Antipodal wrote:Now, that I haven't the assistance of that computer literate person, I don't know which is the best version for me to choose.
Generally, there isn't a best version for you, or for anyone. There isn't
one best version. There are so many different puppies that most people's need can be met by any of a handful of puppies or versions of puppy. Even if there were right now a version that was best for your needs, the situation may change next week.
Basically, any version that meets your current needs is the best for you currently. (It could be that in a few weeks you may discover a bug or limitation which really annoys you, in which case, it may be time to go for something different/better, or time to install an update of specific software.)
That said, I think you should just pick any popular puppy which has the browser that you like, and if it works on your PC settle for that Puppy for the time being. When you use it as a LIVE DVD it doesn't leave any files on your HDD unless you give it permission to, so if downloads are not costly for you, you can burn new versions of puppy and trial them to your hearts content. I have the feeling that your needs are not particularly demanding, given that you were content with the one version of puppy for a whole year.
Though one crucial consideration--how do you access the internet? Some won't do dial-up, some won't do all wireless, etc.
So now you have 2 puppies, each as a live DVD.
*** Let's assume for the time being that there are no errors, either in the downloading or in the burning. (We can verify this later.)
I believe we are still waiting to hear that you have verified the boot sequence is set to first try the optical drive: DVD ... HDD, etc.
Either check that, or insert your new Lupu DVD into the drive, reboot, and see what happens. You can go the same route as you did each time for your earlier Puppy whereby you hit <F2> and type:
puppy pfix=ram so that it knows to run entirely from the DVD. But you will be on familiar ground.
*** EDIT Oops, I think I overlooked a small step here.
You possibly don't know how to burn an iso file to a DVD to create a bootable disk? Using XP nobody knows how, as I think XP lacks the software. Someone else might jump in here and point to a thread (one of dozens, I'm sure) where this is discussed in this forum, but you'll need to download a small program to allow XP to do this. Maybe you already have something installed from when you burnt your first Puppy DVD? I believe I used nero on XP to burn my first Puppy, but any software that will burn an iso file should do the job. A search on google ("burn iso in XP") turns up lots, here's one at random:
http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-burn-d ... a-for-free
Also, to use md5sum I just go to the commandline and type:
md5sum file.iso and it comes up with a number. If that number checks with the one on the site from where you downloaded the file, then its integrity is okay. In linux, to check the DVD, I type:
md5sum /dev/dvd
HTH