Nuts and bolts

[walter90]

Hello all!
I just found out about Porteus and instead of posting countless threads asking all kinds of questions I will only ask this:

Where can I find a good primer on getting started with Porteus?

I should add that the Linux OS I am most used to is Puppy.

Thanks!

[Bogomips]

Welcome! For starters

[francois]

From what I read puppy linux works with grub legacy. If you want to keep with grub legacy instead of using syslinux, once downloaded, mount porteus iso:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-to-mo ... linux.html
and copy /boot and /porteus to a subfolder (in my example /64bit_v31) on one of your partitions (in my example sda5).

Grub legacy method for a multiboot porteus-windows installation. It uses the grubconfig package:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=946

The menu.lst entries:

Code: Select all

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Wed Jul 31 00:39:45 2013
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.4431'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=mbr.sda.4431 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 3

#color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section

title porteus  on sda5 64bit_v31rc1  extramod KDE 
root (hd0,4)
kernel /64bit_v31/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz from=/dev/sda5/64bit_v31 changes=EXIT:/64bit_v31/kde login=
initrd /64bit_v31/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
boot

title Win Vista/7 (loader) at sda1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

[Bogomips]

ISO You can either go the wizard way, or if you can cut it, just download a ready made iso for the desktop of your choice.

[HOWTO] Grub 1 Porteus (3.1)

[walter90]

Thanks for the replies. I understand Porteus can be booted from a CD. Does it act as a live CD like Puppy where I can create a save file on a storage device?

I'm not sure I want to do a full install until I know whether Porteus is what I'm looking for.

[francois]

From faq on cheatcodes:
http://www.porteus.org/tutorials/26-gen ... -them.html
Reboot your computer and wait several seconds until the graphical Porteus logo appears with a boot menu. Choose your desired menu entry and hit Tab, which will allow you to edit the command line. Add your desired boot argument from the list below to affect booting the way you like. Here's an example of what the boot line would look like, adding the noauto and copy2ram cheatcodes to a standard Porteus boot option (which already has some other cheatcodes by default)...

add changes= cheatcode, same logic as in the menu.lst mentioned above after the append argument:

Code: Select all

changes=/mnt/sdax/path-to/"changes-folder-name"

on your hdd media as

Code: Select all

Graphics mode
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz changes=/porteus

will not be able to write on the cd.

[Bogomips]

I'm not sure I want to do a full install until I know whether Porteus is what I'm looking for.

That's the nice thing about Porteus IMHO, that you don't have to do a full install. In fact, as I understand it, working without a full install in the traditional sense, is de rigueur. 8) (francois, pardon my French)

[francois]

Votre français est impeccable bogomips!

[brokenman]

Indeed. There is no 'real install' of Porteus so to speak. You can test it out from a USB drive and if you like it just continue booting from that USB drive. If you REALLY like it you can put the contents from the USB drive onto your hard drive and then point your bootloader at it. If you want a 'real install' (Va savoir pourquoi!) you should install slackware.

I am slowly working on a Porteus 101 document which may help some new comers learn the ropes. The emphasis in that last sentence should be on SLOWLY.

[francois]

Suddenly there is a French invasion on the porteus forum.

[walter90]

Thank you everyone!
I appreciate your advice and technical expertise. One thing is unclear though.

Can I boot from a live CD if I download the .iso and burn it to a bootable disk?

To be honest, that's one of my favorite Puppy features.

[francois]

This is the standard procedure. Once you boot your cd you can install directly from the cd what we call the frugal mode on hdd, porteus will be in compressed mode ready to boot. However, you will install porteus with the syslinux bootloader :
panel menu > system > porteus installer

If you prefer to stay with manually changing the menu.lst of your grub legacy installation copying directly the boot and porteus folders of your porteus cd installation on the appropriate partition of you hdd. Which really is maybe as fast as the porteus installer.

In case you are not sure, do not hesitate to ask for additional instrutions.

In this latter case, you could give us the fdisk -l output of your system and tell us where exactly you want porteus to be installed. For sure as porteus is linux, it will be more happy on a linux filesystem. However, you could also install porteus on ntfs if this is your wish. To have persistence, you will have to build a .dat container.

[walter90]

All this sounds as complicated as an automatic transmission, Lol

Thanks!

[Ed_P]

Can I boot from a live CD if I download the .iso and burn it to a bootable disk?

You can download the .iso and boot it from a USB flash drive if you use an app named Easy2Boot.

[brokenman]

Can I boot from a live CD if I download the .iso and burn it to a bootable disk?

Yes