Puppy Boot Parameters: PuppyLinux

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This is an old revision of BootParametersPuppy made by darkcity on 2012-11-29 11:11:18.

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Puppy Boot Parameters

This page lists some of the parameters/arguments you can set on Puppy's boot up. (Note- these don't apply to early versions of Puppy especially pre Puppy2.)

Parameters are passed to Puppy in one of two ways. Either by typing an option at the boot up screen (if Puppy is in 'live' mode), or via one of the bootloaders bootloader files.

For example, if grub is being used then the menu.1st kernel line needs modifying-

kernel /slacko531/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=slacko531

Specifies ({device}{type}/path) the location in which the kernel is located in on the boot partition. If not specified init will look in / and /boot , I'm not sure which order. As of puppy 3.00 this parameter also restricts the boot search for existing pup_save files only pup_saves inside this directory will used. This can be used to allow multiple puppy installation on the same partition to be used without risk of using the wrong one in error. Also see Psubok.

Example- psubdir=boot/puppy216

Psubok

Use psubok=TRUE, without setting this parameter init init's search for the BaseSfs base sfs will be very shallow (ie. one directory level, maybe plus /boot/).

Not using this option may led to "sfs not found" type errors. This can be confusing because a user may clearly see their base-sfs file in close proximity to init.

PupSfs

Controls what file is loaded as BaseSfs. Specify full path and filename, for example

pupsfs=sdb1:/pwary/wary_511.sfs

Psave

Psave allows a user to specify which SaveFile PupSave files to use. This allows the pupsave selection menu to be skipped (shows if more than one savefile is found).

Pmedia

Specific boot device by media type.

Usually omitting parameter usually results in Puppy correctly detecting boot media.

However it can be useful if you are having problems. Manually specify the boot media and interface using one of the following:

usbflash usbhd usbcd ideflash idehd idecd idezip satahd satacd scsihd. This would be where USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI are the accepted interfaces and flash memory, hard drive, CD/DVD drive, ZIP drive are the accepted drives.

Example- PMEDIA=idehd.

Note: the use of this parameter can harm rather than help, preventing a BIOS from finding Puppy. Especially in the case of using a USB flash pen drives - because they are identified inconsistently by the BIOS. Therefore the user needs to knows in advance exactly how the particular pc works.

(Applies to Puppy 2.x and later).

Pdev1

Specifics boot device by partition.

For example- Pdev1=sda1

Pfix

pfix allows various options to be selected:

pfix=ram will run Puppy totally in RAM and ignore saved sessions/storage file(s)

pfix=nox will boot Puppy to terminal/ commandline (ie no X)

pfix=<n> where <n> is the number of saved sessions to ignore for a multisession-CD

pfix=rdsh will exit to initial ramdisk commandline (do not pivot_root)

pfix=usbcard for booting from USB flash drive via USB 2.0 to PCMCIA adapter

pfix=clean will force a simulated version upgrade (for Puppy 2.13 and later)

pfix=purge will force an even more radical file cleanup (to fix broken system) (for Puppy 2.14 and later)

pfix=#debug may help with debugging

pfix=copy or nocopy controls if main sfs file is loaded (copied) to RAM

If using multiple pfix options, separate them with a comma, e.g. pfix=rdsh,usbcard

NOPCMCIA

Add nopcmcia if you don't want the PCMCIA (PC card) drivers and card ~manager to be started during the boot process.

PKEYS

The keyboard layout for a country. Default is "us". Choices are: be br cf de dk es fi fr gr hu it jp no pl ru se uk us See Barry's recent blog post for more on this.

PupSave files

Puppy's behavior on boot up depends whether any SaveFile savefiles are found:

If none are found Puppy will load the BaseSFS without any modifications. In many versions this will prompt the user to configure Puppy, also on reboot/shutdown the user is asked whether to create a save.

If only one save is found it will load automatically.

If more than one is found the user is prompted to select via a text menu.

Note: the boot files on a multi-session disk work differently from those used for live disk and frugal installs. They look for and make save files differently, see SaveFileMultiSession Save file multi-session for more information.