Big opportunity to promote puppy! Need advice.

[xalixo]

Hi everyone.

I currently find myself in the position of being able to promote puppy linux to possibly hundreds of people and am in need of the community's opinions.

Here's the situation. I am a technical consultant for a charity that sends refurbished PCs and laptops to developing countries, mainly in Africa. For years I volunteered with them as a technician. When I started I used to recommend we send puppy on USB drives with the PCs as none of the computers really end up being for personal use, instead they go to schools or other environments where they have to be shared. Back then I was seen as just a volunteer and nobody really took much notice of my suggestions, so I didn't bother suggesting it anymore.

Then a year or so later the charity was being contacted by the makers of keepod who wanted to sell their USB drives that live booted an x86 version of android. I wouldn't have been involved if it wasn't for the fact that the managers at the charity couldn't get it to work. They needed to edit and run a script, but didn't know how to use the command line in linux. I got it working, made my suggestions of using puppy which is "free and better than android!", but again they didn't take much notice. I don't think they were that impressed with the keepods either. The charity wasn't very forward thinking at that time, but that has all changed recently.

Now the makers of keepod are trying to sell their usb drives again, which now runs Chrome OS. I don't think it is going to be the right choice for this task, as nearly all of the PCs we send will have no internet access or at best a very limited connection at their final destinations. Satellite connections are way too expensive, so we currently provide an offline content server (RACHEL) with batches of our PCs. I know that Chrome OS can run offline, but I am still sceptical as to how functional it can be.

So, now I'm a technical consultant for the charity and my opinions are actually listened to. The charity are asking for my advice on the keepod, which again isn't working (I'll see why tomorrow) and I really want to be able to go in and sell them on puppy this time round. Maybe I should keep an open mind about the keepod, but the main reasons I want them to go the puppy route are:

1: The Keepod now requires specs to be to be quite high. People can use it only with 64 bit machines with a minimum of 2GB of RAM. Those are the minimum specs we ship nowadays, but it would limit people from being able to use their personal OS away from the PCs we send. What if when kids finish school they want to go to an internet cafe that only has 32-bit PCs? They'd have to use the OS installed on those PCs rather than their personal OS with all their personal files and applications on it. Kind of defeats the whole point doesn't it?

2: Getting our own USB drives and putting puppy on them would be half the price of purchasing from keepod. This means for the same budget we could help twice as many people.

3: People in the developing world need "real" computer skills, not just knowledge of how to use shiny looking, locked down operating systems. Linux changed everything in computing for me and enabled me to do so much which otherwise couldn't be done. This in turn opened up so many more opportunities for me in work and other aspects of my life. The developing world has little to no infrastructure when it comes to IT and that will only properly change when the people themselves have the basic skills to build it themselves. I believe getting some experience in linux is possibly the single most important skill in IT after programming, especially for the creative and maker types that will make that change a reality.

I have to be honest, I personally don't use puppy much, well not as much as mint, debian and raspbian, but I do know that it is 100% exactly what is needed for this project. I do sometimes use both the slackware and ubuntu based main editions and also puppy arcade, but not as my everyday distro.

Currently I'm thinking Tahrpup 6.0.5 32-bit No-PAE might be the best option. Assumptions I'm making are that for full compatibility on nearly all PCs, 32 bit No-PAE would be best (I may be wrong). Being Ubuntu based it'll be a tiny bit more user friendly than the slackware base and/or have more software in the repos (I may be wrong.) (We could possibly host entire repositories locally offline). Being a main release it will have a larger user base, which will make it easier for us to find help and fix issues than if we use a puplet. Again I may be wrong and if a specific puplet was more suitable I'd definitely consider it.

So my question for the puppy community is, which release or puplet would you recommend for the task of being someone's main OS (who probably has little computer experience) that will be using it on possibly multiple PCs with no way to know in advance which hardware specs it may be needed for? Please also recommend which version (32-bit without PAE Vs 32-bit with PAE Vs 64-bit) and why. I know that almost any release of puppy would be well suited for this job, but I would still like to know what the puppy community thinks would be "optimal".

Also, am I right in assuming that anything quirky based would be out of the question?

Requirements in order of importance are:

1: Hardware compatibility. Be the most compatible across all hardware types including driver compatibility.

2: User friendliness and stability. It has to be simple and robust enough so it can be used by people without easy access to online forums to ask for help.

