HardDriveInstallBruce
BruceB excerpts from the Forum

See Also:
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=3665∞∞;
Post subject: HD install routine
Apologies if someone has already sussed this, but installing Puppy to HD can be very problematic...

Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2005 8:50 pm
The purpose of my post is to explain some of the obstacles could encounter in an Option 2, and techniques a person could use. And ramble on some.

Puppy's default creates a pupxxx user file on a filesystem it deems the best one to use. This might not be the filesystem you would have liked it to create the pupxxx file. There are many ways to control where the pupxxx file is created and how large it is. But the default is to let Puppy make this decision.

One problem people have when attempting to do an Option 2 install is that they want to install on the same partition that the 'mounted' pupxxx file is on.

The install routine will not install on a 'mounted' partition.

One work around is: at boot time don't let Puppy mount the pupxxx file at all. This way the partitions will be unmounted and likely available for an Option 2 install.

At install time, Puppy will give a you a list of available partitions to install to.

Changing subject a little. I think a lot of people conceptualize Linux as mounting drives and / or partitions, which it does do. I'd like to sell the idea of conceptualizing Linux as an operating system that mounts filesystems. For an example, the way the Puppy uses the pupxxx file is:

1) it mounts the filesystem where the pupxxx file is on
2) it mounts the pupxxx file as a filesystem

The result is: One partition mounted with two separate mounted filesystems.

More change of subject.

Marking a FAT filesystem as hidden doesn't hinder Linux' ability to mount and use the filesystem. Although, it could be that the Puppy install scripts deal with hidden FAT partitions in different ways, according to the scripting.

About DOS Fdisk programs:

The DR DOS fdisk only recognizes about 8 GB, it's a good FDISK otherwise. If you format a partition with DR DOS format, it will be a good format. If MS-DOS / Windows accesses that filesystem it will damage it.

The PC DOS (IBM) fdisk won't access large drives either.

FreeDOS fdisk, sys and format utilities had the same problem with MS-DOS behaving destructively against their work. The FreeDOS community was informed about the cause of puzzling behavior MS-DOS on their filesystem. They corrected the problems in July 2004.

DR DOS version 8.0 corrected the problem, the 7.03 version still leaves itself wide open to the MS-DOS bad behavior.

Simply stated the Microsoft Operating system thru virtually all DOS and Windows versions through ME do this: It reads a text field in the boot sector of each FAT partition and adjusts behavior according to the text string it finds. This eight text string is called the OEM ID field.

It is officially denied that Microsoft uses this field in its specifications and other places. Programmers naive enough to believe the official documentation fall into a trap sometimes of writing an OEM text string that triggers MS bad beahvior and don't know what is going on because they did everything right (or so they think).

As far as FDISK programs go, if you are working with big drives, MS Fdisk and FreeDOS Fdisk are viable options. Generally, I use the MS fdisk on big drives, (any drive for that matter).

It is however helpful to understand its personality as well as some Puppy limits.

Puppy's compilation will only recognize up to 9 partitions per hard drive. Considering that the extended partition is not mountable, this means with Puppy you can have up to 8 working partitions per hard disk.

Typically, people set up a primary, then extended, then logical partitions. Doing it that way, they might end up with something like this:

hda1 primary
hda4 extended (and unmountable)
hda5 logical
hda6 logical
hda7 logical
hda8 logical
hda9 logical

If your scheme does look like this you've reached the Puppy limit of 6 as there is no device driver for hda10 and you don't have an hda2 and hda3

In order that I can have 8 usable partitions I do it like this:

hda1 primary
hda2 primary
hda3 primary
hda4 extended (and unmountable)
hda5 logical
hda6 logical
hda7 logical
hda8 logical
hda9 logical

MS-DOS Fdisk will not create hda2 primary or hda3 primary. Linux cfdisk would create these partitions, but if you used MS-DOS Fdisk to make the extended partition AND you marked hda2 and hda3 as Linux partitions, MS-DOS Fdisk would write the partition inside the Linux partition and make things unusable. If you marked hda2 and hda3 as FAT with Cfdisk, then MS-DOS Fdisk will put the extended partition where it belongs. This is probably very unintentional on MS' part.

There are also other DOS based fdisk utilities that will make hda2 and hda3. Aefdisk will do it and I'm pretty sure the FreeDOS fdisk will do it.

One point I wish to make is that using DOS based fdisk utilities, I can create complex Linux partitioning schemes. In the example above, after I setup the partitions, I'd use the DOS aefdisk to mark each partition according to the filesystem I wish it to contain.

If for example I wanted hda9 to be a Linux swap filesytem, I'd mark it as type 82, then when I boot Linux I'd format it accordingly.

As far as PQmagic is concerned. It is a very powerful tool. But if you use it, you may get stuck with it as your partitioning tool.

Suppose I wanted to delete logical partitions hda8 and hda9. If I do it with Linux fdisk or MS fdisk, I still have free space in the extended partition. I can then make other partitions in the extended partition.

If I delete hda8 and hda9 with PQmagic, it resizes the extended partition to contain hda5 thru hda7. You still have free space on the hard drive, but it is not in the extended partition. What to do? Use PQmagic to handle the free space, as other utilities might not be able to, or give you results you don't want.

I'm not trying to knock PQmagic, I think enough of it that I purchased three version over the course of years. But it does do what it does.

In conclusion: I think the easiest why to prepare for an Option 2 install, is mark the partition you want to install it on as type 83, don't format it. Boot Puppy and it won't mount that partition because there is no filesystem on it to work with. It will therefore be available as a useable, properly marked, and unmounted partition for Puppy to install on.

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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:00 am

OPTION 1 HARD INSTALL VS. BOOTING FROM CD DISC

The Option 1 install will boot a lot faster than the CD disc. The reason why is, the computer can read the hard disk faster than a CD disc. There are about 60 MB worth of data that has to be located and read.

Once the computer has been booted the actual operation theoretically should be identical. The three key files necessary to boot Puppy only get read one time, and they are not used or needed again.

An exception would be on a low memory system. The file usr_cram.fs normally gets copied to RAM then mounted as a file system. If Puppy calculates that the computer doesn't have enough RAM to copy usr_cram.fs into RAM, it will mount it and read it as needed from where it is.

OPTION 2 INSTALL VS. OPTION 1 HD INSTALL

Puppy will boot markedly faster with Option 2 than with Option 1. The principle reasons are that it doesn't need to copy usr_cram.fs to RAM, and it doesn't need to setup and configure a file system, as the file system is already in place and ready to go.

Read operations will be slower from hard disk than RAM, simply because the hard disk is slower. On the other hand the files read don't go through the same decompression process. In actual practice the computer should be able to locate and read a small file off the hard disk so fast you wouldn't notice the read time.

If you were to launch a large program like Mozilla, it should take 'noticably' longer time to read it from the hard disc as it would from RAM.

Once Mozilla's working components are loaded in memory, they should run about the same speed.

Except for the very fast boot, an Option 2 is slower in some areas of operation than an Option 1.

There is an exception to this rule and that is with low memory systems. An Option 1 uses up considerably more RAM space than an Option 2, because all the filesystem is in RAM and taking up space, except for /root and whatever you have mounted yourself.

If your computer doesn't have sufficient RAM and is actively using a swap filesystem for its normal operations on an Option 1, it is very likely that it would run faster with an Option 2 because there is more RAM to work with before it needs to swap.

SUMMARY: Puppy is respectably fast regardless of how you install it.

HardDriveInstallBruce
BruceB excerpts from the Forum