My love affair with Puppy is becoming quit torrid! I’ve recently installed it on an older IBM T21 which was running like a dog (nyuck, nyuck) with Ubuntu on it. Puppy is like a breath of fresh air - fast, smooth and easy to use. It’s turned this old laptop into a machine I can really use at work.
Here’s a step by step covering how to install and update Puppy to a hard drive.
First, download Puppy and burn it onto a CD. From there you want to boot into the liveCD. In IBMland that’s accomplished by hitting the F12 key when the computer first boots, and choosing a boot device (the CD).
You’ll see Puppy doing a bunch of stuff, and then It’ll start asking you questions.
First, you’ll be asked to choose your keyboard layout. In my case, having a QWERTY keyboard and being in the US, I choose US Qwerty.
Next it’s time to set up Xorg. I chose this over Xvesa because it’s a bit more powerful.
I know the T21 is able to do 1024×768 so this is the resolution I chose.
Now we’re given a chance to test our X settings. I highly recommend you do this. If it works, great! If not, choose another setting or go with Xvesa.
Puppy should now launch. You’re greeted with a nice desktop with most of the icons clustered in the upper left corner.
The first thing we’ll want to do is check to see how our hard drives are set up. To do this, click the Drives icon once. (Double clicking provides double the windows.)
Once the Media Utility Tool (MUT) launches, you should be able to see what you have for hard drive(s). You’ll want to make sure that the hard drive you’re going to install Puppy to is not mounted. If it’s not (you’ll have the option to mount it) then close MUT.
Because I had previously had another OS installed on this drive, I’m going to format it. To do this, go to the Menu button and choose Control Panel -> GParted Partition Manager.
Once this launches, I chose my partition (/devhda2) in this case, right clicked on it and selected Format to -> EXT3. The click the Apply button. Once it’s finished, exit out of GParted.
Now you’re ready to install! Go to Menu -> Setup -> Puppy Universal Installer.
Choose your hard drive - in this case it’s IDE (ATA) Internal hard drive.
Puppy should give you a brief summary of what it found on the drive. Then click the button next to Install Puppy to hda2 (or whatever drive you’re installing too.)
You’ll get a sanity check, so say yes again. Then it will ask you where you’re going to get all these Puppy Linux files from. I’m assuming you still have the liveCD in the drive so click CD and then click OK.
If this is going to be the only OS on the machine, choose a NORMAL install. If you have Windows or some other OS, choose COEXIST.
I’m going to have my machine boot from Grub, rather than a USB drive. You can have Puppy use a USB drive to host the bootloader if you so choose. I chose Install Grub. Then click OK again.
Puppy will ask if you want to install Grub automatically. This is fine, go with the default and click OK.
Next comes the Frame Buffer Console. Again, default and click OK.
You’ll have to choose where to put the Grub files. I went with the default, in this case /dev/hda2, where I’m installing Puppy itself.
Now you’ll have to choose where to put Grub itself. I would not go with the default here, and instead I chose MBR. This worked quite well on several installations on various machines.
You should get a message shortly after choosing this option informing you that Grub was successful. Click OK and then you’ll be prompted to reinstall Grub if need be. You don’t have to do this, so click NO.
You now have a Puppy Linux install! Remove the liveCD from your drive and reboot to verify that everything’s working. (Menu -> ShutDown -> Reboot).
You’ll be prompted to either SAVE_TO_FILE or SAVE_TO_CD_or_QUIT. Chose the SAVE_TO_FILE option as we don’t want any hard work going down the drain.
Puppy will let you know that it’s going to create a pup_save.3fs file on your drive. This is where all of your personalization to the OS is kept.
You’ll be able to chose which partition to save this file too. Since I’ve only got one on this machine (hda2) that’s what I went with.
I’ve got 27 GB of free space on this drive, so when the next option appears to limit the size of the .3fs file, I chose the largest option, 1.25GB. Choose a size that’s appropriate for the partition you’re working with.
You’ll get one final sanity check. Say OK. The file will be created, and Puppy Linux will reboot. If the file size is large, this can take a few minutes.
Note - if you have a problem with X starting and get a repeated error message mentioning line 35, check out this thread - see the last post.
Once you’ve rebooted, you can do all kinds of neat stuff to your system. First however you’ve got to get in online.
Click the Online icon and choose how you wish to get online. With the T21, I chose wireless, ran the WAG utility, and clicked the DHCP Toggle button and bingo! I was surfing.
Now it’s time to add neat things to your install. To install programs in Puppy, click the Install icon. You can choose to use either PupGet packages, which are the Official packages for Puppy, or use DotPup packages, which are user created.
Have fun with your Puppy!
December 28th, 2006 at 6:28 am
1.) boot using ubuntu live cd, from terminal run gparted
2.) make two partitions one with ext2, the other as linux swap
3.) reboot with puppy live cd
4.) follow universal installation for hard disk and grub installer
5.) your done
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:23 am
i installed puppy linux and when it boots it say’s
“A:\”
do i have to type some kinna command?
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Thanks for the tutorial.
I didn’t realize that Puppy Linux Universal Installer does not include partitioning of the hard drive. I should have known better.
Anyway, I installed Puppy Linux 2.15 on my Toshiba 2065CDS. My 3Com 3C574-TX NIC was recognized, and I am surfing away on Verizon DSL. Yay!
I chose the VESA video instead of Xorg because of the age of my laptop.
For some unknown reason, the NIC card would not work in the Toshiba though it works in my Thinkpad 600. Those darn Windows device drivers failed me on this. Linux to the rescue.
