Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Owl

Hi,

I have a 256 MB USB stick and booting puppy from the stick works fine (1.0.7 install, strangely enough 1.0.6 didn't work at all).

Now I have 6 files on the stick, including a 184 Mb pup100.zip file that was created during the install process. So, there is only 8 Mb left on the stick.

Since I also want to be able to carry other files around that are accessible from a W2000 system at work (mostly mp3's), I would like to create (or download) a smaller pup100.zip file.

All my searching on the forums so far resulted in tips how to enlarge it, and the various downloads are also all larger files.

Anyone who has a tip (PS: I don't have XP, so the XP tricks don't work for me),

Kind greetings,
Owl.

MU · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 2941 Location: Hamburg, Germany

Try the 128-MB-file (pup001-0124MB.zip):
http://dotpups.de/files/pup001-different-sizes/

I did this:
extracted the 254-MB-zip.

Splitted it:
split -b 128m pup001

Made a filesystem:
mke2fs xaa -N 31868

Mounted it:
mount -o loop /mnt/sda7/_bigpup/mini/xaa /mnt/sda7/107

Copied the files from the 254MB-file there (I had extracted them in advance to a temp-folder), unmounted:
umount /mnt/sda7/107

Does it work?

Mark

kethd · Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 427 Location: Boston MA USA

Yes, Puppy likes to make a Very Large PUPxxx file, and does not offer you choices on size when it first makes the file. It will often leave you with just 8MB of free space on your storage device.

However, Puppy will actually function with a PUPxxx file as small as 5MB (it only actually contains a few megs of stuff at first -- the rest is up to how you use it, what changes/additions you make).

I can't tell you how to make an existing PUPxxx smaller, although I am sure there are ways to do that by hand. But there is a very easy way to make it smaller from the start -- or if you don't mind starting over. Just give it less space! In other words, if you set up your 256MB stick again, but put in some space-filling big files first, then after you set up Puppy you can delete those fillers, and you will have that much space (plus 8MB) to do other things with.

MU · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 2941 Location: Hamburg, Germany

kethd · Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 427 Location: Boston MA USA

Hmmm... I've never even heard of split...

A little theory background, for anyone wondering,
Why is it so Complicated the change the size of PUPXXX?

Because PUPXXX is a file that contains a filesystem. The filesystem is created with a stated maximum size. The file that contains it also has a fixed size. The two sizes should always be in sync, but there is no automatic feature to take care of this (after they are created). So, when you want to change the size of PUPXXX, you must change both the size of the file, and the size of the filesystem changed within it.

This is all kind of wasteful. If you start with a 256MB PUPXXX, it is 99% empty. And you might never use any of that space, but the shell file will go on taking up all that space.

There seems an obvious need for someone to come up with a fully dynamic version of this. Which would be especially appropriate for Puppy, where the idea would be to copy it into RAM at boot time, and just be written back to external storage when the session ends.

MU · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 2941 Location: Hamburg, Germany

Split simply cuts a file in pieces.
You can use it to spread a big file on floppys.
(to recombine them use: cat xaa>new && cat xab>>new )

I use it to get a small file of a determined size.
split -b 128m pup001 creates 2 files: xaa xab

I just need xaa that has 128 MB.
Then with mke2fs I ceate a ext2-filesystem in this file.
Finally I copy the files from a working pup001 into it, and rename it to pup001.

Mark

BlackAdder · Joined: 22 May 2005 Posts: 161

An alternative to splitting etc. is to create a smaller pupxxx file in the first place. syslinux.cfg contains a definition of the size of the file, typically something like:

rarsa · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:44 pm Post subject:

Here is another suggestion that I find easier. If it looks complicated is because I'm being verbose.

Assuming that you want a 100MB pup100 file in your USB Memory:

1. Copy the pup100 file that was created automatically to your HDD, for example, to the root of hda1 and delete it from the USB.
2. Boot puppy to ram so it does not try to create the pup100 file.
3. Mount the USB memory
4. Open a terminal (rxvt) and 'cd' to the folder where the USB is mounted. e.g.

kethd · Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 427 Location: Boston MA USA

rarsa,

Great info! This needs to be copied over to a prominent HOWTO, readily available from Puppy FAQs, and included in the wiki...

But I fear you are still not as verbose as needed. Step 2 could be a problem for many -- How to keep Puppy from using the existing PUPXXX *and* not make a new one, so that you are completely free to work with the old PUPXXX? The only trick I have stumbled on is to boot the LiveCD and choose menu-3, then just hit enter when it asks for home location.

It really needs to be a standard Puppy feature/ability, to at least be able to just click on a desktop menu item and say, "I want Puppy to shut down now (or reboot) and remake/resize PUPXXX to this smaller/larger size as it goes down". (And, I do/do-not want Puppy to keep a backup copy of the old PUP, in compressed/uncompressed form.)

rarsa · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:44 am Post subject: