How to know which partition to install on, if I don't see the sizes?

[MrAccident]

I'm a newb to Linux. So this is probably this kind of a question.
I've started a short time ago with Puppy. Are the partitions named exactly the same in both OS's?
I just don't want to make a mistake in this kind of a thing.

[Misalf]

For me, different linux distros always displayed my drives in the same order (i.e.  /dev/sda  /dev/sdb  - maybe that can vary by the order in which the drives are recognized at boot?). However, I'm sure the partitions will always be displayed the same way (/dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda3) because this layout won't change as long as you don't do it manually or if an installer does it.

You can use the  df  command to check the size of your partitions.

[gerald_clark]

Well, df will only show the sizes of mounted filesystems.
'fdisk -l' will show the partitions and their sizes.

[MrAccident]

"fdisk -l" worked.
But after installation - when I boot - all I get is a black screen with a blinking underscore.
The only things I can think of are:
   I chose to install a boot loader; though I have the one for Puppy
   I marked something like "installer program".
Other than that - I didn't do much other than click next.
Actually Puppy was installed on that partition prior. Maybe something was left there; I just deleted the folders. Maybe the old boot loader. Should I install again and this time format the partition?

[coreplayer2]

Sounds like the the bootloader is not installed to the drive correctly

May I suggest reading this http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html

or the video installer guide  http://tinycorelinux.net/screenshots.html

or the wiki install section http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:start#installing

[MrAccident]

I checked it; I am doing everything right.
I formatted the partition to ext4 with Gparted; installed TC again; and the same thing happens.
BTW, Puppy is on one HDD and TC is on another. I boot into Puppy, only after clicking F8 and choosing the other HDD.
Another thing - before I formatted the partition where TC was - when I booted into the disk - I tried to install TC again; and it didn't work because that partition was mounted; and I couldn't unmount it. And changes were meant to be saved to that partition before reboot, by default by the system. That definitely can have something to do with the problem.

[gerald_clark]

You said:
But after installation - when I boot - all I get is a black screen with a blinking underscore.

Are you sure you don't also have a '$' ?
You may be booted into console mode because you did not install X or your Video card is not supported.
You supplied no useful information, so it is difficult to assist you.

[Misalf]

I've witten this before gerald_clark has posted on which I have to agree. Anyways...

Have you tryed installin Core manually? This seems easy, too, since mostly everything is set up already.
You could boot into Puppy, mount the TC .iso image and the partition you want to install to, copy respective files ...

Code: [Select]

+/tce/
|- onboot.lst
|+/boot/
| |- core.gz
| |- vmlinuz
|+/optional/
| |- "all *.tcz goes here"
|+/ondemand/
| |- "will be used later by Core"

... and edit your boot loaders config (the same which is used to boot puppy) accordingly.

Something like this for syslinux.cfg

Code: [Select]

LABEL core53
 MENU LABEL Core 5.3
 KERNEL /tce/boot/vmlinuz
 APPEND root=/dev/sdxY initrd=/tce/boot/core.gz
NOTE: change  root=/dev/sdxY  to your needs.

You can also install Core to the same partition where Puppy is installed, if there is enough free space.

[MrAccident]

No "$"; only a blinking underscore - just like before it boots into the disk; but here it just stays like this.
I installed X from the options. I basically didn't touch the default; other then supporting "non-US keyboard".
I don't know if it's the console mode; but nothing happens when I click on anything other then Ctrl+Alt+Delete - which reboots.
Don't know if my card is unsupported; Puppy didn't have a problem with it; and TC works from the disk; don't know if that means it detects it.
You don't think that the fact that when I boot from the disk - TC makes a connection to where I installed it, has something to do with it?
Where do I get the useful information to provide here?

Misalf - I'll try that.

[Misalf]

Please post your boot loaders config file and tell us where you've installed Puppy and Core (sda2, sda3, etc.).

[MrAccident]

How do I find the boot loaders config file please?

[Misalf]

depends on what bootloader is used

/boot/extlinux/syslinux.cfg
/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
/boot/grub/menu.lst
/boot/grub/grub.cfg

Sometimes the config file is not in a subfolder but in the partitions root directory (not the user but just  / ).
However, I think most bootloaders first try to find the config file in its respective subfolder.

[gerald_clark]

That depends on the bootloader.
For a bootloader installed by tc-install, it will be the extlinux.conf file  in the tce directory under
boot/extlinux

But again, you have not given us any useful information to help you.

[gerald_clark]

The useful information would be:
What ISO did you use?
How did you install it?
Where did you install it?

Show the output of the 'blkid' command.
Where did you find the config file ( full path ) ?

[Misalf]

Show the output of the 'blkid' command.

what gerald_clark is referring to is the UUID. It's an unique ID to idetify your drive. If you just copy/pasted it from an exaple file, it would be certainly the wrong ID.

You don't usually need  waitusb=  anyway, since it's meant to be used with drives that need some time to respond (like some usb drives as the name suggests). You also can omit the  tce=  boot code because the tce-directory will be found automatically if located at the usual place (/mnt/sdb1/tce/) with its default name.