Also, despite Fabian Serrano’s suggestion about using a Ubuntu Live CD to create both /ext3 partition and a linux-swap partition, it isn’t needed. The Puppy Linux Live CD works just fine for this task.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 am
Hi there, i’m just a noob to this linux and I just met this puppy linux. I was in loe first time I used this as it was light and had whatever I needed.
However, i have this problem on how to install to the hard drive coz when I tried to install the puppy in HD, it says that my HD can’t be unmounted.
So I tried the frugal install on my hda1 with other linux in it and i resulted in failure. I couldn’t save it in my HD!
It is said that it can’t mount the file
can anyone help me?
October 18th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Your information regarding the ‘Normal’ and ‘Coexist’ selections is not quite correct. Normal means it will install the full Puppy Linux on the HD, Coexist means it will only copy the “saved settings” files so you can boot from a USB drive or CD. In other words, what they mean by ‘coexist’ is to coexist on the same PARTITION not HD. If you have a different OS on a separate partition, you should still choose ‘Normal’ if you want to install the full Puppy.
Otherwise, thanks for a succinct how to.
lindope
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
@Fabian:
Back in the dawn of time (2006 :-)), I was only using Puppy as a CD “emergency kit” OS, so I never checked the hard drive install. Just did one today from a Live session and… recalled when the installer complained about needing a partition to install it on all the times that GParted (by default in the Puppy menu for quite some time, now) saved my bacon on other computers. Invoked it, did the necessary partitioning, closed it and went back to the install wizard.
Hmmm, maybe by now the install wizard would have invoked GParted anyway, but I never found out.
Grub was a pain to get configured. The “automagical” installation wasn’t so magical. But manual editing fixed things right up. Now, the guy who’d managed to trash a pirated copy of XP can get his computer back for email and surfing the web (all he does–doesn’t even have a printer)with a legal OS on it. (I don’t understand how he was running XP on a 700mhz comp with a 9GB hdd and 256MB of memory, anyway… ) With Puppy Linux, the thing’s running better than a 2Ghz+ computer dragging Windows behind it…
Man, am I pleased with the Puppy installer. Neat.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I’m tired of those linux OS that aren’t user friendly. Like this one. What kind of technology make it difficult for users? Its sadly that these awesome OS of Linux are behind MW and what tech is about. I think all distros should make these OS’s to make their own partitions automatic like Ubuntu. And also be considerate with dial up modems and slow connections. These details among all the difficult techs users find is what put Linux behind Windows.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
@Lin: I don’t believe Linux OS are intentionally made difficult to use. Distros are generally a compilation of numerous separately and individually developed projects often developed with no financial support and only by the generosity of the developers donating time. Often projects arise to address a specific need and speed is often top priority. It takes a lot of time to fine tune an easy to use GUI and write documentation. This is not usually the funnest part of development and is often missing due to time constraints. And remember you could always buy a corporately sponsored distro that supplies what you’re asking for and phone or email support. Easy to use OSes are able to accomplish this in large part because they don’t always worry about compatibility for the widest array of hardware and complimentary software. Linux does.
@David: Not surprising at all. I’ve run XP on a PIII 450MHz with an 8G HD and 256MB RAM. It’s not necessarily fun but it does work. In my experience Windows 2000 is good for older machines but I’m not technical enough to know if this is a huge sacrifice. It got Windows apps running faster than they would if they were on XP.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I have been in the computer business for years. One of the best ways to find help is through articles like this. They simplify ones understanding and encourage those with a brief understanding about computers to attempt to learn something new. Well Done mate. One critic I think you should label all the steps in numbers,
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:13 pm
A great article. Very helpful to all those wanting to learn how to install puppy Linux. One critic this is all the details could have been numbered. Keep up the good work. Mark
May 10th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hi. Thanks great run through.
I am new at this Linux thing and am in the process of trying different distros. Puppy Linux would seem to be ideal for my needs.
I have a 2nd comp that we use specs as follows Celeron 900, 512mb ram.
40 gig HD split into 2 partions 20 gig each, dual booting 98SE and XP,
Apollo P2100 usb printer which works in 98SE but not XP, network card with broadband. I want something that will allow us to browse and watch iplayer etc, listen to music and for the kids to do homework with the printer etc.
Puppy linux seems ideal for this and I have managed to surf, listen to music and print so far so good. I have loaded Puppy via live cd, had a play got it to do the save file bit and then reloaded via live cd with it finding the file and settings etc. So next step was to install it.
This is where I get stuck I have tried reinstalling several times, it is with Grub where I seem to fall down.
I have tried all 3 options re startup floppy, MBR the other one which is called ? superblock (I think) when I go to restart it just stops right at the beginning. I have no idea how to edit the file ( menu1st )
I think it was called, lol can’t you just tell I am a newbie at this!
I followed a run through I found on this but still couldn’t seem to correct it, I used to run games from Dos years ago pre Win95 so I don’t think I am a complete nonce but the linux command line has me somewhat stumped. I downloaded a util called supergrub and tried getting that to sort it but that got me no further forward probably down to mw not knowing what I am doing ! Puppy would be great and I guess it s probably something really simple and obvious but I can’t figure it ! At the moment I have Ubuntu up and running this went on no probs and boots up fine. The puppy installation goes great but then gets to the Grub part and then says “oh this bits quite difficult and you will have to sort it” don’t leave me now I say. Lol.
Anyway sorry to waffle and if anybody can help as I would rather have Puppy I would be most grateful.
As an aside can anybody give a clue why movies clips etc in iplayer youtube etc play so slowly? I have reduced the res to 800×600, are there any other settings I can change colour depth etc to speed it up.
BTW my vga card is an AGP Geforce 2 titanium 64mb.
Regards Andy.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Hi ;D
A great and very helpful article. I install my first linux - puppy Linux today ;D
thanks for this
Jamick