM

I don't think it is recommended to do a full install anymore, however after some checking the slacko7 puppy installer doesn't have the full install option where as the bionic puppy installer does. It is possible to do a full install manually by extracting all of the slacko7 iso sfs files to the empty partition you want to use. when extracting the sfs files don't use a sub-directory to extract to. Copy the vmlinuz and initrd.gz from iso to /boot and run grub4dos installer. May have to make adjustments to menu.lst

TheOuterLinux · 06-26-2021, 01:52 PM

Yay! colorpurple21859's suggestion worked

Here is a BASH script I made to make this easier for those that want to do a full install without frugal on Slacko 7.0 on their sda1 partition. You should be able to just replace the 'sda1' part with another partition (use GParted to figure out which). Then of course, the grub4dosconfig program can than be used to detect install operating systems and all is well.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
# Use to help install Slacko 7.0 to the sda1 partition
unsquashfs -f -d /mnt/sda1 /initrd/mnt/dev_save/fdrv_slacko_7.0.sfs
unsquashfs -f -d /mnt/sda1 /initrd/mnt/dev_save/puppy_slacko_7.0.sfs
unsquashfs -f -d /mnt/sda1 /initrd/mnt/dev_save/zdrv_slacko_7.0.sfs
cp /initrd/mnt/dev_save/initrd.gz /mnt/sda1/boot/initrd.gz
cp /initrd/mnt/dev_save/vmlinuz /mnt/sda1/boot/vmlinuz
grub4dosconfig

TheOuterLinux · 06-27-2021, 06:36 PM

I would also like to note really quick that after installing Slacko 7.0 this way, the /tmp directory is only around 500MB in size. You can resize it by doing the following:

Code:

chown root:root /tmp
chmod 1777 /tmp
mount -o remount,size=5G /tmp/

Replace the "5G" part with whatever size you want /tmp to be. However, you will have to either do the "mount..." line part of the above each time you boot or, you can add that line to your .bashrc file to have the system do it for you.

Mike_Walsh · 06-30-2021, 08:47 AM

I don't want to sound like a "party-pooper", but honestly.....why would you want to install a modern Puppy as a "full" install? Makes NO sense at all.

I WILL be honest here. Some of Puppy's documentation really is long overdue for updating; too many newcomers think that the 'frugal' install is some kind of stripped-back, cut-down "poor man's" version of the full Puppy install, and promptly plump for the "full" install instead, thinking they're getting a better deal. And if you've come from other Linux distros, every mainstream distro always performs a standard, "full" install by default. Puppy noobs think they're being cheated, somehow.

"Frugal" refers to one thing, and one thing ONLY; it refers to the fact that Puppy is careful, or 'frugal' with drive space. The entire thing is contained within just 3 or 4 highly-compressed, read-only files, which expand into RAM during the boot process. Puppy can even live within a directory inside another OS, and both will happily co-exist like this......the bootloader has been coded to search at least two layers deep to find the relevant files. But a 'frugal' Puppy is very much the 'real deal', trust me.

The only time we recommend that a full install is performed is when somebody wants to install Puppy to a very old, seriously resource-starved machine which doesn't have enough memory to allow Puppy to run fully from RAM, as it was always intended to. It sounds to me as though you're determined to make Puppy conform to your idea of how a Linux OS should be.

--------------------------

Seriously, if you insist on running Puppy as a full install, you are voluntarily cheating yourself of all Puppy's best features; over the nearly 17 years Puppy has been in existence, all developments and software have been specifically coded/built to be used with the frugal install. Many won't work properly with a "full' one, if at all.

It's your choice, though; if you've managed to get Pup running like this, good luck to you. She isn't known as a 'hobbyist' distro for nothing..!!

Mike.

TheOuterLinux · 07-01-2021, 12:38 PM

Replying to Mike Walsh's comment:

I do not think that I am "cheating" a netbook from 2008 with only 1GB of RAM by doing a full install of Puppy Linux. And thanks to the help with doing a full install, I have XFCE with a crap-ton of programs and using only 110MB of RAM after using 'startxfce4' from the console, which is amazing compared to the averages on non-puppy distros. Matter of fact, even the puppies from the 5.x versions seem to use more RAM as far as XFCE goes than Slacko 7 does.

Also, I have noticed some crazy, but amazing, things because of a full installation like using 'sbopkg' to compile software from source with the help of devx, to which somehow the files in the /tmp directory are actually using RAM, sometimes going as high as 850MB while also making use of a swap file, but the load averages are still very low and can still run one or two light programs like it wasn't much of an issue.

I am not new to Puppy Linux. I have been playing around with it on and off for little over a decade and I also have a GNU/Linux distribution called "PsychOS486" that is based off of Slacko 5.3.1 for i486 computers that is part of the PsychOS Project that currently targets much older and lighter hardware over at https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io.

The issue I am having with Slacko 7 has nothing to do with ideology. When someone runs the installer and selects "full" it should be a full installation and not frugal; otherwise, it makes the installer look like it is broken.

