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I'm using a VAIO laptop with some Puppy Linux distros in the H/D ready to boot depending on my choice at the splash screen or, if no key is pressed within a short period of time, the default (first choice in list) will be booted up automatically. One of those choices is DSL (DamnSmallLinux). I've tried above a half-dozen different entries at the menu.lst file as suggested by others at some forums but it never worked for me. I would like to see some already tried entries that have, indeed, worked. Also, it would be helpful if the actual contents of the folder containing DSL files is shown as a list of files in there. My actual menu.lst entry for DSL is shown below: While looking at this entry above I decided to change those parts that read "/boot/isolinux" to /dsl only. I'm following the same scheme I use for other OS that I'm actually able to boot from folders beside dsl. PS. This's the first time I'm posting here & have noticed something strange. When trying to insert text (various lines from the menu.lst files) using the tool for 'code' I was given a message to insert the text within a blue square but, even though the text was inserted, the format of the text was messed up. I finally did it by repeating the process for each line of text. Is this the correct behavior or there's another way? Thanks in advance for any info/help on the above issues! |
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After you get the output of the terminal command, verify that the name corresponds with what's in menu.lst. That will end any question if the drive is seen as /dev/sda2 or /dev/hda2 The # character means “Disregard this line” in most config files. It shouldn't be used in menu.lst unless you are just leaving comments for yourself to read later. Let me cover a few grub basics, that I have read: The "title" line is what you will see as a menu choice at the grub boot screen, nothing more. It does not contain commands of any kind, so short is better. DSL 4.4 is really all that is needed. Adding frugal or the path serves no purpose. root (hd0,1) simply tells grub where to find the linux boot partition. The kernel line tells grub the path to, and name of the kernel file. The "root" entry in the kernel line is for the device, described differently than the earlier "root" statement, /dev/sda2 (or hda2) and I believe it wants only the device and not a file path. The (The knoppix file-system in it's self may be a problem, as it is designed for a live CD.) If you could boot into the dsl cd, you could probably copy the file-system to your hard drive, in an uncompressed form. That would give you a standard Linux file-system to work with.) dsl is meant to be booted from a CD, and then installed by the install program. It might be possible to tell it NOT to install grub, as grub already installed and working. The initrd line tells grub the path to, and name of the initial ramdisk file. Makeactive marks the petition as active boot is self-explanatory I believe “Frugal” is an install method. It really has nothing to do with grub. In a “frugal” dsl system, I believe there is an isolinux folder, which is missing on your system, unless it's in the compressed knoppix file-system. The entire legacy grub manual can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/legacy/grub.html |
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I already made the necessary changes for device calls uniformity. I left the old entries preceded with the "#" to avoid getting confused later if things didn work well. I've the iso file of DSL at sda5 & I can mount it to look at what's inside, does that serves the same purposes you're saying at your 7th paragraph? BTW, in theory at least, can DSL boot from a non-primary partitiion frugally? I'm asking because I remember that thing of creating a particular partition just for booting up DSL; I'm still afraid of the idea of letting any installer to play with my partition scheme. In fact, I'm seeing right now that the dsl iso files I have are dsl-4.11.rc10 & dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso; sorry to tell you so late but I was working from memory. I think that the former is the latest version I have. After mounting the iso file I just see 2 folders & a html file: index.html, KNOPPIX & boot folders. KNOPPIX has only KNOPPIX; boot has an isolinux folder. The contents of the last is: sh-4.1# ls Is this useful for doing what you said? I can try separate a partition just for DSL. |
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No, mounting it does not serve the same purpose. knoppix is a single file in the iso, even when mounted. When booted, it becomes an entire file-system with all normal folders (/etc, /lib, /home, etc.). The dsl kernel or initrd can open knoppix during boot. The html file in the root of the dsl iso is a simple web page that says: “Why are you still using Windows?" Using a separate partition is by far the best way to do things, if you have a completely empty partition. It would put dsl at the root of the partition, rather than as a sub-folder of a partition. You could mount the iso and then copy everything to that partition. Do not make a folder called "dsl". Just copy all the folders from the mounted iso file to the root of the empty partition. The easiest way would be to use dd to write the iso image to the partition. It is usually better if the partition to be written to is not mounted. If your terminal is open in the folder that has the iso, then the command would be something like: dd if=dsl-4.11.rc1.iso of=/dev/sda? with the ? being the correct partition. When done, you can mount it to verify that the file structure is the same, with the only things in the root of the partition being boot, KNOPPIX, and the html file. Isolinux would be the only subfolder of boot. Although “frugal” is not any kind of grub command, it might be a kernel parameter, so I added it back to menu.lst Here is an example. Remember that when you change the paths, /dev/sda6 in the “kernel” line would be root (hd0,5) in the “root” line, The root line starts numbering at zero while the normal partitions are numbered starting at 1. The rest of the paths would stay the same. Just as general knowledge, “rootnoverify” tells grub where root is, but tells it not to attempt to mount it. I only use that when booting into Windows from grub. I think that “root” is the more appropriate command. Both the root and kernel-root commands that I placed below assume that your empty partition is on the same drive as you have been using. If that is not true, then you should change root to (hd1,?) and kernel-root to /dev/sdb? Good luck.
