Downloading and installing programs in puppy. An in-depth look at Puppy Linux

To get started, download the distribution image from the links of the official website http://www.puppylinux.com/. You can download the image from the Russian Puppy project: http://uco.puppyrus.org/ Using the UNetbootin program, we will write the image to a flash drive. Next, boot from this flash drive and get acquainted with the distribution. If everything suits you, you can proceed with the installation.

There are 3 options for installing the Puppy distribution on a computer:
Full standard installation of the file system on the hard drive.
In this case, a standard Linux file system is created on the hard disk - the directories /boot, /etc, /usr, etc., and work happens like in any other Linux distribution.

Installing an uncompressed offline file system. In this case, the operating system files are located on the disk without compression. When starting the computer system files transferred to the virtual file system in memory and the work is already there. User profile files are saved directly to the drive. Some system logs are written only to the virtual file system and are not saved after a reboot.

Installing a Packed (Compressed) Offline File System
In this case, the entire file system is distributed among several packed files and stored on the drive as regular files. When the computer starts, the kernel is loaded, and then the file system is extracted from the files on the drive into memory, with which the operating system will work. If the computer has more than 256 MB of RAM, this option will work. This option takes longer to boot the system, but applications will launch faster. The hard disk space is used only for saving download and session files. Periodically, the system will dump to a file or directly to a separate partition a dump of the current session, including user documents.

The choice of installation option remains with the user. In the first variant, as practice has shown, a lot of files are overwritten in the file system - this variant is applicable for machines where there is a mechanical hard disk. The second option is the "golden mean" between speed and resource utilization of a solid-state hard drive. Some system logs are not written to the drive and remain in the RAM file system layer, but the user profile (including the browser cache) is preserved unchanged. For the second option, you additionally need to configure applications to save the drive even more (for example, disabling the cache in the browser). The third option saves the drive as much as possible, but due to the compression procedure, the system boots and shuts down more slowly. The advantages and disadvantages are summarized in the table:

Separately, it is worth noting the choice of the file system for the drive (hard or solid state drive) and the use of the paging file. For a solid state drive, the best file system would be ext2 or ext4 (but with journaling disabled). If the netbook has a regular hard drive, an ext4 system is enough. The swap file for the first option is not needed - during the tests, it was never used, and a video player and various Internet applications were launched on the machine. For the third option, it will come in handy, since 512 MB of memory is still not enough to work with the placement of the file system in memory. In any case, a 300…350 MB swap file at the end of the file system won't hurt. If the user has a regular hard drive instead of a solid state drive, then the swap file can be increased to 1.5 times the size of RAM (but not more than 2GB) and placed closer to the beginning of the disk.

Process Linux installations Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 (Lupu-525) on HDD does not represent some kind of super-task, however, some features of this process can lead a beginner into difficulty. Below, the installation of Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 will be described step by step, including the installation of the bootloader (Grub bootloader), with playback of screen images issued by Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 during this action.

The operating system Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 has a data volume of 128 mb on the CD and is capable of running directly from the CD. Its distribution kit, distributed as an iso file (CD image), is written to a CD, inserted into the tray, and the computer is restarted. If the BIOS shows the CD-ROM as the first boot device, the computer will "pick up" the CD, load the files into RAM, and after about 2 minutes, the Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 operating system will be ready to work, even if there is another operating system installed on the computer's hard drive.

Working with Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 in live-CD mode has such a significant advantage as reliable protection against viruses, since viruses are not able to get on the CD. However, in this case, one has to put up with a long start of the computer (copying files from a CD), which is a significant drawback. Installing Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 on your hard drive allows you to significantly speed up the boot, and use Puppy as a normal "stationary" operating system, while being very fast.

So, installation on the hard drive.

The installer is ready to go, it can be launched by pressing the "Install Puppy to sda1" button, but we will not rush. The hard drive was previously formatted in NTFS, moreover, it has only one partition. It is not good. Linux, including Lucid Puppy, has its own file system, in addition, it will be useful to reduce the living space for Puppy somewhat without giving it the entire hard drive (in order to be able to install another operating system on the same hard drive, if in the future we will need this). Thus, now our task is to create a Linux partition on disk sda1 with a volume of, say, 5 GB. (Creating a partition of less than 2 gigabytes for Puppy is not recommended - taking into account the installation of additional Puppy programs, there will not be enough space.) Accordingly, click on the "Filesystem in partition" button.

