Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[puppyite]

[omskates]

[mikeb]

[puppyite]

[bones01]

I haven't read through all the pages, but here are a few thoughts from someone who is persevering with Puppy, even though it really annoys me sometimes.

I love the live cd stuff. That I can take a cd anywhere and boot into a computer, do what I need to do (even on the Net) and then leave, is fantastic. The variety of programs is great too.

And the support on the forum is sensational.

Some of the things that make me want to give up:
.pup .pet tar.gz .deb and so on. These different file types are confusing to people who are used to looking for a .exe file. I know this represents an evolution of sorts, but I did get lost when I started. (Still not sure about tar.gz)

Grub - confusing.

Puppy Numbers. Is 4.2 in improvement on 4.0? Why are some people working on Puppy 5.0 and others on improving 2.17 or something like that. Is there an advantage to the old Puppy that I don't know about?

Computer Language - I still get lost, and this was what made it hard to start and keep going. When a newbie is confused, jargon really makes it hard.

The search - perhaps because the forum is so big, but the search results in either the forum or from the front page aren't so great. It would be great to be able to narrow them down.

(Why isn't there a link to puppylinux.org from the forum page?)

Anyway, there are a few issues. On the up side, I love the puplets, and have tried a few. And once I got over not understanding and just kept asking questions, I found the people who respond in the forums to be terrific.

Bones

[Aitch]

Hi Bones

[puppyite]

[Aitch]

puppyite

Have added those in your sig to the search page, thanks

Aitch

[puppyite]

[Aitch]

[omskates]

[puppyite]

[SelftaughtGeek]

Finally had enough Windows, been promising myself for years that I would find a viable alternative. Came across Linux a few years back and was quite simply baffled - I can develop office applications in VBA but understand where to start with Linux? Had me scratching my head. This time though with my now ancient laptop taking 30 minutes to boot up Windows 2000 it was time to persevere and I thought it can't be that difficult and decided on using a small distro. I liked the idea of an OS on a disk that would not interfere with my terminally ill Win 2K machine.
So first I found DSL appeared to be just what I needed. First version I tried wouldn't boot, second version did but no sound and dodgy graphics. Was just about to throw the whole thing in the bin when I found Puppy.
Made my first Puppy4 CD, popped it in, and WOW it just worked. Within 5 minutes I was on the net via a PCMCIA Wifi card and was exploring all the applications built into this amazing little package.

So my feedback then:
Tell me more about what all the built in packages do - e.g. I want a webpage editor as my Dreamweaver won't work in Linux. Spent ages trying to find a suitable PET then yesterday found that Seamonkey has a built in HTML editor - good enough for what I want, just wish I had found it sooner. Sorry guys but Composer sounds like something I would manipulate sound files with not HTML ones

Love the fact that I can convert documents to PDF - couldn't do that on Windows without an expensive extra application

Also spent too long trying to get WINE to work with Puppy 4 (wanted to use Dreamweaver but now no need) so I have given up on that.

Printing is a whole different game in Linux and sods law neither of my current printers are compatible - A Canon i350 and a Lexmark all in one X4580 - Gonna have to keep one windows platform for now. Looked at all the ways to link to a Windows Printer but as they all seem to need the Windows PC turned on it's easier to save my file onto a USB Flash drive and swap machines to print anything - this may be a solution I use for a while.

My laptop doesn’t support booting to USB so I am stuck with keeping Puppy on a CD - which is fine but annoying when you realise that you haven’t got the CD in and want to start the laptop and cant open the drive. Have looked at creating a boot floppy that then lets me open the cd drive but haven’t worked out how to do this yet - GRUB remains a mystery

The Wifi connection works ok but has a nasty habit of losing the profile and needing it to be reloaded half way through a session.

Love being able to add widgets to my desktop and customise them, looks more like Vista than ever now and Seamonkey has tabbed browsing (never managed to get IE7 working so had switched to Firefox on my Windows machines to get tabbed browsing)

Wish Seamonkey was compatible with McAfee Site Advisor like Firefox is, but as Seamonkey has so much in it already can't see me switching just for the addon given the extra memory requirement.

Did I tell you I love the way most of it "just works"

Definitely converted but can't totally give up Windows until I work out:

1) Puppy on a USB for my main desktop to boot from
2) Printing - so basic but a real issue
3) Find a list of all the built in apps that tells me exactly what they do and how to use them

As for the forum itself - you do a great job with loads of useful information here - only one gripe, with so many versions now in use posts should easily identify which version of Puppy it relates to

Sorry rather longwinded

STG

[Eathray]

I had a heck of a time getting my sound card to work. I tried one thing after another, and, being a newbee, did not understand most of what I was trying. I read and read and read some more, but so much what I was looking at was utterly foreign.

Aitch held my hand while I was trying to get it figured out. That helped tremendously. Number one has got to be people willing to listen to stupid questions and be patient with newbees when we just don't get it.

Number two, we need a little out of the box help. Getting Puppy to the place where all hardware and basic functions work from the beginning would be outstanding. The fancy stuff can be mastered as you go. (I think it's almost there, by the way. The sound card thing was very tricky though).

last, clear instructions for ignoramuses like myself who have absolutely no Linux knowledge or abilities. I could not have figured out my sound without the forums, but having said that, it was an exhausting amount of work digging out what I was looking for. Really could use something more concise and easily search-able. Something that includes an exhaustive lexicon/concordance/dictionary of terms.

Them's my thoughts.

Eth

[puppyite]