Puppy Linux On Compact Flash
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Today, Guys asks:
I’m glad Linux Fanatics is making a come back. Not much going on there in the past little while. :o)
I’m planning to buy a mini-PC to make a small linux point-of-presence box. This box has a CF slot and I plan to install Puppy Linux on a CF card. I’m not a Linux newbie but I’m surely not a professional. What would be the best way to install Puppy Linux on this baby. I was thinking of installing a CF card writer on my PC. Boot Puppy via CDRom and follow the installation “wizard” to write to the compact flash then pop the CF card in the mini-pc and away I go.
Thanks for your time.
Well, it’s been a little bit since I have done much work with Puppy. That said, here is how I see it: based on what I remember, there is no reason why the latest release of Puppy wouldn’t see your CF card on that form factor as an IDE drive. I am almost sure of this, but I suppose there is the off chance it could also be read as a USB Flash drive, however unlikely. Moving on…
I would see about installing to a USB Flash drive, then seeing if it will boot this particular system off of the drive (checking the BIOS for a boot from USB option). Then from the USB drive, install to the CF card (assuming it shows up as a IDE drive). If that doesn’t work, then try this. Definitely interested as to how this works out, so keep me posted via the comments area for sure.
Do you have an Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Simply Mepis, Linspire/Freespire or PCLinuxOS related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt - Linux Edition!
[tags]compact flash,flash drive[/tags]
12 Comments
Chris Rohde
June 15th, 2007
at 6:32pm
I have puppy installed on my old IBM Thinkpad 600, but as far as lightweight distros you can run from a USB stick go, I’d almost lean towards DSL just for ease of use.
But Puppy is nice (just feels too much like Windows for me)
Bob
June 16th, 2007
at 8:12am
Hey Matt,
You wrote,”Do you have an Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Simply Mepis, Linspire/Freespire or PCLinuxOS related question? ”
I’ve been running Ubuntu as my main OS for about eight months now and what can I say? Ubuntu has not missed a beat, not so much as a hiccup! No problems, no question I guess.
I sure have missed Linux Fanatics in my mailbox though, hope to see it return soon.
Matt Hartley
June 16th, 2007
at 1:24pm
Bob, I will be doing some cool how-to stuff as well, even for those who have been having success with their Linux flavor. ;)
Chris, you have a point there - did not consider that.
Matt Newell
June 16th, 2007
at 3:50pm
I have been playing with Puppy Linux since 1.9 (it’s now 2.16). I installed it on a 8 gig drive in my desktop system and installed vmWare Server (just to see if it would work) (it does!). I have also installed it on a 1 gig flash drive I bought at Target for $15. The flash drive has the 2.16 release along with two versions of Forth, the development package, the kernel source (all nicely compiled too), a couple of games (besides the six it comes with), and some other things I can’t remember right now. I am fairly short of memory now (down to 6 megs remaining when running) and am thinking of going to a 2 gig flash I bought at Micro Center. If I can get a big enough flash drive (an 8 gig) I want to install Puppy and vmWare running Windows 98 so I would have both available at work. I think Puppy is like a lot like a VW I had once–the most fun to work on I have found.
Matt Hartley
June 16th, 2007
at 5:29pm
Bob: Also, consider Linux Fanatics back and more content rich than ever before. ;)
David Ritter
June 18th, 2007
at 7:01am
Hey, how about a live CD?
I just upgraded from Fedora 6 to Fedora 7.
I tested it out on a live CD. When I saw what I liked, I installed it to my hard drive.
It is just an option to the other great distros out there.
Matt Hartley
June 18th, 2007
at 11:19am
David: Good point, Fedora 6 was a solid distro, so I assume 7 would be as well.
george
June 24th, 2007
at 3:24pm
Hi all,
I am a TOTAL newbie to Linux, don’t even have it yet. I have a Toshiba Satellite that has had nothing but problems with XP, thinking about jumping on the Linux bandwagon. How can i get a boot/install disc? Thanks for your attention
george
Chris Rohde
June 26th, 2007
at 4:45am
George:
What are the specs of your comp you’re thinking of switching to? If its a bit older, I would recommend the distro we’re talking about which can be found at http://puppylinux.org (head to downloads, download and burn the ISO and you’re good to go).
If it’s relatively decent (and my IBM Thinkpad T30 runs it, so thats a good indicator) you should check out Ubuntu at http://www.ubuntu.com … just for ease of use and transition. (I am a bit of an Ubuntu Fanboy though).
Hope that helps (and sorry for steppin on your question-answerin toes, Matt)
Chris
Robert
July 12th, 2007
at 1:32pm
I have tried to boot puppy linux from a USB Thumbdrive on an OQO Model 02. From the Bios, I have set to boot from drive A, B, and D. Drive D should have worked (this is the USB drive). But it does’nt recognize a bootable media, so it always goes to the second option (Hard disk Windows).
Any suggestions!
Thanks!
Robert
Guy
August 10th, 2007
at 10:25am
Got it working.
I know I posted my questions quite a while ago but since this wasn’t a priority at work and also include some summer vacation, I did not have much time to try it.
It was much easier than I thought. First I downloaded Puppy and created the liveCD. We have some 24inch Dell monitors that have built-in USB CF card readers here at work. I connected the monitor via usb to my computer and booted with the liveCD. After Puppy was running, I selected “universal installer” and simply pointed to the CF card when asked where I wanted to install Puppy. Once it was finished. I popped the card out and put it into the mini-pc (ebox 2300) and bam it worked.
I now have Puppy linux running beautifully.
Guy
Macopoulos
August 29th, 2008
at 3:47am
Is there a way to put debian on a cf from a card reader and then put it on the cf-2-ide and boot from the other pc.
i’ve tried damn small linux on a vmware image with focus on the usb but it can’t read the card reader.. puppy i’m downloading it now..
I’ve run an embeded system linksys nslu2 with native debian from a manual install of a pre-installed tar..
Any help? thanx!