Puppy Linux on an old computer

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I've been extremely busy with school and work. I just don't have the time to mess around with Linux. I still run it every day on my laptop, but I can't mess around with it since I really need the laptop for school. But my son recently asked to boot up with Linux.

I had Puppy Linux installed, but to get to it I had to use a floppy drive. I don't like having to mess with a floppy, and I didn't want to use a CD. I found this thread on the forums, and it sort of worked for me. I did have to make a couple changes, so I decided to write this up so I don't lose track of what I did. I also want to make sure that the original topic doesn't disappear.

First, I downloaded the new ISO and burned it to CD. I booted into Windows and created a c:\puppy folder. I then copied all the files from the CD into this folder. I feel sure that I don't need all the files, but I figure that the files that aren't needed are the smaller files, and they add up to about 5 meg. A small price to pay for not having the headache of tracking down exactly what files are needed.

Next, I needed to use GRUB. I got grub.exe from here. This went into the c:\puppy folder as well. Finally, GRUB makes use of a file called menu.lst. This file basically is a menu list that allows you to pick OS to boot into. I pulled the menu.lst file off my Ubuntu laptop. It's in the /boot/grub folder. I commented out all the menu items for my laptop and put in the following:

timeout 0
title Puppy Linux
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/puppy/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off
PFILE=pup001-none-131072 PHOME=hda1
initrd (hd0,0)/puppy/initrd.gz

Finally I got to the point to change the way the computer will boot up. Time to edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. The original poster suggested using sysedit on the Win98 machine and it was a bit easier to use since I got to change each of the files with a single open. The config.sys file was empty and I added the following:

REM [Start of additions for Linux]
[menu]
menuitem=win, Windows
menuitem=linux, Puppy Linux ver. 2.13
menudefault=win, 15

[linux]

[win]
REM [End of additions for Linux]

This basically sets up the menu to select Windows or Linux. It also sets up a timeout to choose Windows after 15 seconds. The autoexec.bat file was also empty, so I added the following:

REM [Start additions for Linux]
GOTO %CONFIG%

:LINUX
ECHO Welcome to Puppy Linux!
PAUSE
C:\PUPPY\GRUB.EXE --config-file=(hd0,0)/puppy/menu.lst

:WIN
REM [End additions for Linux]

This makes use of the selection made in the config.sys file. It then gives a welcome to Linux message and pauses. I removed the pause, no need to wait for a key stroke. It then calls GRUB. If Windows is picked, or it times out, nothing in autoexec.bat is used.

This is a slow computer. It's a 450 MHz AMD K6-2 and has 192 Meg of memory. It seems like the computer is much faster with Puppy Linux running on it. I'll try to get my son working on this computer more and using Puppy Linux as much as I can. I firmly believe that Linux is still growing. I also think that it will help him know much more about computers than any of his peers.