Newbies - Puppy needs YOUR help too!

[vtpup]

I believe 3D here means CD, too?

[mikeb]

I think 3D is referring to a partition

It's like the united nations in here

mike

[Aitch]

It's like the united nations in here

cue Aitch's thread calling for support for a non anglophone/multilingual beginner's sub forum, please read...

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 149#361149

all visitor's comments welcome

thanks

Aitch

[mikeb]

cue Aitch's thread calling for support for a non anglophone/multilingual beginner's sub forum, please read...

ahhhhh this host is held together with duct tape as it is.

With other projects eg cms...it is common to have independant support sites in all different languages (there is a chinese and japanese puppy site I believe...I got some modules there once )...with a custom puppy with appropriate language support perhaps.

ubuntu has support on irc in many languages unlike one offensive english one lol

Theres definately enough interest around the world to expand this

mike

[Woni]

well lets see , I am new to puppy I am running Retro I don't recall which one I think 3.01 anyways the good the bad and the ugly..

I am running on a 400MHZ 384 memory laptop hence Retro I tried puppy 3.01 and 4.2.1 on My good desktop it ran great there are a few things Id love to change on 3.01 so off the CD no problems

now the 400 MHZ had XP on it and 512 mem one of the simms messed up anyways I tried to get puppy to work it took some research and I kept getting bad errors , nope I don't recall them.. so being a Windows computer Tech I decided to Dfrag the drive and see if I could get it working I deleated all partitions and started fresh with puppy ..

after a little disagreement (errors on startup) puppy finally loaded fine , unable to leave well enough alone I then tried to upgrade to 4.2.1 well that was a failure for this machine and I had to wipe the drive and reinstall

so everything works fine now except it is hard to find programs to work on here I have one called zdesktop_1_0_build_1513_linux_i686.sh
I cant get it to work at all then again I don't know linux so it is probably just Me .. the one issue with puppy retro I have found is I have it on a 7 gig internal HD and once in awhile the memory will max out and I will have to restart the computer I am thinking it has to do with memory allocation but I could be wrong

but all in all I am very impressed with this lil program it will take some getting use to I know this as I have been using Computers since Win 3.11

so now I am off to try to find a viable YIM program ,, Oh I do have 1 question for you all what internet browser works best on retro I go into an HTML chat room and I have nothing but problems with seamonky and firefox so.. suggestions??

thanks
Woni
walking the dog

[francisco88]

I'm running puppy on a notebook cpu celeron 466mhz ram 128 mb 5 gb hd and works great. Thanks for this distro!

PS Anyone know where to download icewm for puppy? I can't find it.

Francisco

[Diabo84]

I think 3D is referring to a partition

It's like the united nations in here

mike

Ops!! Sorry, 3D is for Thread. in Italy Thread is near 3 (TRE) - D

For the grub i resolve with... new system! I have an empty notebook (old Acer) for my experiment! Puppy 4.3.1 and i waiting for a free time to work

[Conan]

I'm more one user with "macarronic" english.

But Puppy is my first open door in Linux World. Fantastic.
I used Linux Puppy very well in this laptop.

Asus #8000
Pentium III 500
64mb ram PC66
HD 10gb (before was a 4.3gb)
video 2D 4mb
12.1" with 800x600x16

The older SO was a Win98se and was a Turtle comparated with the same note with Puppy.

The problems i have:

- don´t install my lan and pcmcia card...

- my keyboard is a part broken. "x" "c" "v" "b" "n" "m" in a QUERTY... but i don´t foud a VIRTUAL KEYBOARD. Exists?

- Exists a program to recover deleted data or files?

- My laptop don't shut down.... his stay HALTED.

It´s the litle things, but the SO is bigger, because it is the only of poor PC!
I am very grateful

[diaeresis]

Hi conan
virtual keyboard here:-
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=27792

shut down issues:-

find a file called menu.lst (I think!) and change this line:-

kernel (hd0,0)/puppy430/vmlinuz PMEDIA=idehd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy430 psubOK=TRUE

to this:-

kernel (hd0,0)/puppy430/vmlinuz PMEDIA=idehd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy430 psubOK=TRUE acpi=force

[francisco88]

Dear users, anyone can tell me where to find IceWM for Puppy?

Thanks

[Conan]

Hi conan
virtual keyboard here:-
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=27792

I downloaded to my pendrive and Puppy don´t install because is for old puppy file install format.

find a file called menu.lst (I think!) and change this line:-

kernel (hd0,0)/puppy430/vmlinuz PMEDIA=idehd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy430 psubOK=TRUE

to this:-

kernel (hd0,0)/puppy430/vmlinuz PMEDIA=idehd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=puppy430 psubOK=TRUE acpi=force

menu.lst is the same from GRUB in boot directory ?