3: Large user base. This is not as important as the previous two points, I'm just guessing that any problems that may arise will be easier to fix on our end if the release has more users that may have experienced similar problems.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this insanely long post, sorry. I probably shouldn't have bored you all with the back story, I just wanted to get across the point that I think they are actually going take this idea seriously this time and if I'm maybe going to be responsible for deciding which version of puppy possibly hundreds of people get to use as their main OS, I should at least get opinions from you guys, who know puppy far better than me.

Any suggestions on requirements for the project you think I should be looking into or have missed will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[LazY Puppy]

They'd have to use the OS installed on those PCs rather than their personal OS with all their personal files and applications on it. Kind of defeats the whole point doesn't it?

I don't think there will be many operators of internet cafes who will allow customers to shutdown the computers and to reboot with another OS from USB flash drive, as such customer/user will be able to destroy the machines original OS immediately (just by stupid faults at best case scenario) - or even the complete network it self.

Me one would never allow my kids to shutdown my machine and to reboot with a different OS from USB flash drive etc. So -of course-, this will be never ever allowed to any different persons!

People in the developing world need "real" computer skills, not just knowledge of how to use shiny looking, locked down operating systems.

Just another reason why I wouldn't allow this to my kids or any different person.

So my question for the puppy community is, which release or puplet would you recommend for the task of being someone's main OS (who probably has little computer experience) that will be using it on possibly multiple PCs with no way to know in advance which hardware specs it may be needed for?

At least those people should be ready to use English language or you would need to have a language package (only a few are existing for Puppy's own software).

If there isn't the wanted language package existing, they could just learn how to create one and so learning stuff of Puppy itself meanwhile.

---

However: I think Tahr 32bit 6.0.5 would be a good choice besides newer Lucid Puppies (by rerwin) with newer kernels.

I'm using Tahr 32bit 6.0.2 as I don't need the updates for real. I'm modifying my Puppy just on the fly by external configuration files and .sfs modules (T.O.P.L.E.S.S.).

[Flash]

Xalixo, do you propose to handle all the requests for help from the people who use the computers you put Puppy on?

[xalixo]

I don't think there will be many operators of internet cafes who will allow customers to shutdown the computers and to reboot with another OS from USB flash drive, as such customer/user will be able to destroy the machines original OS immediately (just by stupid faults at best case scenario) - or even the complete network it self.

That is a good point lazy. This is a problem that would affect the keepod as well, being allowed to boot your own OS. Apparently some PCs are provided without HDDs at some of these internet cafes (this is what I've heard anyway), so that people can boot their own OS. Also some internet cafe providers are allowing people to boot their own OS on their PCs once they understand why someone would want to do that. Whether that is just optimistic sales talk from keepod, I don't know.

Regarding the security issues, Keepod would probably be better in that respect, although I'm sure it's easy enough to remove icons and links for "install to hardrive" so it wouldn't be so easy for the casual user.

At least those people should be ready to use English language or you would need to have a language package (only a few are existing for Puppy's own software).

Yes we would be sticking with English to start with. The majority of schools etc in Africa want English operating systems. There is also demand for French, so eventually we would want to use or create a French version. These are the two main languages people use computers with in Africa, mainly depending on their country's colonial history.

Xalixo, do you propose to handle all the requests for help from the people who use the computers you put Puppy on?

We wouldn't actually be installing puppy on any of the PCs (They normally ship with windows). The concept is you have PCs that are for general use, which can be used with their native OS, but if you have to move around to different PCs a lot you have the choice to use your own OS with all your personal files and programs.

We would be getting feedback on what issues people are having and hopefully fix that on any later USB drives we produce and also send updated images every now and then, so whichever organisation we work with could re-image USB drives locally.

[bigpup]

However: I think Tahrpup 32bit 6.0.5 would be a good choice besides newer Lucid Puppies (by rerwin) with newer kernels.

I agree.

With Tahrpup 6.0.5, make sure to run Quickpet->Info->Tahrpup updates, so it is totally updated. That should be good. Has not been anymore updates for some time. That should get it fully updated.

If these computers have P-4 or newer processors and 512MB or more memory, 1GB or more would be best, these two Puppies should work OK.

