USB Linux Howto: Puppy 4.1

Puppy Linux version 4.1, or ’410′ is now the latest version of Puppy Linux that has many improvements ‘under the hood’, while there are few immediately apparent changes. This is what’s new:

- Bugs fixed
- Newer kernel, newer software. Also, a new kernel compression system.
- Now there is no zdrv.sfs, meaning that there is one less file to deal with.
- New applications, including:
- F-prot virus scanning for Windows drives
- Blog software, which can be used as a personal diary, or exported.
- Voice over IP client using SIP

Here’s how to put Puppy 410 onto a bootable stick, using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. If you don’t already have a bootable USB stick, follow this. If you already have a CD or USB stick version, you can use the ‘Puppy universal installer’ method here.

1. Download a cd disk image (.iso) from here. It should be about 95 megabytes.

2. Open the .iso with file-roller (called “Archive manager”)

3. Extract the iso to your usb stick. Here, it is called “CORSAIR”, a Corsair Flash Voyager.

4. Open isolinux.cfg

6. Select text in the middle of the file and copy it to the clipboard.

5. Open syslinux.cfg. This might be in a folder called ‘boot’ and ‘syslinux’

7.  Paste the information at the bottom of syslinux.cfg

8. Change the entry to your needs, and change pmedia=cd to pmedia=usbflash. If you have the file syslinux.cfg in boot/syslinux, you’ll need to add a slash to vmlinuz and initrd.gz

9. Save the file. Safely eject the stick with the eject icon, and then have fun.