My PCMCIA is off http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 608#362608
thanks

[Conan]

Sorry diaresis,
I just thought that here was a place to give our feedback.
So I wrote thanking have worked very well on my old laptop.
And I put what did not work. Only this.
be sending others to seek their problems would be very easy right? No one post any more and would use only the Help file.
And we still have the difficulty of the language and the different level of understanding of each other.
But anyway, thanks for your mp.

[etude]

Overall I have to give the install high marks. Got the iso, burned a CD and booted on an old K6 233 Mhz 256M RAM clone in about half an hour. I had a head start from experience doing same with Ubuntu/Xubuntu. As a mostly windows guy with some Sun Sparc end user experience, I have suggestions for helping the windoze-impaired:

1) A small explanation about what an iso image is vs file by file Cd burn would be helpful. Fortunately I had that behind me so I used the Ubuntu 9.02 Brasero to burn latest puppy to live CD. (Had to read wikis, download Express Burn, and experiment with burn speeds to get a live CD of Xubuntu.) This took a few days working around normal chores, so I was impressed when puppy took about an hour from the time I did a search on "small linux" distros to having it run in RAM. Kudos to all who contributed.

2) The full install using gparted is pretty good. I love playing with disk partitions for some OCD reason, I guess <g>. I ran afoul when I selected the frame buffer option, but could not get any video. Took brute force cure of rebooting windows, FDISKing the old partitions away and rerunning live CD. The install routine assumes you know what to do when trying to reinstall to a disk that can't be unmounted. I was lucky here but would an average user have the experience and confidence? SOme hints about how to recover if you guess wrong would help I think.

I also had to settle on a floppy boot as I could not figure out how to get grub to start from sda1, which has a dual boot windows config; the puppy system was on sdc1, IDE slave on secondary IDE channel BTW. Some mention of how to edit the menu.lst to change the default or where to find out how would be cool. This could simply be via comments in the menu.lst file IMHO.

Also, for some reason the live CD did not detect my adaptec SCSI card with 4GB disk and a scsi CDROM. So now I'm trying to figure out/remember if I need to manully edit an init.rc or whatever. Xubuntu found it with probes.

A bit of editing to get the little ambiguities out of the install hints would have helped me, as I tend to puzzle over things that are not nailed down tightly. But they are more encouraging and offer more background and anecdotal info than the Ubuntu couterparts.

Big challenge now is whether to persist with the intel pro 100 10/100 card that never did work at 100 Mb with win98 or win2000. Some help with the "resource not available" error code would be nice. Tried several inf files from various win versions but no good. Intel has some compilable code to roll your own but I'd rather buy a new card.

I used to do tech documentation so I would be interested in editing anything you have for dox before release.

[Aitch]

Hi etude

RE: SCSI

see here for SHS's tips on how he got SCSI booting to work in 4.1 alpha

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=32108

Barry's original post here has 2 different SCSI enabled kernels, under 'Special puppies'

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... -files.htm

Also see upup-466-SCSI.iso

Also ttuuxxx has just done a SCSI puplet, for testing....

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=362752

Here's a search page for other queries

http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29754

Aitch

[etude]

Thanks. Can't believe I went to the distro page and didn't see the SCSI iso before.

[uncletesla]

puppy works for me. Thanks! Thanks!

[DemostiX]

I'm impressed with the shut-down script in NOP (Nearly Office Puppy). Simple things like this, enabling me to back out of blunders matter a lot. *

Are all developers easily informed of such innovations in user friendliness, without having to monitor all traffic here for them?

Organized compilation of complaints /requests would help. Packagers and developers could choose to include solutions and indicate inclusion with a check in a checkbox.

*There's much else to like in gray's puplet.

[Aitch]

Are all developers easily informed of such innovations in user friendliness, without having to monitor all traffic here for them?

not that I know of.....

Organized compilation of complaints /requests would help. Packagers and developers could choose to include solutions and indicate inclusion with a check in a checkbox

agreed - see my post here

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 378#364378

Hopefully, collaboration will be a new goal.......

Aitch

[tubeguy]

Haven't posted here yet because I wanted to see if Puppy would "stick". Most of my rent-paying work is done with Windows 98, XP and Vista, and DOS. However, at home is where I can really get my geek on. That said, I only ever tried Linux because I thought that I wasn't a "true geek" if I didn't have a Linux install running somewhere. I started originally years ago with Lindows (now Linspire) just to see if I could do it. But having only one machine I ended up using Windows all the time because I couldn't figure out how to do everything I wanted to do. When I started collecting old hardware I took the opportunity to try other distros, and after distro-hopping with all the *buntus, Fedora, Debian and BSD, I realized I needed something smaller. That's when DSL and Vector came along, and I was a happy camper for a while, but ended up back on Windows again for the same reason.