One thing about running Puppy from a USB flash drive.
The save file/folder will have settings in it that are for the hardware that was in the computer when the save was made.
These settings may or may not work on a different computer.
Usually the problems are graphics setup and network connection settings.
The graphics will usually self adjust.
The network will usually need to be setup for what is now being used. Network Wizard will handle that, but the person is going to need to know how to run Network Wizard.

Really, the only way to know is try some versions of Puppy

About PAE and Non-PAE.
PAE is only needed if the computer has more than 4GB of memory. PAE lets it see and use more than 4GB.

32bit or 64bit
32bit will work on any processor.
64bit does need a 64bit processor.
At present, Puppy does have more Puppy specific software for 32bit.

As small as Puppy is, I really do not see any big speed difference between 32bit or 64bit.
The size of a specific program seems to have more affect on speed.

Some of the programs, in Puppy, have help files that are only accessed from the internet.
You may want to try and download them and add to the drive, so they can be accessed from it.
Most are some of the major programs.
You will need to look at each one and decide what you think is needed.

[peterw]

Hi

In the past I installed about 30 PCs with Puppy in a school and whilst Puppy was brilliant in many ways I did have issues with it. Students tended to just switch PCs off without shutting down Puppy properly. The result was that it booted to the terminal and then it needed an xwin or startx to get to a window. Whilst it seems trivial it caused me a lot of grief. Also, switching of from a central isolator or from a power cut caused the same problem. In the end I installed Mint because it was more robust and the issue disappeared. In saying this I dual booted the PCs.

It needs a bit of experimentation, but you could put 2 distros on a usb stick. I had reason to try KNOPPIX recently and was very impressed by the amount of software that it has and the bling that it has. Why not try putting KNOPPIX and Tahr on a usb stick. Both can have save files. Give the students a choice. I am almost certain that if KNOPPIX was put on a usb stick and Puppy put in a directory within KNOPPIX then Grub4dos will give you the option to use either when booting up.

Going back to my first point. You need to give them an instruction booklet and a way of reinstalling distros to the usb stick so that the life span of the system is longer. This may a selling point to the charity.

[bigpup]

I have killed Tahrpup 6.0.5 by loosing power or holding the power switch down.
It seems to handle a fresh boot with no problem.
Just does a normal boot.

The only thing that does not happen, the save is not updated by doing this non normal shutdown.

[xalixo]

Hi everyone.

Thanks for the comments so far, these are all really good suggestions!

Yes bigpup, if this project ever happens we would make sure everything is tested with as many machines as possible, is updated (thanks for the instructions) and well customised for offline use before sending, including help files and maybe even hosting whole software repositories locally, obviously not on the USB drives themselves, but on an offline server of some sort. We already do a lot of producing of guides and local training with the offline rachel server projects we work on, so if this ever gets the go ahead, I'm sure we would try to provide the same service and hopefully everyone would be taught to shutdown properly. Having said that, power outages from having to run from generators are a big issue in many locations we work with, so that is a good suggestion for us to test out. I know SD cards on raspberry pis can be badly affected by this.

About PAE and Non-PAE.
PAE is only needed if the computer has more than 4GB of memory. PAE lets it see and use more than 4GB.

Thanks, I kind of already understand what PAE is and why it's used, but what I'm not sure about is compatibility with the most possible CPUs.

Are you saying that the PAE kernel will still run on a non-PAE capable CPU? If so, why does anyone even bother releasing puppies with non-PAE versions? Is it just to keep the size down?

I always assumed it was something like the situation with 32 and 64 bit, (the non-PAE version would run on non-PAE and PAE CPUs, whereas the PAE version would only run on PAE CPUs.)

It needs a bit of experimentation, but you could put 2 distros on a usb stick.

Hi peterw, good suggestion, I was actually already looking into this and got a few distros working on one drive with Easy2Boot (Defraging each time something is saved in puppy means I'll probably have to look into something else though, such as your suggestion of Grub4dos or maybe YUMI.)

The main reason I was looking into using Easy2Boot was that I was trying to make booting more likely and compatible in all situations by maybe providing non-pae 32bit, pae 32bit and 64bit options all at the same time. It would be amazing if they could all link to and use the same save file somehow, but I'm probably being a bit too optimistic in thinking that could ever be possible, especially with 32bit and 64bit software getting all mixed up in the same sfs.

