Installing Puppy on Intel Compute Stick [SOLVED]

[smilingpuppy]

Hello pupsters,

I'm trying to install Puppy linux on an Intel Compute Stick. This is just a hobby project.

I successfully created a bootable USB drive containing fossapup64-9.5.
The USB drive when plugged into the Compute Stick will boot and brings up Fossapup desktop. Very nice. Applications execute, WiFi works, hunky dory.

So the next step is I would like to do a "frugal" install onto the Compute Stick.

I attempted to follow the instructions given at viewtopic.php?t=5275
The compute stick has an 8GB SSD on which I created two partitions:
/dev/mmcblk1p1 fat32 47MB flags: boot,esp
/dev/mmcblk1p3 ext4 7.08GB

Using the Graphical Frugalpup Install wizard, I setup a frugal install directory named 'frugalpup' on the ext4 partition.
Using the Graphical Boot wizard, I installed GRUB4DOS in the first (FAT32) partition.

Next I remove the USB flash drive and reboot the stick.

GNU GRUB version 2.03 menu appears with an entry for 'Puppy fossapup64_9.5' at the top.
When the top entry is chosen, two loading messages appear:
Loading vmlinuz
Loading initrd.gz
Then a new screen appears displaying "fossapup64 9.5 Linux 5.4.53"
"Waiting for USB storage done"
and then a few moments later
"Finding puppy main sfs file. failed"
The relevant error messages seem to be:
Partition (UUID of partition2) not found.
*** (UUID of partition2) /frugalpup/puppy_fossapup64.9.5.sfs not found.

I'm left at a linux prompt (/ #) that appears to be the root of some filesystem, but I don't know how to diagnose the file not found error. Is it looking for the sfs file on the USB drive (that isn't plugged in)? Why wouldn't it be able to find the partition on the SSD?

In grub editor I tried changing the parameter pmedia=atahd to ataflash but that didn't change anything.

I'm clueless about the intricacies of how the bootloader works or what the grub commands mean and am guessing there's some incantation here that's doing the wrong thing.

Any tips on how to troubleshoot this?
Thanks.

[rockedge]

Let's take a look at the grub.cfg file so we can see the boot stanza's. What appears to be happening is that the partition containing the frugal directory installation can not be found. The partition device name can change from the one used in the boot stanza''s in the current grub.cfg so it is best to have the Puppy Linux system files partition be referenced by UUID number of that partition.

So most likely a change to using the partition UUID numbers is what will fix this, if in fact, this is what is wrong in the first place.

[smilingpuppy]

Thanks, that's helpful info. Here's the menuentry from grub.cfg

Code: Select all

menuentry "Puppy fossapup64 9.5" {
    insmod ext2
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set  1eb60aa7-2c8d-4043-ad6d-d37e8d2bc572
    echo "Loading vmlinuz"
    linux /frugalpup/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd pdrv=1eb60aa7-2c8d-4043-ad6d-d37e8d2bc572 psubdir=/frugalpup pfix=fsck,fsckp,trim TZ=XXX-8
    echo "Loading initrd.gz"
    initrd /frugalpup/initrd.gz
}

How do I go about determining the correct UUID? After the error messages, at the linux prompt, I tried the command lsblk but it said command not found.

[trawglodyte]

I tried the command lsblk but it said command not found.

blkid is the command to find UUID. I don't know if it will work at that prompt if lsblk doesn't. Can you still boot your fossapup64 USB plugged into it? open a terminal in that and enter blkid.

[bigpup]

The boot menu entry already has the correct UUID for the partition.

Grub4dos boot loader will not correctly boot a UEFI bios computer.
I think your computer is UEFI bios.

I think it is the boot loader you selected to install.

Frugalpup Installer can install several types.
I think you picked the wrong type for the bios this computer has.

I suggest you boot with the Fossapup64 USB and use it to do this:

Note:
Frugalpup Installer that is in Fossapup64 is an old version.
Suggest you download and install the newest version to use.
Get it here:
viewtopic.php?t=337

Delete all that is on the 1st partition so no boot loader files are on it.
Then do the boot loader install again to it.

Run Frugalpup Installer ->Boot

Tell it to install both type boot loaders.

It does depend on the type of bios the computer is using as to what type boot loader to install.
Choosing both will let it have whatever one is needed.

I do wonder why your partitions are labeled mmcblk1p1 and mmcblk1p3.
If you started out with a new partition table and all unallocated space.
Seems to me the partitions would be mmcblk1p1 and mmcblk1p2.

Are there 2 or 3 partitions on the drive?
If 3.
What is on the 3rd partition?

Note:
If you made a GPT partition table using Gparted.
Not sure Fossapup64 9.5 fully supports it.

Could try to make a msdos partition table and then partition and format.

[bigpup]

Fossapup64 9.5 did have issues booting from internal eMMC drives.

You may want to try a different version of Puppy.

F96-CE (an update of Fossapup64)

BookwormPup64

One of the Vanilla Dpup versions.

Anyway a Puppy version that is newer than Fossapup64 9.5 that will have the improvements for booting from internal eMMC drives.

Download the Puppy version ISO.
You can install using Frugalpup Installer selecting to use the ISO of the Puppy version as source.

[Geek3579]

I would suggest changing the pmedia=atahd to pmedia=usbflash or similar.
See viewtopic.php?t=2170

Also try a longer delay, eg nousbwait=10 in the vmlinuz line

[smilingpuppy]

Thanks all for the helpful suggestions.

I switched to a different Puppy version: F96-CE

It booted from the USB and as I went through the procedure to install to the SSD I noticed that the bootloader dialog gave me a UEFI option. So I selected that. Bingo. Booted first time.

So I know have the Compute Stick booting to F96-CE. Sweet.

Oddly, the wireless isn't working when it did on Fossapup64 9.5, but that's for another day.

Marking this as solved. Many Thanks