Full Installation of FatDog64 (64-bit Puppy Linux) into Hard Disk

You might like to read this introduction first, on FatDog64.

FatDog64 Linux does not support a full HDD installation officially. But we can make it work with some tweaks. The full HDD installed version have the highest performance and boot speed (less than 6 Seconds!).

Ok here we go. This blog assumes that you’ve a good grip on Linux environment. This is definitely not for the faint hearted!  Please always backup all your relevant data before proceeding. We strongly recommend to create and use a Virtual environment (like  VirtualBox) to try this out first, before you actually proceeding with your physical machine. Try create a simulated environment in Virtualbox that represents your physical system and then try the below. Once you’re confident, you can try this out in your physical machine. Also the partition numbers (Sda5, Sda6, e.t.c) that we are referring here, are  related to our current test environment. You should replace it with yours accordingly, as per your configurations.

Note: One question here is , how to create a simulated environment that represents the physical machine in a virtual machine environment! That’s beyond the scope of this writing. You can read that article here. But the basic idea is, you will clone your physical hard disk partitions using CloneZilla software included in the PartedMagic Live CD. Then you will create and restore the cloned Physical Hard Disk partitions to a VirtualBox guest’s virtual hard disk. That’s it!

1. Create and Prepare a new Partition for FatDog64

Ok. We’ve a dual boot system. Lubuntu14.04 is my major OS. Its installed on ‘Sda5’.  The below is the setup.

Sda6 was not in the scene. But what I’ve did was, shrinked ‘Sda5’ partition from 20GB to 15GB, using GParted (Included in PartedMagic Live CD). Then from the freed 5GB, I’ve created a new Partition and formatted it with ext4 filesystem. In fact the new Partition will get the name like ‘Sda9’. But I’ve reordered the partition numbers in the chronological order! Tip: I’ve used the ‘fdisk’ command to perform the reordering.

Ok now we’ve a new free partition here ‘Sda6’ for the FatDog64.

2. Download the latest FatDog64 ISO file and burn it to a CD

You can check and download from here. I’ve downloaded FatDog64-631.iso, that is the latest version for the time being. If you’re trying this inside virtualbox, you don’t need anything extra. You can directly load this ISO to your VirtualBox’s CD drive.

But if you’re trying with the physical machine, burn the ISO to a CD/DVD. Or you can make a bootable USB from this ISO using utilities like UNetBootin.

3. Boot into FatDog64 Live CD

Boot into FatDog64 Live CD. In virtualbox, simply load the downloaded ISO to the virtual CD drive and power on the Virtual Machine. Select the default selected option from the boot menu. Wait for some time till FatDog64 boots into the desktop.

4. Frugal install FatDog64 to the newly created partition

Click on the FatDog64 installer. See the below screenshot.

Choose your previously created partition for FatDog64. See below.

Opt not to install ‘boot loader’. We will manually update the boot loader of Lubuntu later. Also updating boot loader from FatDog64 installer is rather buggy and can result in boot issues.

Take the source from the current ‘CD/DVD’

That’s it now ‘install’ it by clicking the button.

Now after installation, the partition will be mounted. In my case it is ‘Sda6’. Click on it, it will open as ‘/mnt/sda6’.

Note (NB): for Step5 and 6, I’ve used this reference. But it didn’t worked for the latest version of FatDog64. Also that solution, once done with previous versions, remained with broken and removed packages. For eg. ‘brctl’ didn’t worked as that package was removed or damaged. Ethernet (eth0) was not properly detected as ‘/etc/network’ folder was removed or not properly created.

So I’ve done some R&D based on the above given link and arrived at my own way of fixing it for FatDog64-631. It also preserves the integrity of the packages as well. But if you find any discrepancies, don’t forget to share suggestions and solutions as comments.

5. Perform a Layred Full Install

Now click on the ‘intrid’ archive in the above figure. This will extract the content to a temporary location and will automatically opened. Now open a command prompt in that temporary location (Simply by right click and opt ‘Switch To Terminal’ menu option)

Now use the below command, to merge ‘fd64-630.sfs’ to the root file system.

“unsquashfs –f –d /mnt/sdb6/ fd64-630.sfs”

Do replace sdb6, with your partition, created for FatDog

Now update your boot loader configuration, to have FatDog64 listed in the boot menu. I’ve Lubuntu14.04 as my primary OS and Grub Loader is installed in ‘/mnt/sda5’. You might have a similar configuration, if you’re using Ubuntu or its derivatives, but don’t forgot to change the partition name as per your setup.