I agree knoppix is good. The main reason I thought Puppy would be my first choice is because it seemed a bit more user friendly for beginners. But yes I like the idea of giving the choice. If and when we begin development on this we may offer it as an option, so we'll see how that goes. I'll start testing it a bit more as I've only used it once before.

We spoke to one the sales people from keepod today and got to test one out. I'll update you guys on it tomorrow.

[bigpup]

Pae and Non-PAE is more about 32bit OS's.
It has to do with the operating system having the PAE software to make it able to use more than 4GB of memory.

Well, I guess a really really old processor could be an issue.
PAE was first introduced in the Pentium Pro.

Puppy for a long time was always 32bit OS. When some people started putting it on computers with more than 4GB of memory, PAE was added so Puppy would see and use the memory.

When 64bit Puppies started being developed, PAE was no longer an issue.

32bit PAE Puppy should boot OK on anything.

Kernel setup, firmware, drivers, etc..... have the most affect on what hardware the Puppy OS will work on.
Tahrpup 6.0.5 has good support for a lot of hardware, but nothing can be 100%. You can only put so much into a OS that is 200MB in size.
So far I have found nothing it will not boot on.
A computer with a P-4 or newer processor, with other common hardware, should be good.

Really really new hardware is the biggest support problems for Puppy. Usually it needs a newer Linux kernel and newer drivers, firmware.
That is the biggest thing driving Puppy needing a newer version.
Really new hardware support.

[peterw]

Hi

I have had a look at the Keepod pages and there is a feature that they are offering that you will not get with Puppy. They appear to claim that their Android type OS cannot get access to the PCs hard drive (can't mount it). With Puppy many other live distros you can happily mount and wipe the hard drive, etc if you want to or you have an accident. In practice, I don't think this is a big problem from my experience but you will get objections if people understand the issue and if it happens there could be "questions asked".

bigpup is right, as new hardware comes out the Linux kernel has to be updated to embrace the new hardware. It has more built in drivers than any other Operating System and recognises virtually any hardware it is booted on. For at least the last 12 years I have not had any serious issues. On rare occasions you need a distro with a more up to date kernel. What are your typical specs for the PCs you are sending out to Africa and what version of Windows are they running? If they are old PCs then I guess they are Windows 7 or 8?

[mavrothal]

The 32 bit Tahrpup 6.0.5 appears to be the right choice. If you are concerned about messing up the computers you may want to take a look at the 6.0.5-based, Puli.

[jlst]

Please don't. The outcome will be tortured souls trying to make Puppy work and behave like any other OS..

[anikin]

If I were in charge, I'd want to have a distro with the highest standards not the lowest. This one for example:
Debian Live http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cur ... iso-hybrid
I'd be very much embarrassed to see Puppy attached to a charitable project. You simply can't promote the baggage that comes with Puppy. Dumping the crap like icanhazip/ipinfo/pinging and xorgwizard to Africa would be a slap in the face of both the donors and beneficiaries of the charity.

[xalixo]

32bit PAE Puppy should boot OK on anything.

Really really new hardware is the biggest support problems for Puppy. Usually it needs a newer Linux kernel and newer drivers, firmware.
That is the biggest thing driving Puppy needing a newer version.
Really new hardware support.

Thanks for the info bigpup. Yes I doubt it would have to work on anything too new. So that should be ok.

I have had a look at the Keepod pages and there is a feature that they are offering that you will not get with Puppy. They appear to claim that their Android type OS cannot get access to the PCs hard drive (can't mount it). With Puppy many other live distros you can happily mount and wipe the hard drive, etc if you want to or you have an accident.

Yes I agree this could be one of the main issues and would maybe be something to look into. Hopefully something like removing all easily visible icons and menu links, but still leave it to be possible by running commands, which would make it not so easy for the casual user.

What are your typical specs for the PCs you are sending out to Africa and what version of Windows are they running? If they are old PCs then I guess they are Windows 7 or 8?

Typical specs nowadays are 2GB RAM and 64bit CPU running windows 7, but even just a year or so ago we were still sending 32bit P4s with less RAM.

The 32 bit Tahrpup 6.0.5 appears to be the right choice. If you are concerned about messing up the computers you may want to take a look at the 6.0.5-based, Puli.

I'm seeing that most people agree tahr 6.0.5 32bit would probably be best for this which is good to hear and hopefully would be compatible with all PCs people will come across out there, not just our PCs. Thanks for the link on puli mavrothal that looks really promising!

