Using ISO's to boot from

[Clarity]

@trawglodyte there are a mere few of WoofCE PUPs that will boot without a need to use the psave= parm at distro Menu to start the boot. I am not convince that Ventoy is inserting a pmedia= parm, but what does happen is that once the distro reaches the desktop, assuming it boots to desktop, it "locks" the boot partition rendering it unavailable. This was discussed, but developers have not investigated why this is occurring.

I am not in disagreement with @gyrog who (he knows) I respect the intelligence he personally has added to WoofCE PUPs to KNOW where session-management is to reside (that bit of work, as small in scope as it is; is brilliant)

My advice, and somewhere the same from @gyrog is when booting WoofCE ISO files, to boot them via SG2D.

This is to be done, until WoofCE development gets around to resolving the 'locking' issue it has. They, currently, have NOT accepted this as a bug because Ventoy is the only known occurrence of this locking phenom.

This problem is NOT evident in other non-WoofCE distros on the forum.

SG2D boots all WoofCEs, I have tested except 2 of the current VanillaPUP64s, tested couple weeks ago.

If you SG2D launch a WoofCE ISO file that does not boot to desktop, IT IS DUE TO A BUG IN THE BOOTING PUP!

Enjoy.

BTW @trawglodyte you now know "WHY" I have continued to insist to have SG2D in your BOOTISOS folder as it caSG2D n be launched by Ventoy and will boot those pesky WoofCE ISO files without issue. SG2D, also boots all other forum distro ISO files, as well.

BTW2: When I do boot a WoofCE via VEntoy, I interrupt the launched distro's menu to add "psave=Persistence:/Sessions/" to the Menu's stanza that I select. This will direct the PUP to overide and locate its session-management location when it does boot to desktop. For me, I keep ALL of my sessions for EVERY forum distro in this Sessions folder on a drive labeled Persistence. Every booting forum distro is directed to find its sessions there.

REMEMBER: Booting a forum distro's ISO file coupled with its save-session is a "Frugal" experience! ... its the same...just without the need to do all the work of moving files, creating stanzas, figuring out storage needs, etc. That' why this is so simple once setup as it is merely a ISO file download and run, now.

[trawglodyte]

REMEMBER: Booting a forum distro's ISO file coupled with its save-session is a "Frugal" experience! ... its the same...just without the need to do all the work of moving files, creating stanzas, figuring out storage needs, etc. That' why this is so simple once setup as it is merely a ISO file download and run, now.

It's more work, not less. I know because I tried following exactly what you told me to do. It was a nightmare. A frugal install, at it's core, is just taking the files from the .iso and putting them in a folder on a partition or USB. It's a very simple step. If you could get around it just by dropping the .iso in a Ventoy and be able to keep your save file without a bunch of additional steps, that would be good. But you can't. I mean "you" as in you personally. You couldn't tell me how to do it without many addtitional steps, most of which were more difficult than just doing the frugal install to begin with.

I've said all along, that doesn't mean if you like doing it that way that you shouldn't, but you're really misleading people when you act as if you can just drop an .iso in a Ventoy and it works like a frugal install without explaining exactly what other things must be done.

[Clarity]

@trawglodyte I'm failing to realize what you ran into that gives you the impression that a download and boot is a nightmare. I been using this for almost 5 years and I have no such experience...either in the begining or now. All of my frugal arrangements of ISOfile+save-session are just as I have presented. I am not the only person on this forum who has either published or used Ventoy knowing this type of frugal works identical to the tradition methods of moving files and creating stanzas in order to boot and create save-sessions.

I am currently using the same USB stick (/dev/sdf) that I setup 3 years ago unmodified...namely a 32GB Sandisk that I keep current with all recent PUPs, KLs, and DOGs. When a forum developer publishes, I merely download and boot it. Simple. No retrofits, no movement of files, no changing or adapting boot stanzas, none of the efforts you are using.

This WoofCE running for past week.

BKP64 desktop.jpg (7.87 KiB) Viewed 181 times

Contents of Ventoy boot parttition

Ventoy boot USB.jpg (6.29 KiB) Viewed 180 times

I'd like to help, but, unless you can articulate what kind of nightmare, maybe I can help. It should not be a nightmare for you or anyone. And yes, there are some minor considerations but those are mere normal Linux considerations. Those considerations should not detract from the ability to download an ISO file to your USB and boot to a desktop.

Check your PM.

[trawglodyte]

@Clarity This nightmare >>> viewtopic.php?t=10368 remember?? hours.... Still nowhere close to a step-by-step guide. Something YOU should have ready to give people yourself if you are going to insist it is "so easy" and pretend frugal installs are arduous work.

Look, if you want to go through an arduous process to wind up with something that's not-quite-as good as a frugal install, go for it. And I mean that. It's more difficult to get it set-up and what you wind up with still has inherent disadvantages over a frugal install. Why? So you can click from a Ventoy menu instead of a grub? Who cares? I just want to be able to boot my OS's.

I was trying to help you explain your method, this is where I got to after prying the information out of you and trying to decipher what you were telling me. You need to finish this so someone has a chance of any of your posts lauding the ease of booting from Ventoy "like a frugal install" helping them. For some reason you are not grasping the importance of this. If you can't tell people how to do it, then it's not easy.

1 Install Ventoy to USB or hard drive.
2 Make folder on Ventoy parition named BOOTISOS.
3 Put pup.iso of your choice in folder BOOTISOS.
4 Put file SAVESPEC in folder BOOTISOS. **
# Put SG2D.iso in BOOTISOS folder. ** - this step probably isn't necessary.
5 Make parition labeled and named Persistence.
# Boot Ventoy and select your your SG2D.iso from menu. - don't do this.
Press enter for default option to scan your system for bootables. - don't do this.
In the resulting menu, scroll to the bottom and select your puppy.iso -don't do this.
6 Boot Ventoy and select your puppy.iso, Do NOT launch the puppy, press 'e' instead to edit the boot parameters by adding "psave=Persitence:/sessions/"
7 press ctl-x to launch with those parameters.
8 After doing Quick Setup (and whatever else you'd like), Menu>Leave>Reboot or Shutdown
9 Default options should create a save file on your Persistence partition in a new folder named Sessions .

** Here is SAVESPEC, https://disk.yandex.com/d/C01sPywTUWN6BA download and rename SAVESPEC without .fake.gz before placing in BOOTISOS folder.
# ** Here is SG2D with download options. https://www.supergrubdisk.org/2022/12/2 ... downloads/ if that link is dead download the .iso at SourceForge https://sourceforge.net/projects/superg ... 6s2-beta1/ **probably don't need this after all.