How to do a Frugal Install without a Windows OS?

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How to do a Frugal Install without a Windows OS?

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Started 11 years ago by plumtreed
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plumtreed

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I have an older PC on which I run the Slitaz livecd. The RAM is less than 512. It would be a better set-up if I could do a frugal install to make any changes persistent.
It seems that most of guides to a frugal install relates to a Windows/grub4dos install. The only other os on this machine is a Linux os, Peppermint3.

I can't work out how to organise a frugal install and was wondering if someone could point me to guidelines or instructions on how to do it?

Posted 11 years ago #
Ceel

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Hello plumtreed,

What bootlaoder did you use on your computer? If you already use grub4dos you just have to create a new entry in the menu to launch SliTaz in frugal mode.

Copy the rootfs.gz and bzImage files in a folder on your hard disk (ie: /slitaz-4.0/boot); add to menu.lst file of your computer something like that:
title SliTaz 4.0 core (kernel 2.6.37) frugal install on sda2 kernel (hd1,1)/slitaz-4.0/boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null initrd (hd1,1)/slitaz-4.0/boot/rootfs.gz

Take care
- to the designation of the disk; (hd1,1) is my configuration (files are installed on sda2)
- If you use the 4-in-1 release concatenate the 4 rootfs#.gz in 1:
But why do you want a frugal install and not a full install if you want to make changes persistent?
With only 512 MB my opinion is it'll be better to have a full install.
Posted 11 years ago #
plumtreed

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Hi Ceel,
I happily use Slitaz consistently on my eeePC701 using a 2G ssd.....it boots via Grub2.

I was thinking frugal in order to have Slitaz run in RAM and thereby be faster than a full install. The other PC is fairly old but Slitaz makes it usable even with the live CD.

I would prefer to continue with Grub2 but it might be simpler to change over to grub4dos?

Posted 11 years ago #
christophe

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I can confirm that I have installed slitaz frugal in a linux root partition, (from grub legacy).
If you make slitaz boot from grub2 no need to switch to grub4dos, you should be able to boot a frugal system with no problem at all (except for the 512MB RAM, which I would consider as to small for a frugal system for the kind of use i have).

Posted 11 years ago #
Ceel

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@ plumtreed,

Of course it mus be possible to run a frugal install with Grub2, no need to change. But unfortunately I don't know Grub2 and can't help you. I think I'll have to learn to use it sooner or later. But as Grub4dos was enough, I did not make the effort yet...

Frugal install is much faster than a full install... when you've got RAM. As Christophe wrote, you can run it with 512 MB, depends what you want to do. If you just want to surf the internet (with a light browser, Midori, Tazweb), why not. But for office applications...

Posted 11 years ago #
plumtreed

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Many thanks, I was interested in using an old desktop which is about 15 years old......but only for basic net access. I find it difficult to throw 'old friends' out:( I wanted the 'frugal' install to maintain the 'running' in ram aspect.

I thought there might be a 'How to' somewhere to make it easier but I will get it going by the trial & error method.

Thanks again!

Posted 11 years ago #
christophe

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This is simple and no different from Windows frugal install.

Just create /boot_f (if you want the files not to be with /boot files, i had kept /boot)
copy bzImage and your rootfs.gz to /boot_f

Update grub2 so that will substantially boot from /boot_f
(in grub 1 that would be:
```
title SliTaz FRUGAL
  kernel (hd0,0)/boot_f/bzImage rw root=/dev/null vga=normal
  initrd (hd0,0)/boot_f/rootfs.gz
```
provided you boot from hd0,0 and you have put the files in /boot_f, of course
Posted 11 years ago #
plumtreed

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Thank you for the help........I have it working....you suggestions were invaluable! Considerable trouble getting grub2 to behave and play the way I wanted it to work, but all is good;)

Posted 11 years ago #
christophe

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ok can you indicate the grub2 magic spell here ? for others (including me, I can't remember if is solved that or not, but i have gub2 on board now).

Posted 11 years ago #
plumtreed

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This is a long weekend in Aus, starting with Anzac Day on Thursday thru to Sunday and we are on holiday at the coast away from the old PC that I was working on. So I can't give you exact details but I am using Peppermint3 and the task was to effectively dual boot with Slitaz as a frugal install.

I followed the guide to a frugal install and using 'part' of your suggestion I copied the necessary files. I then added the necessary to Grub2 and it seemed to work.

However, the PC & it's monitor would only boot the live CD sporadically so I scrapped the frugal idea and did a full install.....which is the way it is now set up. Grub2 offers the choice of Peppermint and Slitaz. The full install appears to be fast enough!

I will try to give you more info next week.

Posted 11 years ago #
plumtreed

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When using grub2, 'Boot Rescue Disk' appears to have the ability to find and use menu.lst when it is needed. Changes made in Slitaz..../boot/grub/menu.lst will be 'discovered' by 'Boot Rescue Disk". I made changes in Slitaz.../boot/grub/menu.lst, ran the rescue disk and it reconstructed a grub screen to select from the two OSs running.

I reverted back to a conventional install by changing /boot/grub/menu.lst back to the original setting, ran the rescue disk again to get a grub2 boot screen. I am happy with the speed with the conventional HD install.

......however, I don't get any sound ......even after running various versions of Flash:(

Posted 11 years ago #

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