Please don't. The outcome will be tortured souls trying to make Puppy work and behave like any other OS..

I do kind of get what you're saying jlst, it is just that I would have liked to be able to offer something that may have been catering for a real need. After dealing with keepod I'm less sure as to whether or not that need really exists anymore.

If I were in charge, I'd want to have a distro with the highest standards not the lowest. This one for example:
Debian Live http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cur ... iso-hybrid
I'd be very much embarrassed to see Puppy attached to a charitable project. You simply can't promote the baggage that comes with Puppy. Dumping the crap like icanhazip/ipinfo/pinging and xorgwizard to Africa would be a slap in the face of both the donors and beneficiaries of the charity.

Thanks for the suggestion of debian live anikin. I do think you're being a bit harsh on puppy though as from what I can see it is the most compatible live distro every made. I think it does what it does extremely well and runs at lightning speed on near enough anything I've ever tried it on. Ok it may not be the best distro to use everyday if you have high spec hardware but for the purpose I was planning I think it'd be a very good choice. I will look into debian live though, thank you.

Anyway, as I said before after dealing with keepod I'm not even sure if there is any need for this is developing countries.

So we spoke to one the sales people from keepod yesterday and I was pretty shocked, and not in a good way.

They sent us a sample to test. Even using the specs they mentioned or above, we could only get it to work on around half of the PCs and Laptops we tested, it wouldn't even boot on some machines with way above their minimum specs. I am a PC technician, so I know all about EFI, UEFI, turn off secure boot, enable legacy boot, etc, etc if non BIOS machines. Even on the ones that could boot, some had graphics driver issues. Puppy however booted fine on every single one.

So if technicians can't get keepod to boot, how are people with limited experience going to do so? To be fair I wasn't willing to spend more than 5 minutes per machine, so maybe if I'd had more time I could have got it to boot on more.

So what was it like on the machines that did boot? Well I can say that visually it looks nice. At the first step you have to connect to the internet and register with a google account. OK I thought, maybe we could do that at our offices and then send them activated? The guy says not really, because that might break the terms of the google user agreement. He says in some cases though, there are exceptions.

OK, so in those exceptional cases what would the apps be like to use? I check the apps menu, there is nothing much at all pre-installed, I can see about 10 apps in the list. I disconnect the wifi and click an icon for google docs, the browser pops up and says there is no internet connection. I click the icon for google sheets, the browser pops up and says there is no internet connection. The only two apps that don't appear to need internet access are the calculator and file browser. I had been researching the day before and read that Chrome OS can be configured for offline use quite easily nowadays, so I at least expected that these people would have configured it for offline use.

At this point I ask him why there are hardly any apps pre-installed and he tells me not to worry and that there are thousands of apps that can be installed online. Even if I did install a selection of apps, I'd have to manually configure each app for offline use AND I would have to do that on every single keepod because it would be against the licence for us to make an offline customised version that we could re-image to each keepod. That is what I though at the very least these guys would have done, but I was wrong. It looks to me like they are just using a bare minimum stock version of Chrome OS which has not been tailored in the slightest for their user base, people without proper internet access. These keepods in their current configuration are basically little bricked devices if there's no internet connection.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not against Chrome OS. I find the concept of having an operating system run almost entirely using html5 and a browser really ingenious and there's lots of potential there for countries that have internet access. It is just that in it's current configuration on the keepod it is not suited to the task they are using it for.

The worst thing though is this:

They mention in their minimum requirements that hard drives should be removed from PCs and Laptops in order to be compatible. I questioned him on this and asked wouldn't it work with HDDs installed in anyway. He agreed that PCs will boot keepod fine if selected in the boot menu even if there is a hard drive installed, but that they are now actively trying to get people to remove their hard drives because their system is better and viruses would be less likely. This I think is insane. Why on earth would they be actively encouraging poor people in poor countries to be making computers basically unusable without their little USB drives? What if someone loses their keepod? If there are no hard drives anymore, they can't use their personal OS or the OS that should be on the machine in the first place. He mentioned that "this isn't such a big deal because everything on the keepods can be backed up and re-installed from the cloud". These guys are just thinking from a western perspective where it's easy to get an internet connection to download gigabytes of data.