Then came Puppy 4.2, and a laptop that was getting crushed under WinXP, and viola! I'm back in business with Linux. The real, main reason I tried Puppy was only because I wanted a simple, quick, hassle-free way to play music and movies and surf on the couch on my old laptop without buying a new one. I was drawn into the Puppyverse like I hadn't been drawn into anything since I discovered the internet. DSL is tiny and workable but looks awful. The major distros have all the eye candy and thousands of packages but crush my laptop just like Windows. Puppy is a perfect balance.

As far as doing everything I can on Windows with Puppy, that is still a work in progress. Part of the problem is not having the patience to figure things out, and part of it is my old laptop just doesn't have the juice to do the things I know Puppy is capable of; I can live with that. Running my main work apps like Photoshop and Dreamweaver under Wine just isn't reasonable with my hardware. Getting used to Gimp, Inkscape, Bluefish and Seamonkey is taking more time that I am willing to put in, and frankly my 1024x768 screen sucks for doing that stuff anyway. For actual bill-paying work I have a Windows desktop with a big screen and new hardware. But I have spent many weekends just playing with Puppy and absolutely enjoying myself, and I totally appreciate all the work the devs have done (yes I donated to Barry). Besides keeping my whacked-out brain occupied, Puppy has taught me 90% of what I know about Linux today, and I finally feel like a true geek.

FWIW, the first time I tried Puppy it worked perfectly on my Toshiba A25-S207 with a Gigabyte wireless PCMCIA card, and the forum is awesome, great bunch of people.

Joe

[dazbert]

Hi,

I've been struggling gamely with Puppy for the last couple of days, and I've only just paused for long enough to find this forum so I thought I'd drop you all a line, and let you know how I've been getting on.

Firstly, thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in this: it's a great piece of software, and the achievement so far is a remarkable one. The project gets great reviews all over the place, which, along with the general ethic of rejuvenating ageing computers, is why I'm here.

As a windows user, the move to Linux is never going to be easy. Once a year or so I install some distro or other on an old computer, and think, "Hmm, this is still very difficult." Then I give up, thinking I'll wait until it gets a bit more intuitive. So I've a little Linux experience, but I really am a noob.

What I'm doing is this: I have an old EPIA miniITX board running a fanless 600MHz CPU, and I thought it would be a wheeze to run it as a silent, low power web server. Puppy seemed a good choice, as it's cut down enough to be fast, but not enough to be unfriendly. I'm pleased to say that it installed without a hitch (full hd install) and I was up and running in no time.

My first problem was connecting to the internet. I got onto the network via ethernet without a problem, but couldn't access the outside world. The problem was DNS: my ISPs DNS servers don't work for me, so they're overridden on the router, but somehow Puppy was sidestepping this. I fixed it by giving it a static IP, which allowed me to input the OpenDNS servers. Easy enough, but I'm still not sure why or how it behaves in this way. On Windows, ethernet tends to work as soon as you plug it in.

After this it got a bit more difficult. I looked for a web server in the menu but couldn't see one. So I went to the package manager and installed Monkey. Back to the menu, and where was it? How to find it? How to run it? I found it, in the file manager, and got it running. Now, how to add PHP? I went to the Monkey website - no documentation. So I uninstalled it, but there are still two folders in my root directory.

Next I gave Xampp a go. Xampp was made to make LAMP installation easy, and to an extent it does. But it's still a command line process, and missing out a slash at the start of a line can leave you scratching your head for a long time. Clearly much harder than double-clicking a setup file. And again, nothing appears in the menu, you have to start it manually, there's a control panel supposedly but I've not seen it, and it doesn't start on boot, so I guess you have to edit a text file somewhere else.

Anyway, it worked, but no mail server. So I looked into this, and apparently I need xmail server, which has a handy dotpup install. I found a video of how to install dotpup packages, and the first thing they did was click on a link in the Menu which was not present in mine. So I went to Puppy Package Manager, which is split, without explanation, into 3 'Repos', and I found it. It said it was dependent on puppybasic, and I should click on 'examine' for details, but when I clicked, the screen flickered and nothing happened. Still, I found it soon enough through the search function and installed them both. 'Updating Menu', it said, and I thought 'Great!', but after install it still wasn't in the menu. The menu never changes. So I found it in file manager, got it running, and blow me! The list of packages it managed to retrieve was a nice round zero!

In short, I'm still a long way from up-and-running. I can't get anything to update FreeDNS for me when my WAN IP changes, I can't get FTP configured and I can't get mail. And most of the issues are to do with Linux rather than Puppy, but they do point the way to improvement.

Far too many programs still have no front end, there is no integrated help system, things install in different places, the Menu button appear uneditable, things not on the menu button are unfindable, the icons on the right of the taskbar lack functionality and explanation, there's a very very limited setup/control panel/wizard, and there's no comprehensive means of installing new software.

That said, it runs very well, rarely seems to crash, and if I took the time to read the 1000-page Linux reference guide a friend has lent me then I'd probably be faring better than I am