SamHobbs · 11-28-2021, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_Walsh

I don't want to sound like a "party-pooper", but honestly.....why would you want to install a modern Puppy as a "full" install? Makes NO sense at all.

I WILL be honest here. Some of Puppy's documentation really is long overdue for updating;

I hope my reply is relevant to the original question.

Puppy Linux Installation and Usage says requires you to save your session at shut down if you want to keep your settings. That is a concern for me. I can live with that if necessary. The other concern I have is that I want to install other software. If I can put Puppy in a directory inside a Windows filesystem and dual-boot with Windows and use a spare partition to install Linux software into then the Frugal could work. I think that is something the documentation is missing.

I assume I can use Windows to put Puppy in a directory inside a Windows filesystem. I do not understand the bootloader but if we can use Windows to set that up then that would be useful knowing about.

I can create a new question for any of that if appropriate.

michaelk · 11-28-2021, 09:15 PM

SamHobbs, Your reply is not really relevant to the original question however Puppy is different from most linux distributions. It is not multi-user, it runs as root although there are two non-root logins and as noted you use save-files to save modifications and data.

If running a live or frugal install programs are installed via packages similar to other distributions.

https://bkhome.org/archive/puppylinu...nical/root.htm

Puppy has to be installed to a linux filesystem. The easiest way to run linux from Windows is using a virtual machine like VirtualBox.

If you have more questions about Puppy you should create a new thread.

SamHobbs · 11-28-2021, 09:30 PM

Is Puppy different from Slacko Puppy?

michaelk · 11-28-2021, 09:36 PM

Puppy Linux is a collection of multiple Linux distributions of which slacko is one.

https://puppylinux.com/index.html

SamHobbs · 11-29-2021, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_Walsh

why would you want to install a modern Puppy as a "full" install? Makes NO sense at all.

My intent was to respond to that.

I have since created a USB with Puppy Linux. It does save sessions but we must remember to save explicitly. I seem to be able to install applications that remain somewhere.

Mike_Walsh · 11-29-2021, 07:54 AM

@ SamHobbs:-

Over the course of this last year I've been developing the concept of 'portable' applications for Puppy. These can be run from a flash drive - much like those Windows apps from PortableApps.com - and don't in fact need to be installed at all.

These will run quite happily from either a 'frugal' OR a 'full' install.

Any configuration files will - as in the case of browsers - remain totally within the portable directory. In the case of most other applications, config files are sym-linked into their expected locations immediately prior to launching the app; at close, those sym-links are then deleted again. Because of the way sym-links work, all config data is at all times being directly written back to within the portable directory, thus keeping it self-contained.

There IS an application called LICK, which will install a Puppy to a sub-directory within Windows & set-up a boot Menu which gives you the choice of booting either Windows OR Puppy.

LICK can be found here:-

https://github.com/noryb009/lick

Documentation can be found here:-

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web...uefi-lick.html

.....and here:-

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=61404

.....at the old Puppy Forums (now a 'read-only' archive).

Mike.

SamHobbs · 11-29-2021, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_Walsh

There IS an application called LICK, which will install a Puppy to a sub-directory within Windows & set-up a boot Menu which gives you the choice of booting either Windows OR Puppy.

Very good, Mike. I did see something about Lick and used it to create a Puppy USB stick. Lick is amazingly easy. I have a small unused partition in my SSD drive I think I can install Linux into. It is small but Puppy Linux is so small I am not sure how to use the remaining space. That is not important. The important thing is I want to be careful not to interfere with my Windows booting. I assume Lick will set it up but I need to learn more about that. I have not yet looked at the links you provided and that might be all I need.

Gordie · 12-24-2021, 10:18 AM

My HP Mini has eMMC of 16 Gig for a main drive, 1 Gig of DDR2 Ram and I added an SD-Card of 60 Gig to supplement the main drive. There is a small swap file (Puppy set it up automagically for me). Nobody is more surprised than me to find that everything works on my FRUGAL install following Mike Walsh wisdom.

Hey Mike - I heard your voice on a Puppy video on YouTube.

MERRY CHRISTMAS from Nolalu, Ontario, Canada.

Mike_Walsh · 12-31-2021, 07:19 PM

@ Gordie:-

Yeah, I've got a few vids on YT. The odd one is a proper, full tutorial, but most of 'em are just thrown together to illustrate a point that's being discussed on the Forums at any given time.

It seems there used to be a whole series of vids, put together by lobster, I think.....remember him? They got lost when the archive account someone had at meownplanet.com went tits up some years ago. Russoodle managed to grab as much stuff as she could, given the very short warning we had, but it's in no real order....basically, it's in the order in which she managed to grab it! But the important thing is, it didn't get lost.....and Grant (smokey01) very kindly allocated her a chunk of space on his Puppy server, so it's there for posterity.

I'll get around to doing a few more full-length proper tutorials one of these days.

Happy New Year to you, and let's hope 2022 turns out a bit more promising than the last couple have been. I'm not holding me breath, mind!

Mike.