Can you imagine the situation in a couple of years time where a school or library that spent a large portion of its budget on 30 PCs now cannot use any, because they don't have HDDs or operating systems, because the keepods got; lost, stolen, reformatted by mistake, reformatted on purpose, corrupted, written to too many times, etc, etc, etc, because they listened to a some westerners telling them to do it because they know better.

When I first heard about this idea of keepods being able to run on a PC without an HDD I thought they just meant in case someone had an old scrap PC without a hard drive it could still be a functional computer, same as if you live boot any OS, but no, they are going out of their way to tell people to remove them. Sorry for the rant, but these guys have really upset me by what they are trying to do. They are making things worse, not better and the worrying thing is they seem to be quite big and with a lot of backing. They were even featured on BBC Click a few years ago.

When these guys started they apparently used some form of linux. They then seem to have realised it wouldn't be as easy to monetise, so then they moved to android. I don't think they could get android to work well on x86-64 architectures as they were apparently relying on other open source projects, I'm not sure if they are developers themselves or not. So now they have moved fully "online" with Chrome OS, even further away from where they really need to be, and probably just because they think they'll make more sales with nicer looking eye candy and who cares if it can actually be functional in any way at its final destination as long as its making money.

Unless people are having to move around to various different PCs a lot, an OS on a USB stick won't really provide anything that setting up another user account couldn't. So if you're going to do it, you better make damn sure well your OS on USB drive is compatible with as much hardware as possible, otherwise there is no point. keepod have not done this.

The apparent success of keepod made me think maybe there was a need for OS on USB solutions, but after all this, I'm a bit unsure as to whether there is an actual need in the developing world, especially for those without much computer experience.

I'm now beginning to think keepod are nothing more than snake oil salesmen trying to take advantage of NGOs, charities and ultimately poor people who all may not understand why they would want to do this in the first place. For people from a windows background, being able to boot from a USB drive looks like an amazing new invention and I think that is what they are using to make sales. For me it is clear to see what their real objective is by looking at what they have given priority, good looks over functionality to the point where it is literally non-functional when it gets to its final users.

The concept of OS on USB is a nice idea, but that concept has been around for a lot longer than keepod and from what I saw yesterday, keepod bring no new innovations. In fact they make things worse because it needs to be online constantly. Even in Europe that can sometimes be hard to achieve, how are places with no infrastructure supposed to do it?

We won't be ordering any keepods and it looks like any project from ourselves wouldn't happen right now. I will still be working on it and testing in my personal time, just out of interest. We are still quite busy working on projects for offline web servers which there is definitely a real need for. We use RACHEL from worldpossible for this. Those are some people I have real respect for and who are doing amazing work helping developing countries. Putting RACHEL content on a USB stick would be a much better use of a drive than what keepod are doing.

Thanks so much to everyone that made suggestions, they were all really good and maybe we will eventually do something like this if we can assess there is a need for it.

[dancytron]

Don't pay attention to anikin, he is constantly bad mouthing Puppy.

Take a look at https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-mult ... b-creator/.

It makes it easy to install a number of different systems simultaneously. You could have an older Puppy for older systems along with a modern Puppy or even Fatdog 64 for new machines, along with a live version of Debian or Ubuntu all on one USB key. You could do this with Grub4dos too, but I think YUMI makes it easier.

[peterw]

Hi xalixo

Well done. You have carried out a good review of keypod. Reading the information on their web site I was disappointed at the lack of detail it gave and suspected that it would not be my first choice.

If you have good reliable contacts over in Africa then I would be tempted to send them some usb sticks and instructions on how to use them so that they can test them and see if it is something that they need and would find useful.

[xalixo]

Don't pay attention to anikin, he is constantly bad mouthing Puppy.

Thanks for letting me know dancytron. I should have guessed by his name that he is from the dark side .

Take a look at https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-mult ... b-creator/.

It makes it easy to install a number of different systems simultaneously. You could have an older Puppy for older systems along with a modern Puppy or even Fatdog 64 for new machines, along with a live version of Debian or Ubuntu all on one USB key. You could do this with Grub4dos too, but I think YUMI makes it easier.

Yes I will be looking into YUMI more. I remember for some reason it wasn't as simple to set up as easy2boot, but the main problem with e2b is this strange defragging business which means it can only really be used with static read only ISOs, not for something like puppy where you can save stuff, unless you want to wait for 30 mins each time you boot that is.

