I've been playing with many distros on Live USB for some time now.
I usually make a persistent USB whenever I can , and I did so this time.
I have a couple of 64-bit laptops and some older 32-bit machines.

Today , I made a Lucid Puppy bootable USB that would ONLY boot on the machine I made it on ( and it runs perfectly ) .

On any other machine it throws a " Kernel error" and hangs-up so badly that even the power button does not function !!!
I had to pull the battery as a last resort .

In the past , my live USBs would happily boot on ANY machine.
I have never seen this type of behavior before and I would be most grateful to anyone who could point me
to the root of the problem ...

.... many thanks

How did you make the usb?
Did you make a save file on shutdown?

Pristine puppy boot cheat code without using save file from another computer is

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootParametersPuppy

Quick Generic How to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilGBGLejvfM

Thanks for your prompt response rokytnji

I made the usb using "LinuxLive " although I also regularly use Unetbootin , pendrivelinux and others .
Experience has taught me that there is no "perfect" app that suits all distros on Live USB ,and that each new distro is very much
a trial-and-error affair.

In answer to your first question :- Yes , on first boot I set up time/date , wifi connection ,and desktop preferences
and chose the "save" option on shutdown .... rebooting proved that these options were persistent.

I will certainly check out Pristine puppy boot cheat code , and the links you kindly provided.

It's early days for me with Puppy and my main aim is to make some old Dell 32-bit laptops into usable machines ...
in one case , I want to make a VERY easy-to-use laptop for an elderly relative who wants to have Skype contact with
family members overseas.

Thanks again for you tips .... I will post back when I've done a bit more "tinkering" ...... Oh how I hate that word

When it boots ok with a pristine boot. Either do not save or make another save file using the name of the computer so you can keep save files straight in your mind. You will be offered a choice of booting save files on bootup after that.

You can make another save file and name it backup or whatever on the original computer it boots ok on. Then you will see what I am talking about. I run 3 save files on my frugal Carolina_Vangaurd Puppy Linux install on one Atom Netbook. But mine is a frugal internal hard drive install. Not a pendrive install.

But I used to help out on MacPup Linux using a SD flash card install. Booting it up on all kinds of different hardware to show what worked on what and what needed tweaking.

You can install grub4dos on that made pendrive that you made using

You will get a boot screen with more boot options after that procedure. The video link I posted shows a grub4dos install. So change the bootloader. Experiment a little. You'll learn something.

Good luck with it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks again rokytnji , that is exactly what I needed !
.... advice from someone who has first-hand experience of this issue .... and at the "nuts-and-bolts" level.

I notice that you list antiX and Linux-Lite as some of your distros.
I have a bunch of small USBs lying around ( 1GB or less ) and a few unused older 32-bit laptops that could be
easily made usable again.
This is what lead me to investigate small Linux distros , and Puppy was my starting point.

If I understand you correctly , the Puppy save-files are fairly machine specific.

On my main laptop it was a breeze to do the initial set-up and connecting to my wifi was equally easy.

Having made the save-file I tried it in a Samsung i5 I was given with a dead HD ( which I removed ) and that's where I got
the hang-up that I couldn't crash-out of ( see earlier post ).

I started again from scratch but this time I did the initial set-up on the Samsung but I couldn't get it to recognize the wifi
using either of the two set-up wizards in the package , but I noticed that wlan0 was not showing as an option
I checked a few online resources and tried to set it up manually .... putting in IP addresses etc , without success.

Making the save-file was easy in both machines , and in each case , I always did a reboot to check that settings were persistent.

Thanks to your help , I know what I need to try next , but I won't get a chance till the weekend .

As you rightly say , experimenting will lead to knowledge.
In science , there is no such thing as a failed experiment , but there are often results that weren't expected ,
or can't be interpreted !

I'll post back soon with results .... thanks again !

.... my edit above ...

You were dead right !

.... I experimented , I saw , I learned ! -

Once grub4dos was installed , the rest was easy ..... on booting I now get a choice of save files , named for each machine.

There are still some hardware issues .... no touchpad on my main laptop but perfect wifi setup / connection ...
... but on the junked Samsung i5 it's more or less the opposite ,and every other live Linux USB I use on that machine runs sweetly ?

I'll look in other threads for help with that problem , but from what I have read about network connections in Puppy ,
it's either incredibly easy , or a real nightmare .... and I seem to have got one of each .

Anyways , all the assistance is very much appreciated .

PS - As a newbie on this forum , I'm wondering if I should mark this issue as solved ?