Quick hard disk installs of Puppy 1.03 to 1.05 (in separate partition or in WinXP)
TRY THIS Tutorial FIRST∞

See also Hard Drive Install / Hard Disk Install BOOTABLE

A Linux Newbie Guide

This tutorial shows you how to install Puppy Linux to a DOS formatted HD. To install Puppy
onto a HD with a pre-existing OS present (i.e. Windows) to achieve a dual boot setup, is
not covered in this how-to. If you follow this sequence, you'll end up with a HD with only
Puppy Linux and MS-DOS installed.

Software You Need:

1. A bootable copy of Puppy Linux 1.0.4 on a CD.
2. Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBN) on a Floppy.
3. MS-DOS 6.22 - usually on 3 floppy discs.

To format your Hard Drive, you could install MS-DOS onto your HD, then run 'format c:'
I prefer totally wiping out the HD using DBN, then installing MS-DOS.

Let's begin.

Important:
Before Beginning Install
If your computer has more than one CD/DVD device, then before
installing Puppy, DISABLE the non-install media device.

This means, if you have both a CD-ROM and a DVD device, and
you will install Puppy from the CD-ROM, then disable the DVD
device by unplugging the power supply to the DVD. Open the
computer case to do this, and then pull out the power plug to
the DVD.

The reason, is that during install, if more than one CD/DVD device
is present on your computer, Puppy Linux is unable to Mount &
Unmount the install device - so you can't install Puppy.

1. Put the DBN floppy in the drive and restart the computer (the BIOS might have to be
adjusted to boot from floppy).

2. DBN will load. At the first prompt ("boot:") type quick then press Enter. DBN will now
start to erase the HD. This will take between 15 and 60 minutes - or longer - depending
on the capacity of your HD. Remove the DBN floppy as soon as the wipe sequence starts.

DBN will go through 1 wipe cycle. You can see the % completed in the large bottom window,
far left. (I now turn off the monitor, and go and do something for an hour). If you get bored,
you can abort the wipe at any stage and still have a wiped HD - although not fully wiped.
When finished, partition HD & install MS DOS.

Boot with MS-DOS Start Up disk. At A:\> prompt, type fdisk. you will now create
a Primary Dos Partition of at least 256 Mb (to install pup001 at Puppy boot).

1. Enter choice 1 > 1 > N ("Do you wish to use maximum...") > type 256 (partition size)
> 2 (set active partition) > 1 (number of partition).

2. Restart, insert MS-DOS Disk 1, and at A:\> type setup > choose Format this drive.
This will format the 256 Mb partition you've just created - not the entire HD.

3. Follow standard, 3 disk, Dos install.

"Use Wakepup2" for older machines that cant boot from CD http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=7979∞
1. Boot from Puppy CD. At Puppy splash-screen "boot:" press 3.
2. At Red Text, type hda1 then Enter (for pup001 default).
3. Choose br-latin1-us keyboard, select mouse, etc.
In Puppy desktop, choose a resolution (800 X 600 is good).
4. In Puppy desktop, rvxt > type cfdisk.
5. In cfdisk > Pri/Log > New > Primary > Size = at least 500 Mb >
Beginning > Write > Yes > Quit.

Now in cfdisk, you should see something like this:

hda1. . . .Boot. . .Primary. . . .FAT16. . . .[MS-DOS 6]. . . .271.44
hda2. . . . . . . ..Primary. . . .Linux. . . . . . . . . . . 501.75
hda3. . . . . . . .. Pri/Log. . . .Free Space. . . . . . . .3536.88

6. Now, quit rxvt, and -- REBOOT (with Puppy CD still inside).

7. At Puppy splash-screen "boot:" press 3 > press Enter (for pup001).
You should now go directly to Puppy desktop.
8. Start > Setup > Install Puppy hard drive.
9. "Make your choice": type 2.
10. STEP 1: press Enter.
11. STEP 2: type /dev/hda2 then press y.
12. STEP 3: press Enter (to get "vmlinuz" off live-CD). CD-ROM will then eject.
13. Remove CD-ROM.
14. STEP 4: press m (or any key) then Enter (for no boot floppy).
15. STEP 5: Computer will now write tables (inode etc.) and copy files and directories.
16. STEP 7: GRUB install; press m then Enter (to install GRUB).

