# Puppy Linux - Grub Problem



## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

Downloaded puppy to cd and booted laptop with cd. Deleted partitions and created partition for linux and partition for swap. Installed puppy into linux partition.

Instructions say to run grub, which I did. Seemed to work OK. Then instructions say to change the menu.lst file which is in /boot/grub folder. It doesn't look to me like grub created a boot folder which I assume means grub didn't work.

I'm lost. I don't remember enough unix to do much troubleshooting. Everything I have found on the web assumes a knowledge I don't have. I've tried both the default and the custom install of grub. The drive I am using is sba1. I tried hd0 and grub rejected that name but accepted sba1, which is why I thought grub installed correctly.

If I try to boot from the hard drive, I get a invalid partition table.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Did you install GRUB? It asks during install, and there are options.

Is this a full expanded install of Puppy or the frugal install?

It should be very simular, but I am still using 4.31 version of Puppy. Never upgraded as my dialup connection became unusably slow and been using slow data connection tethered to pay as you go cell phone. Plus nothing in new versions that I particularly needed/wanted. At this point I would have to go to library to download any big file.

One of confusing things about Puppy for lot newbies is there are SO MANY options and ways to install it. Its not like most linux distributions that automatically do fully expanded install to hard drive and automatically install GRUB. You can install/run it from just about any computer drive or flash card that you can imagine. It can be booted in many different ways. 

If you do frugal install then if grub fails you can either boot from a boot disk or from the cd. It will see all frugal sfs files on system and ask which you want to use. 

What you really need to do if you get confused is go post on the "Beginners Help" section of the Puppy Linux forum. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/ Tell them what version of puppy and where you installed it and maybe specs of your computer. They are very patient and will help you. They arent going to assume you are some kind of unix expert.


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

HermitJohn said:


> Did you install GRUB? It asks during install, and there are options.
> 
> Is this a full expanded install of Puppy or the frugal install?
> 
> ...


It was a full install. I installed grub and I thought it installed properly. But I get the partition table error.

I went back and installed ubuntu. Wireless card doesn't work. Seems weird to me. With puppy the wireless card works and I have a problem with partition table. With ubuntu, wireless card doesn't work and partition table is fine.

Right now I am trying to direct connect my laptop with an ethernet cable so I can connect to the internet. Then I will download the wireless driver.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

I imagine your first install of grub was corrupted. Ubuntu maybe just doesnt have driver for your wireless card.?


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

HermitJohn said:


> I imagine your first install of grub was corrupted. Ubuntu maybe just doesnt have driver for your wireless card.?


It's a common wireless card, but evidently it has a proprietary Broadcom chip so Ubuntu doesn't install the driver. I found instructions on how to get the driver loaded, but I loaded the wrong one. I installed the b43 instead of the b43legacy driver. Instructions were confusing and I thought the b43 installer would load both drivers. I tried loading the b43 legacy driver after I had loaded the b43 driver and it still doesn't work. 

Do you know if I have to get rid of the b43 driver before the b43 legacy driver will work?


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

Tried Puppy again and . . . . . . . . . . . SUCCESS!

It still made me work for it though.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

I imagine you need to remove the b43 driver before installing the legacy version. With both installed it probably continues to try to use the b43. Assume Puppy crew found a workaround that allows both to be installed. Sometimes its just simple really dumb things that can cause conflicts.


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