Since the sda1 hard drive was formatted by us, it is clear that there is no Grab on it. How to put the Hornbeam - see the material "Grab Loader for Lucid Puppy 5.2.5" directly continuing this article.

Puppy Linux is a small and fast free distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system. It works on almost any hardware, is easy to learn and easy to use, and is also easily customizable to the personal needs of a particular user.

Of all the Linux distributions available on the internet, Puppy Linux is the fastest. It can be used as an additional operating system for various manipulations, for example, when you want to access some suspicious sites, without the fear of infecting the main Windows system with unknown malware.

In this article, we will consider installing Puppy Linux on a computer hard drive as a full-fledged operating system. Although Puppy Linux can also be used from a bootable USB.

1. Download latest version ISO image of Puppy Linux from the official site puppylinux.com. You should download the version that matches your computer's processor (64-bit or 32-bit).

2. Next, download the LICK installer from github.com and install it. LICK is a Puppy Linux installer for the Windows system. It sets up Windows OS and Puppy Linux to dual-boot environments with just a few clicks. The program works in two directions, ie. it can be an uninstaller, in case the user opts out of Puppy Linux (Uninstall ISO function).

3. After launching LICK, click on the “Click or drop ISO here” button and select the downloaded ISO file.

4. You can change the ID, name, and installation location, but the default values ​​work best. Just click on the "Install" button.

5. After a few seconds, you will see a message confirming that the installation was successful. This means you're all set to multiboot on Windows or Puppy Linux.

6. Restart your computer and you will see the boot manager where you can select either Windows or Puppy Linux.

This method works even on new systems with UEFI and secure boot. On these systems, you will have to take a few extra steps when booting into Puppy Linux for the first time. But this is only once. After the first reboot, you should be able to boot into Windows or Puppy Linux without any problems.

It all started with the fact that I loaded my laptop from a flash drive and got this wonderful PuppyRus-A system (PRA for short)! My delight knew no bounds - everything flies, the battery lasts 50% longer, there is everything you need to work and all this on a 200 Mb distribution kit! After setting up the system for myself, I recommended to my friends to install a PRA. After 3 days, I find out that out of 4 people, no one coped with this simple, at first glance, task! The problems were as follows

how to choose the right distribution

how to make a bootable flash drive

how to install the system and software on a flash drive

1. How to choose a distribution

2. How to make a bootable flash drive

To install PRA, you will need a 4-8 GB flash drive, more is unlikely to be needed. In order not to be confused with files, clear the flash drive of all contents, you can even format it. We only need a place equal to the size of the distribution image + 300-500 megabytes per settings save file - in total, about 1 GB on the flash drive will be used for PRA, the rest of the space can be used to store anything, i.e. flash drive can be used for its intended purpose. The file system on the flash drive is fat32 or ntfs.

Choose a flash drive based on speed characteristics. This will reduce the boot and save time of your future system! Use utilities to measure performance.

We will do all the work on preparing the flash drive in Windows environment(in Linux it is also possible). We need any program that allows us to open iso image (7-zip, UltraISO, Total Commander with connected plugins, etc.). Everything we need, we will take inside the iso box or create it ourselves. Find a folder in isoshnik win here along this path: pra03-1503middle1.iso\boot\grub4dos\install\ and rewrite it to the root of the flash drive. From the root of the ISO we will copy the files to the flash drive grldr And menu.lst. The contents of the flash drive at this stage looks like this:

Now let's make the flash drive bootable. Need to work with administrator rights!!! Run the file on the flash drive /win/grubinst_gui.exe, select your flash drive in the upper window (do not confuse it with hdd and be guided by size!)
UPD: If you want to speed up booting from a flash drive, then check the boxes "No backup MBR", "Disable PrevMBR" and enter 0 in the "Timeout" field

click below Install and we get this window:

