(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I have a Puppy Precise 5.7.1 boot CDROM. All works well when it find the .3fs file on the hard drive.

I used this running installation to create a bootable USB. It boots up fine on the same computer, but cannot find the .3fs file.

Why does the USB boot-up version not see the .3fs file? When the USB version boots up, it tries to save a .2fs file. Any reason why the USB version can only see/write .2fs files, not .3fs files? Does it matter that I selected the SysLinux boot method for the USB drive. Do different boot methods look for different fs file types?

Precise 5.7.1 is a little old and does some things the old way.

The boot process is coded to only look on the USB flash drive when it is booting from a USB install.
The idea was that everything would be on the USB flash drive and the drive could be used on other computers. It would have everything you added to Puppy in the save.

Copy the save to the USB drive and see if that helps.
Put it in the exact same place as all the other Precise stuff.

It offers to only make a .2fs save file, because the 2fs file system does not do a lot of writes to the flash drive.
This helps to limit the number of writes, to make the drive last longer.

The .3fs save is still OK to use. Modern flash drives can handle more writes than the older ones could.
However, there is still a max number of writes before errors could start happening.

Does it matter that I selected the SysLinux boot method for the USB drive. Do different boot methods look for different fs file types?

Not so much different file types, but different drive formats the boot loaders support.

If the USB flash drive is formatted fat32.
Syslinux is what to use.

SysLinux should have a config file that has the boot info for booting Precise. The other boot loader that could be used is:
EXTLINUX
Used for EXT2/3/4 and even btrfs formatted drives.
It does not support fat32 formatted drives.