Hints and Tips for LighthousePup

The primary requirement is a machine set up in the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM drive before other drives. (Floppy, then CD is OK if no floppy is inserted.) Other requirements differ by Window Manager (WM). The Lighthouse Base CD has JWM, IceWM, LXDE and Openbox. All should work with older hardware, though JWM is slightly faster than the others.

The Mariner ISO also makes KDE 3.5.10 and KDE4 Window Managers available after saving your session and rebooting, though you don't have to use them. Lighthouse Base and Mariner should boot and run all WM's except KDE with 256-512M RAM. For KDE3 I recommend at least 512M and KDE4 may need 768M+ with fairly recent hardware for best performance. A newer ATI or nVidia based graphics adapter is recommended for 3D apps and HD video. I wouldn't be surprised if Lighthouse Pup runs on a machine with less than 256M but I imagine it would be slow going at best.

I also recommend a Linux Swap partition, at least the size of the installed RAM. GParted in the System menu can be used, however on a Windows^® box, note that GParted will pop up a message with tips on resizing an NTFS partition in Windows before creating the Linux Swap with GParted. Please read these tips as resizing a Vista/Win7 partition with GParted is not recommended. When saving your session onto a Windows partition it is wise to defragment the drive in Windows first (Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Defragment.)

As Lighthouse Pup 4.43 is based on PuppyLinux 4.3.1 it's a good idea to have a standard Puppy 4.3.1 CD available for comparison and if something hardware-related doesn't work, you'll have a wider base of users to get help from.

Download the ISO and burn to a CD / DVD. Start here if you're unfamiliar with ISOs and MD5s: Burning an ISO - Authoring/Burning Software - Using MD5 Checksums

No installation is required for the Base ISO, just enable booting from CD-Rom in your BIOS/setup menu. Reboot with the Lighthouse CD-Rom disc in your drive, at the boot menu type 'ram' or 'lhp pfix=ram' or 'puppy pfix=ram'. This is the Live-CD or 'clean boot' mode. The Mariner ISO is also a Live-CD but it includes SFS add-ons that need a Frugal Install as described below.

At reboot/shutdown you'll be prompted to save your personal files and settings in a pupsave file (Option 1). If you choose to let Lighthouse save your files and settings, the boot (startup) time can be reduced. No need to save to a partition (Option 2) as the pupsave file can be resized larger as desired. The only exception would be on a FAT32 partition where the maximum file size is just under 4GB.

After rebooting into your newly saved Lighthouse environment, click on the Pmount Drives icon on the desktop or KDE Quicklauncher, and the 'Mount' button for your CD/DVD drive. A window should open showing the files below. Then click on the File System icon on the desktop, click on 'mnt' and 'home'. Drag and drop the following files from the Lighthouse CD-Rom to this /mnt/home folder (where the spupsave.2fs file is located.) When prompted to copy or move the files, select copy. This is the recommended Frugal Install:

Switch to Previous System, e.g. other Linux, Windows^®, etc.

There is a command line option at the boot menu to boot from the first hard drive by typing h. Or just remove the Lighthouse CD-Rom from its drive and reboot.

Troubleshooting

If Lighthouse doesn't respond, first try Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. This will shut down X Windows to the command prompt. From the text mode prompt, type 'xwin' <Enter> to return to Lighthouse. If you've changed window managers try 'xwin startkde' or 'xwin starticewm' or 'xwin jwm'. On the outside chance that doesn't work try Ctrl+Alt+Delete or hit reset to reboot, or just hit the power, wait about 8 seconds and hit the power again.

You can verify the core Lighthouse base files on the CD-ROM or Frugal Installed drive by clicking on click-to-verify-lhp. This checks the md5sum on the core system files listed above. If this returns an error, restore the file(s) from your original ISO or CD-Rom (including click-to-verify-lhp) and re-try. If it still gives an error, re-download the ISO from www.lhpup.org/download.htm. What is MD5?

Low on free space in your pupsave file?

Open /initrd/pup_rw with Gdmap graphical disk usage in the Utilities/File Menus. Really quick way to see where the space is going.
You can enlarge your pupsave with Resize personal storage file in the System Menu.
If you aren't using Moblock for a while, move moblock-monitor into the DisabledItems folders for both /Autostart and /Startup. On restart that will trigger a cleanup of about 250-300M of blocklists, which are found in /var/spool/blockcontrol and /var/lib/blockcontrol.
/root/.wine will also fill up quickly if you run/install any thing in Wine. In a frugal install I like to wipe it clean occasionally by deleting /initrd/pup_rw/root/.wine*, a bit like reformatting in Windows. (Back up /root/.wine first if there's anything important in there.)

If a particular application fails to start, open a terminal window like Console-LHP on the launcher bar, or near the end of the System Menu. Type the apps executable name (usually all lower-case) and press <Enter>. The correct executable and can found by opening ROX-Filer (File System icon), click on Applications and locate the app's name. Right-click | Open As Text and find the line beginning with Exec=. Then type what follows the '=' in a terminal as above. Hit <Enter> and copy and paste the output into a new post on the Lighthouse Pup Forum. If it starts but something isn't right, you may need to kill the previous instance by typing (in a terminal) killall <executable> <Enter>, then re-type <executable> <Enter>.

Comments and questions are welcome at Puppy Derivatives Forum. Look for the thread labeled LighthousePup N.NN, where N.NN is the version you are using or interested in. In Lighthouse, type ver in a terminal window for version information.

Uninstallation/Clean Upgrade

Reboot in LiveCD or 'clean boot' from your Lighthouse CD-Rom, typing at the boot menu 'ram'. Click on Pmount Drives and mount the drive where your spupsave.2fs is located. Delete or move to another folder all of the frugal install files listed above and rename 'spupsave.2fs' to spupsave.2fs.save or similar. Remove the CD-Rom from its drive and reboot. If desired, insert a new Lighthouse CD and continue with a frugal install as described above.

What is an SFS?

SFS (Squash File System) add-ons are compressed software files that are layered into the file system at boot up from a Frugal Install and initially take no space in the pupsave file. They often include many apps in one 'combo-pack'.

Place them in /mnt/home, root directory of the partition where your pupsave file is. Then, using BootManager in the System menu, move desired SFS's to the right-hand pane, click OK and reboot.

If their name ends with _nnn it should match the LHP version you have, e.g., 4-KDE-4.3.3c_443.sfs for LighthousePup-4.43-c.iso.

Automount-setup

Automount is enabled by default to mount all drives except CD/DVD during bootup. To disable Automount open /mnt in ROX-Filer, click on the Automount icon and uncheck Automount: all drives. There is also an entry in the Utility menu for Automount-setup.

Desktop and User Interface

Internet/Network Connections -- Click on the 'Connect' desktop icon. You will then see at least two buttons, to choose the Dialup or Network Wizards -- click the latter if you have a wired or wireless broadband Internet connection. Once you are connected, you shoud see a 'blinky' icon on right side of the taskbar.

Autostart Items

JWM/LXDE/Openbox see /Startup or /root/Startup; to disable an item from autostarting, move it to the DisabledItems folder (/Startup/DisabledItems)

X Windows Init Script /root/.xinitrc (File | Recent Files in Geany Text Editor.)

IceWM

Hints and Tips for Lighthouse Pup

System Requirements

Automount-setup

Command Line