This place sometimes has problems! In some cases wingrub terminates with an error. But sooner or later we will be able to get the result, here are the ways (you can offer your own methods):

read the error message, add the suggested key to the "Extra" box and try again

didn't work in Win7, but it turned out easily WinXP

it turned out after formatting the flash drive with the utility HP USB Disk Storage Format(found on the web)

it helped if you put a sign on the flash drive boot in a programme gparted in ubuntu(select section, manage flags, tick boot).

in the environment Win you can make the flash drive active with the built-in utility diskpart from command line or external software. This flash drive Windows(disk management) will show the sign of the partition " active". For some reason grub sometimes on some flash drives it does not. (google it and find it!!).

burn the iso image to a CD, boot from it and, while working in the system, create a bootable flash drive (start-system-frugal install).

use UltraISO or Rufus programs, they can format and create bootable flash drives from ISO.

UPD: Sometimes you need to enter a key in the Extra --skip-mbr-test field.

It has been noticed that most often problems occur with flash drives on which the manufacturer preinstalls its software!

Using these methods, we managed to make 8 flash drives bootable, which refused to become bootable the first time! By the way, everything that we did with a USB flash drive can be done with an SD card, but not every device supports booting from an SD card. If none of the available ways to make the flash drive bootable helped you, change the flash drive!!!.

And so, all the preparatory procedures are completed, we try to boot from the prepared flash drive by setting this option in the bios of your device (for different devices there are different key combinations for entering bios, no one had any problems, look for help on the net). If as a result of the first boot you got a multi-colored menu with krakozyabry placed in a frame on the screen - congratulations! You've done it, the last step is left! To make the menu readable, delete the folder on the flash drive win, write the whole folder instead boot from isoshnik (there are fonts and everything you need), we are overloaded, AND !!! You can look through the cool menu!

Worse, when you didn't see anything on the first boot. Do everything described above again, you may have made a mistake at some stage, or try replacing the flash drive. there are answers to many questions related to preparing a flash drive and booting the system.

3. Upload software to a flash drive

This is the simplest thing we need to do. We delete everything that we have written to it from the flash drive and rewrite all the contents of the ISO there. That's all! Now the flash looks like this:

We boot, select the menu line "load to RAM ... ..> 500 mb" and get a clean system !!! It remains only to customize it for yourself and save. More on this in the next step by step instructions -

https://youtu.be/WJ86H8qYFAE - Here is a video - how to put PuppyRus-A Linux (PRA) on a USB flash drive.

4. installation on HDD

PRA can be installed on the hard drive as the main (only) operating system or in addition to the existing one, for example win7. Installing on a hard drive in both cases is no different from installing on a flash drive, you need to follow the same steps

while in windows, unpack the contents of iso to the root of the C: / drive, in this case you will mix all the files and folders from the PRA and Win, but this is a purely aesthetic inconvenience, it will not affect the system in any way, in this case you do not need to edit menu.lst

run file /win/grubinst_gui.exe under account administrator (run as) and install the grub4dos bootloader on disk as described above

Now you can reboot. You will have options to download PRA and Win. You can get into win from 2 places during the boot process. The first time, by pressing the spacebar in response to the bootloader's message, the second time from the ballast boot menu, selecting the "boot from HDD" item.

If the ballast is installed as the only system and you do not have the opportunity to boot under win, then all installation procedures can be done by booting from the CD created from the ballast image, then select the frugal installation and go through the steps, choosing the necessary items in the menus offered.

https://youtu.be/3b-AL7w-mOY - here is a video on how to install PuppyRus-A Linux (PRA) on hdd.
- here detailed description another option, without installing a bootloader, with the ability to rollback.

4.1.1 Hard drives, partitions and file systems

A hard disk can be divided into several parts (partitions). IN operating system each such partition looks like a separate hard drive. On Windows, each partition hard drive(as well as floppy drives and CD-ROM drives) has its own letter. Usually A: is the floppy drive, C: is the primary hard disk partition, D: is the CD-ROM drive, E: is the second hard disk partition, and so on. Most often, Windows uses the file NTFS system or FAT32.