Hi xalixo

Well done. You have carried out a good review of keypod. Reading the information on their web site I was disappointed at the lack of detail it gave and suspected that it would not be my first choice.

Thank you peterw, I hope it can help people to start seeing these guys for what they really are, which would hopefully force them to start doing a better job. I really do hope they aren't anything worse than just misguided and not seeing things from the perspective of those they are supposed to be helping. Time will tell.

If you have good reliable contacts over in Africa then I would be tempted to send them some usb sticks and instructions on how to use them so that they can test them and see if it is something that they need and would find useful.

I think we may do this, but for now it won't be such a priority. In order to get an acceptable setup it'll probably require a lot of testing and time, even if it is just to evaluate whether there is a need. I will still do some testing and research in my own free time though.

[anikin]

Thanks for letting me know dancytron. I should have guessed by his name that he is from the dark side Wink .

So cheap of you, xalixo. You created a fake thread in a cheap effort to attract attention. If you were a smart person, you would have guessed that the name "dancingtron" has a meaning. You are a cheap technician, a fraud not a consultant.

[xalixo]

It was just a light hearted star wars joke anikin, it was not meant to offend you. This thread is not fake.

[rokytnji]

If you decide to use Yumi or some other tool like Unetbootin.

Something I have a little experience using when I was on the Macpup team as a tester and team member.

Save files can be left on the internal hard drives and the Puppies will find them. Just be sure to leave instructions to have the end users give the save file a recognizable name.

Like puppy4.121st<name of person or pet>,
then for a 6 version bootup,
puppy6.051st<name of person or pet>.

Back when I was testing. I would overwrite something like yumi and or unetbootin with a grub4dos install on the usb drive. Reason was. There are more boot menu choices with grub4dos vs yumi or unetbootin.

One can add the puppy boot files in a grub 4 dos edit. Just a oldy oldy example of mine from a while ago.

Code: Select all

# menu.lst produced by grub4dosconfig-v
color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
timeout 10
default 0

# Frugal installed Puppy

title Bruno pup-431 (sdb1/pup431)
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies /pup431/initrd.gz
  kernel /pup431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=pup431 pfix=fsck
  initrd /pup431/initrd.gz

title Bruno pup-431 (sdb1/pup431) RAM mode\nBoot up Puppy withot pupsave
  kernel /pup431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=pup431 pfix=ram,fsck
  initrd /pup431/initrd.gz

title Macpup-511 (sda1/puppy511harry)
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies /puppy511harry/initrd.gz
  kernel /puppy511harry/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy511harry pfix=fsck
  initrd /puppy511harry/initrd.gz

title NOP pup-431 (sdb2/puppy431)
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies /puppy431/initrd.gz
  kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 pfix=fsck
  initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz

# Full installed Linux

title antiX 11 test2 at hda7, kernel 2.6.32-1-mepis-smp
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-1-mepis-smp root=/dev/hda7 nomce quiet nosplash vga=normal
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-1-mepis-smp
boot

title      AntiX 11 test2 Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.37-0.dmz.5-liquorix-686
root      (hd0,6)
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-0.dmz.5-liquorix-686 root=UUID=215cde80-eeb6-451f-929f-5fb9493e7932 ro nosplash quiet vga=normal nomodeset
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-2.6.37-0.dmz.5-liquorix-686

title sdb5/boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-stevo,/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-stevo (sdb5/boot)
  root (hd1,4)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-stevo root=UUID=fc2d5f0c-f1f8-4976-a315-121c4ad2b977 ro nosplash quiet
  initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-stevo

title Puppy Linux 120 full install in sda8
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8 pmedia=atahd nosmp

# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD and boot it up
title Windows\nBoot up Windows if installed
  errorcheck off
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd  /bootmgr
  chainloader /bootmgr
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd  /ntldr
  chainloader /ntldr
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd   /io.sys
  chainloader /io.sys
  errorcheck on

# additionals

title Find Grub2\nBoot up grub2 if installed
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /boot/grub/core.img
kernel /boot/grub/core.img

title Grub4Dos commandline\n(for experts only)
  commandline

title Reboot computer
  reboot

title Halt computer
  halt

Just in case it helps understanding what I posted.

Good luck with your endeavors from a GED scooter tramp that helps the uneducated elderly get online on the Mexican border.