GRUBCONFIG V 1.24
Choose the following:
1. simple - (Try to install GRUB automatically) = OK.
2. standard - (Use the standard Linux console - the safe choice) = OK.
3. SELECT GRUB PARTITION - /dev/hda2 = OK.
4. SELECT GRUB DESTINATION - select MBR = OK.
5. Continue clicking on OK boxes until - GRUB INSTALL SUCCESS.

1. Now, REBOOT, and at GNU GRUB 0.96, choose: INSTALL GRUB TO LINUX PARTITION.

2. Post Installation Tweak to Grub Boot File:
When you reboot your computer, you'll be presented with a GRUB boot option
of either booting into MS DOS or Linux. If you want to configure the start
sequence to automatically boot into Linux, you must edit the menu.lst file:

NOTE: It's menu.lst with an "L" not a "1"

3. How to edit the menu.lst file:
A. In Puppy Desktop > rox > parent directory > boot > grub > menu.lst.
B. Open the menu.lst file.
C. Cut these 3 lines...

title Linux (on /dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=normal

and paste them below this line...

# Other bootable partition config begins

D. Now, you can set the timeout value:

In the line

#timeout 30

CHANGE the 30 into 10, and REMOVE the # at the beginning
of the line (you can specify the timeout value to whatever
you like). Save & exit.

Now, when you start computer, it will auto-boot into
Puppy in 10 seconds.

Ends.

This is a fresh Hard disk install

• Boot up with Puppy but select Option 2 when the splash screen comes up
• Go to Hard disk Install and choose option 2
• Type in /dev/hda1 (or the number of your hard disk)
• Hit j and enter (that is an example any key)
• Hit j and enter again
• Choose MBR as area for GRUB to boot (I chose dev/hda1 as I was using a non Linux partition)

Clearing the master Boot Record

One way you might could wipe the MBR is to boot up your machine using a Windows 98 boot-up diskette, which contains among other things, FDISK.
At the A:> prompt, type fdisk /mbr, press Enter, and see what happens.

Installing to a hard drive

' Warning' this sections only goes up to section 6 (as that is as far as I know)

It is not possible with version 0.9.9 to install automatically to a hard disk.
Best bet is booting from a CD allowing Puppy to store its configuration details on any available HD

# Creating live-CD Puppy by download the latest "puppy-xxxx.iso" file, which is a complete CD image, and burn it to CD or order from Barry - only $10
# Change your bios setting to boot from CD
# Prepare your hard disk

remember to commit (create) and format the partitions

# Boot from puppy
# Go to Start / Set up / Install to Hard Drive
# You will be given two options - we will be using option 2

2. Give Puppy his own partition. There are a few ways this can be
done, but this script requires that you have a spare partition
that Puppy can take over entirely. This option is recommended for
anyone interested in developing applications for Puppy, as it
gives the most flexibility. With this option, Puppy does NOT run
in a ramdisk, and /usr folder is read-write.
Option 2 requires a pre-existing spare partition. Puppy will
convert it to ext2 filesystem. PARTITION WILL BE ERASED!

Got as far as Step 6 of the script

This message came up:

"Now creating ext2 filesystem on /dev/hda1/ etc . . .

mkfs:ext2:bad blocks count - ExtFs"

Alternative HD Install Method

'Configure LILO for hard-Puppy'
WMCreate contributed this to the old forum:

I'd had some difficulty getting Puppy Linux to work happily
with Lilo on a hard drive. And, from searching the 'net and
this forum, I see that I'm not alone.

So, what follows is the solution that I came up with.
YMMV.

Using Partition Magic 8.0, I created a 600MB primary FAT32
partition. (I tried using a logical/extended partition but
things wouldn't work right). In my case, it became
partition#4 (hdd).

If you don't have Partition Magic, you can use QTparted on
the bootable SystemRescueCD ( http://www.sysresccd.org∞ ).
And, if you can't boot CD's, you can use the Smart Boot
Manager floppy disk ( http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/∞ ) to
change that.

Note: If you use QtParted to make a FAT32 partition, you
should use a Win98SE boot floppy to format the partition (no
system files). I couldn't get QTparted to format a
partition for me - something that Partition Magic does with
ease. Also, I've had problems using the FreeDOS (more on
that to come, http://www.freedos.org∞ ) format command, so I
recommend using the format command from a Windoze or DOS
boot diskette (or using Partition Magic to format).