On Linux, the primary partition is addressed as /dev/hda or /dev/sda . First letter ( h da) indicates the type of disk: "h" - idehd, "s" - satahd or flash, the second (h d a) the letter means: "d" - disk (disk), third (hd a) - disk number. For example, if your PC has a second hard drive, it is addressed as /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb . Sections are numbered sequentially, starting with one. Hard section/dev/hda1 is drive C on Windows, /dev/hda2 is drive E (if D is a CD-ROM), and so on. Linux can work with many different file systems, including ext2, ext3 or ReiserFS. These FS will not be read in Windows without special software, but Linux can freely work with file Windows systems. FAT32 is best supported in Linux, so for information exchange and data sharing in Linux and Windows is better just use this FS. The main thing to remember is that files cannot be placed on FAT32 if their volume exceeds 4 GB.

4.1.2 Defragmenting the hard drive

Download the program for defragmentation Defraggler. The program is good because it works faster than the built-in Windows Defragmenter. Constantly updated and improved, unlike the last. Russian interface is present. So there will be no difficulty in using it. Install Defraggler on your computer, launch it and first of all select the interface language:

After localization, select the disk that you want to defragment (1), click the Analyze button (2) and check the disk for fragmented (divided) files. Such files are displayed in red. If there are many such places on the disk, and the disk size is large (40 GB or more), the defragmentation process may take a long time.

After reviewing the results of the analysis, click the Defragmentation button and wait for the operation to complete.

4.1.3 Creating partitions

Now you need to plan the number, size and type of partitions you will create. I recommend creating three more partitions in addition to the Windows partition. This example assumes that initially there is one partition with Windows (drive C:). After partitioning, the hard drive will look something like this:

Primary section: NTFS or FAT32 (Windows)

Second section: ext2 or ext3 (we will install Puppy on this partition)

Third section: Linux swap partition

Fourth section: FAT32 (for file sharing between Windows and Linux)

We will leave Windows on the primary partition. The second partition will have a Linux file system (ext2 or ext3), here we will install Puppy. The third partition needs to be made slightly larger than the size of your computer's RAM and formatted for the Linux swap file system. This is the section for swap files. The fourth FAT32 partition will be for file sharing between Linux and Windows, its recommended size is all the remaining free space.

You can familiarize yourself with the procedure for dividing a disk into partitions (preparing for installation) by watching a video. Video clip

Video size: 516 Kb

At the end of all procedures, you should get the following:

Close GParted. Now you can proceed to install PuppyRus on your hard drive.

4.2 Installation

4.2.1 Frugal installation using the "Universal PuppyRus(Puppy Universal Installer)"

Frugal Installation copies the Puppy image file from the CD to your hard drive. At system startup, Puppy reads into random access memory (RAM) in the same way as if you booted from a CD, but it is much faster. Thus, this method combines the advantages of booting from a CD (protection against unwanted spyware) and booting from a hard drive (speed). Moreover, it simplifies the process of switching to new version Puppy - all it takes is to replace some files. ()

To get acquainted with the installation process, you can watch the video. Video clip will start playing after full download. Depending on the size of the video, it may take a long time to load.

Video size: 4.8 Mb

Click here to download and view a screencast created with Wink!

You can also download the video for local viewing on your computer: Archive with the video (4.8 Mb)
To watch the video, unpack the archive into a folder and run the html file.

4.2.2 Manual Frugal installation / Update Puppy

To use this option, a bootloader must be installed on the computer. If the bootloader is not yet installed, we recommend using the "Grub bootloader configuration" ().

Boot from the CD using the puppy pfix=ram option. Copy the files PUP_301.SFS ZDRV_301.SFS INITRD.GZ VMLINUZ

to a Linux (ext2/ext3) or FAT32 partition.
If you are upgrading Puppy, overwrite existing files. Configure the GRUB bootloader by editing the menu.lst file. It is usually found on a Linux partition in the /boot/grub directory.

Add the following lines to the menu.lst file: title Puppy Linux 301 frugal (on / dev/ hda2) rootnoverify (hd0,1) kernel / vmlinuz pmedia =idehd initrd / initrd.gz

Note: (hd0,1) refers to the hard drive and partition where the GRUB files are installed. Depending on the device from which you are booting the system, you will need to set the value pmedia on the usb flash, usbhd, usbcd, ideflash, idehd, idecd, idezip, satahd, →