Note: If you’re using windows, you should refer this. Personally I’ve not tried it from my side. You may need some experimenting to work this out.

Now in the ‘grub.cfg’ file add a new ‘menuentry’ section for FatDog64. Please see the below figure. You should replace your environment settings where ever required.

eg. ‘hd0,msdos6’ tells, First Hard Disk attached, and partition number 6 (i.e Sda6). If you’re using your second hard disk and 2nd partition you should change it to ‘hd1,msdos2’ and ‘direct:device:sdb2’.

Reboot the system, for perform a True Full Install (Described in the next step)

6. Perform a True Full Install

As you’ve done with Step5. Open the partition that having the FatDog64 installation (In our case click on the ‘Sda6’ drive icon in the bottom). Click on the ‘intrid’ archive to extract and open the contents in a temporary folder. Open a terminal in the temporary location. See below fig.

Now use the below command, to merge ‘kernel-modules.sfs’ to the root file system.

“unsquashfs –f –d / kernel-modules.sfs”

Open ‘/aufs/pup_save’ folder, and create ‘etc’ and ‘tmp’ folder in it.

Create a file named ‘BOOTSTATE’ inside ‘/aufs/pup_save/etc’ folder. Open the ‘BOOTSTATE’ file and type “SAVEFILE_MOUNT=/” as the only content inside this file.

Copy ‘network’ and ‘rc.d’ folders from ‘/aufs/pup_init/etc’ to ‘/aufs/pup_save/etc’ by simply dragging the folders to destination.

Now copy ‘network’, ‘rc.d’, ‘BOOTSTATE’ items (Just created above) from ‘/aufs/pup_save/etc’ to ‘/aufs/devsave/etc’, by simply dragging the items to the destination as in the below fig. ‘Overwrite’ existing items on prompt.

Now we need to update fstab for the full installation.

Open ‘/etc/fstab’ and uncomment ‘proc’ and ‘sysfs’ lines as below.

Copy ‘/etc/fstab’ (Just edited) to ‘/aufs/devsave/etc’ by dragging it. Overwrite on prompt.

Now update your ‘grub.cfg’ by editing the existing ‘FatDog64’ entry, (in our case this is /mnt/sda5/grub/grub.cfg, replace with your own) to point that, we are now with a ‘Full Install’ and no need of ‘intrid’ to be loaded. See the below.

Remove ‘intrid’ line and update linux command line as below

“linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 rw rootwait pkeys=us”

Now Reboot, This will now boot into to your Full Installation! 

7. Fix True Full Install – Restore broken and removed packages in the True Full Install

But by this time, we might have broken, deleted or overwritten some of the existing packages from the system, due the the ‘unsquashfs’ command lines we’ve used before. So to fix this we might need the below additional steps.

Open the FatDot64 installed partition. Click on the ‘intrid’ to extract the contents to a temporary folder.

Now in the temporary folder, click on the ‘kernel-modules.sfs’, to extract it to a secondary temporary folder. Then open a command prompt in the 2nd temporary folder and type in the below commands.

Now type in the below command.

“cp –a –remove-destination ./* /”

Close the terminal and the secondary temporary folder (having kernel-modules.sfs contents). Now we will reside at the first temporary folder again, with extracted ‘intrid’ contents.

Now in the temporary folder, click on the ‘fd64-630.sfs’, to extract it to another secondary temporary folder. Then open a command prompt in the 2nd temporary folder and type in the below command as you’ve done before.

“cp –a –remove-destination ./* /”

Close the terminal and the secondary temporary folder (having fd64-630.sfs contents). Now we will reside at the first temporary folder again, with extracted ‘intrid’ contents.

Now open the ‘sbin’ folder inside temporary window that having the extracted ‘intrid’ contents. copy ‘lvm’ file  to ‘’/sbin'” (sbin in the root file system), by dragging it over. See the below fig.

You’re basically done. But you should again come to ‘/etc/fstab’ to modify it again, as it will be overwritten.

Open ‘/etc/fstab’ and uncomment ‘proc’ and ‘sysfs’ lines as below as you done before.

8. Reboot.

Now reboot. You might have the true fully installed FatDog64 installation with blazing fast boot speed and performance

Conclusion.

Though, I’ve been able to perform the True Full Install with all packaged retained, I am seeing some warnings during boot up and shutdown. I am working on this to figure this out.

But if some one having already fixed this or having suggestions or fixes, Please respond by adding comments.

Next: Read on how to install VirtualBox.4.3.12 (latest version) in FatDog64 HDD true full install here.