Boot menu for Flash stick

This is something that I have been meaning to do for a long time. When the Universal Installer installs Puppy to a USB or ATA Flash memory, there is no splash graphic nor any opportunity to enter boot parameters. This is a bit of a disappointment if you have been accustomed to these features when booting off a live-CD.

I have modified the Universal Installer (script /usr/sbin/puppyinstaller) to present a boot splash graphic and menu, just as with the live-CD, when installing to any media that uses Syslinux or Extlinux to boot.

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Comments

Good result
Username: cthisbear
Perfect BK. Well missed after being in Puppy 4.2.1 and since then being forced to pluck files off the cd. Chris.

Good, but.....
Username: drongo
".... on or in which one? Woof? Quirky? Puppy 4.3.2? All three? I can stop using CDs now. Good.

All
Username: Lobster
"Yes all of them - if booting from CD I sometimes leave a USB reader in and a Grub message comes up - which I assume is on the MBR of the hard drive - so that might be remnants of Ubuntu - m m m . . . might not be Puppy at all - it comes up before the CD boots - might have a look in the BIOS . . . [Lobster rambles off into the distance]

Boot Grub-like option?
Username: Michalis
"I tried the last days for first time to use different puppies versions from a single usb, the same way I do it in my hard drive and I found out that it's a bit complicated and needs much involve of the end user to achieve it. Could you change the usb installation in a way that it will make it easy to install many different puppies frugal style? From what I've read it is possible with grub4dos. This way anyone could install each puppy in a different subfolder the same way it's being done in an hdd and have the ability to select whichever wants. It would be really helpful.

Syslinux does the job
Username: Michalis
"I searched a little bit feather and found that the solution is very simple by using syslinux. Syslinux is the default that puppy is using when installed in an usbthumb, so no need for grub4dos. What is needed is except of the syslinux.cfg a file called "menu.txt" at the root of the usb. In my case where the files are under subfolders /puppy/ and /quirky010/ the menu.txt is: [code]1.- Puppy Linux 431 2.- Quirky Linux 010[/code] and the syslinux.cfg is: [code]PROMPT 1 TIMEOUT 0 DEFAULT 1 DISPLAY menu.txt LABEL 1 KERNEL /puppy/vmlinuz INITRD /puppy/initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash pfix=copy LABEL 2 KERNEL /quirky010/vmlinuz INITRD /quirky010/initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash pfix=copy[/code] To choose whether boot of puppy431 or quirky is being done only by typing "1" or "2" and press enter. Of course anybody can add as many puppies as he needs and modify the files as needed. Works perfect except of a small problem, it doesn't make use of the parameter pfix. No matter whether is pfix=copy or pfix=ram it will load the pup save file from the hard drive. Is there a solution for this problem?

The solution
Username: Michalis
"Gosh, I can't believe it, by mistake I changed the initrd line and that's why wasn't working. The correct syslinux.cfg is the following: [code]PROMPT 1 TIMEOUT 0 DEFAULT 1 DISPLAY menu.txt LABEL 1 KERNEL /puppy/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=/puppy/initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash pfix=copy LABEL 2 KERNEL /quirky010/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=/quirky010/initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash pfix=copy[/code] Works without any problem and uses the pfix options. Anyway it would be nice, since you are reworking the boot from flash media, to add this feature. Would be very easy to anyone who isn't familiar with booting from usb flash drives to make his own multiboot/multitest flash drive.

GREAT SITE
Username: Muhammad usman
"I'm running fellow Edubook user pskin's Puppy 431 build for the Gecko (http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=50208). I tried to generate a report from hardinfo, with the intention of posting it here, but it returns an empty file. Any command-line functions you'd have me run? THANKS <a href="http://www.testkings.net">testking</a> Muhammad usman

GREAT SITE
Username: Muhammad usman
"I'm running fellow Edubook user pskin's Puppy 431 build for the Gecko (http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=50208). I tried to generate a report from hardinfo, with the intention of posting it here, but it returns an empty file. Any command-line functions you'd have me run? THANKS [url=http://www.testkings.net/]testking[/url] Muhammad usman

Tags: woof