I now had:
hda=Win98SE FAT32 10GB
hbb=Linux EXT3 8GB
hdc=Linux SWAP 1.4GB
hdd=FreeDOS FAT32 0.6GB

I then booted from a FreeDOS boot diskette and did 'sys D:'
- you might have to replace the 'D:' with some other drive
letter.

I copied vmlinuzℑ.gz(from the Puppy Linux CD), and
tiny.exe&autoexec.bat (from the Puppy Linux startup
diskette) to the FreeDOS drive.

I then modified the autoexec.bat to show PHOME=hda4.

And, I modified my lilo.conf to include the new FreeDOS
partition. To get FreeDOS booting correctly, I have to hide
the Windoze partition and unhide the FreeDOS partition (OK,
honestly, I never have to un/hide the FreeDOS partition, but
why bother Windoze with its existence?).

other=/dev/hda1
label=Win98SE
table=/dev/hda
change
partition=/dev/hda1
activate
set=dos16_big_normal
partition=/dev/hda4
deactivate
set=dos16_big_hidden
other=/dev/hda4
label=Puppy
table=/dev/hda
change
partition=/dev/hda1
deactivate
set=dos16_big_hidden
partition=/dev/hda4
activate
set=dos16_big_normal

If you don't have any FAT partitions except for FreeDOS, you
can probably do this:

other=/dev/hda4 # location of non-Linux OS, in this case
FreeDOS
label=Puppy # prompt label
table=/dev/hda # partition table pass-through to the OS
(might not need this).

When all was said and done, I had a Puppy Linux hard disk
install that only messed around inside of its own partition
(that is, it creates its 500MB pup1 file inside the FreeDOS
partition), and was bootable by LILO and ran itself inside
RAM. Nice.

Reply #1
From: WMCreator (wmcreator AT collegeclub.com)
Date: 07/26/2004

Oops, I just noticed that some of the above comments spilled
over. Read it as:

other=/dev/hda4 # location of non-Linux...
label=Puppy # prompt label...
table=/dev/hda # partition table...

Other Desktops

[http://www.goosee.com/puppy/sforum/simpleforum_pro.cgi?fid=02&topic_id=1109374653∞ Using Fluxbox]

temp . . .

more to follow as I av a go

1. Install vmlinuz and image.gz

When you boot up live-Puppy from a CD, mount the CD using "Puppy driver mounter" (see the menu, under Start > File managers), and copy vmlinuz and image.gz to the hard drive (and also usr_cram.fs if it exists). let's use the Windows partition, the C: drive -- it will probably already be mounted, at /mnt/cdrive, so use ROX to copy those two files across. Place them in the top level "C:\" directory.
2. Edit the boot manager

So far I have only had experience with the Grub bootloader. Mount the partition that has the /boot/grub directory. Right-click over the file grub.conf and open it in a text editor. It will look something like as follows, and you need to add the lines that I have shown in bold:

default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14)

title DOS

title Puppy Linux

An important thing to understand here is that "(hd0,0)" refers to hda1, "(hd0,4)" is hda5 and "(hd0,2)" is hda3.

Apart from editing grub.conf, nothing else is required, as the bootloader will automatically look at that file during booting. Some other bootloaders may need an extra step to install the changes.
3. Reboot

That's it, Puppy should start

When you get Puppy installed in this very cautious way, you might like to read further down this page to the "take two" instructions, to see how to configure a boot manager.

Puppy v0.9.0 added an extra option to the install-to-hard-drive script. "Option 2" is to install Puppy such that no ramdisk is used. This requires that Puppy take over an entire partition. It is up to you to have such a spare partition. The script will convert it into an ext2 filesystem, if it wasn't before.
Option 2 is good for developers, as the /usr folder is not compressed and is read/write.

Puppy v0.9.8 added an "upgrade" option to the install script, if you are upgrading from a previous installation. All you do is download the latest live-CD ISO file, burn it to CD, boot up on it, then run the install-to-hard-drive script and when it asks whether you are doing a new installation or upgrade, you answer appropriately.

Simple Grub:

Simple HD install with Grub bootmanager

Simple Grub Win/Puppy Boot CD:

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