The "toram and "frugal" parameters should be on te same line as "kernel" I decided to cut some strings that are tieing me to a non-comfortable situation, already shrank my sda1 partition to 8 GB (still as ntfs). The purpose was to use it solely for DSL but after reading something at a wiki I re-imagined that partition as capable of holding both, a'dos like' OS as well as DSL. At that wiki FAT32 was suggested as the preferred fs; then it was that I remembered about "freedos"... The above makes me think, before I continue, what's the best fs for running DSL, frugally (first concern)? For continuing this I need to know at this stage what format that partition should? Even though is out of the main vein of this thread, is your recommendation on fs capable of booting up freedos? Remember that I'm still using grub, that wiki was about booting up DSL using loadlin! I know I can 'chainload' another bootloader from grub but if it can do the job by itself it would mean a simpler solution. I don't see why it can't be done! I mean that probable grub can boot DSL from there as well as freedos...; to be seen. PS. At the paragraph of yours that start with "Here is an example.", is there an error when you state '(hda0,5)? Would it be that you intended to write (sda0,5)?
(05 Aug '13, 12:40)
Benny
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Actually, it might be better NOT to use the dd command. dd would write the entire iso to the partition, including the bootsector. It would be best to just copy everything from the mounted iso to the new partition. Thanks for clarifying this issue, it seems that I evaded some complications now that I know that. Still, not copying/moving anything yet until I know that best fs to use to format that partition. Thanks very much purevw!
(05 Aug '13, 12:45)
Benny
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You can check at damnslammlinux.org, but if I remember correctly, I think they want an ext2 partition. NTFS might have been your whole problem, as dsl may not include "fuse" for mounting / reading windows partitions. It could be that we had the file paths correct, but grub wasn't able to access NTFS. I'm not sure about freedos. I am not that familiar with it. You would have to do a search to see if it could be installed on a Linux partition. After creating that sda1 partition (ext2), mounting the iso file (dsl-4.11.rc1.iso) at PL528 and moving the required files/folders there with rox filer I changed the menu.lst file accordingly. The result was the same: a limited console only. The DSL section in menu.lst as I tried it is shown below: "# 7) Linux bootable partition config begins frugal in sda2 dir dslroot (hd0,0) rootnoverify (hd0,1)kernel /isolinux/linux24 root=/sda1/isolinux/dsl knoppix_dir=/KNOPPIX knoppix_name=KNOPPIX kernel /dsl/linux24 root=/dev/sda2/dsl knoppix_dir=/dsl/KNOPPIX knoppix_name=KNOPPIX frugal satainitrd /isolinux/minirt24.gz Linux bootable partition config ends"I tried it also eliminating the '/sda1' part at the "root" entry with the same result. Almost empty of ideas, now! Note: Even though I think you already know this I'll state it for assuring my posted text remains clear enough: ALL THE BOLD & AUGMENTED LETTERS AT THIS COMMENT ENTRY ARE REALLY COMMENTED ENTRIES AT MY MENU.LST FILE>. Somehow this editor interpretes the "#" character as something else.
(07 Aug '13, 11:53)
Benny
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