Newbies - Puppy needs YOUR help too!

Booting, installing, newbie
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Dewbie

#886 Post by Dewbie »

andytwo2 wrote:
Hope im in the right general area. I was looking for some help with xastir.
First try a search using xastir as keyword.
See if your question is answered in those threads.
If not, start a new thread, perhaps in the Beginners Help section.

PuppyUser2309
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 18 Jun 2013, 23:26

#887 Post by PuppyUser2309 »

Not sure if this is the right place for this kind of feedback, but here goes - I tried to follow the instructions in the Puppy Linux Manual for installing Puppy to the hard drive. They're good but possibly outdated.

The "Installation-Frugal" section here http://puppylinux.org/main/Manual-English.htm#Manual05 explains how to use GRUB bootloader. I'm new at this but my understanding is that GRUB bootloader has been superceded by Grub4DOS.

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Omega
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed 12 Jun 2013, 09:50
Location: Germany

#888 Post by Omega »

I have a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo L1300 with a CeleronM CPU with 1,4GHz and 512MB memory.

At first I tried Puppy Precise 5.4.3 but this version didn't worked because a CeleronM is apparently not PAE compatible. Then I tried the Retro version of Precise 5.4.3 and was amazed by it.

Everything was like I wanted from the beginning: A clean desktop, WLAN, Internet, accessing windows shares, a word processor, spreadsheet, all common video codecs, flash, java vm and many more. Wow!

Meanwhile I updated to Precise 5.6.1 and am still very excited. And I'm glad that the kernel in Precise 5.6.1 supports both PAE and NON-PAE processors.

I hope that Puppy Linux will continue to support old(er) computers in the future because I don't feel like buying a new PC and updating to Win7 or Win8 anymore.

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ardvark
Posts: 1448
Joined: Tue 02 Jul 2013, 03:43
Location: USA

#889 Post by ardvark »

Hi all...

I just recently installed Precise Puppy 5.6.1 for an old eMachines T-1090 that has a Celeron 900 Mhz (Socket 370,) 256 MB's of memory and a Radeon 7500 64 MB PCI add on card. Before that it was using the onboard Intel 82810 graphics chipset.

Of all the lightweight OS's I've tried so far, Precise Puppy works the best on this system, even though the hardware is too old to handle videos.

One recommendation I would like to offer is that the Puppy Package Manager be reworked to where I am not asked a series of questions when I choose something to install. Questions like what server to download from and whether or not to install dependencies can be left up to the manager.

For those who want to be able to have these choices, an "Expert mode" button can be offered that would allow this. Otherwise the manager can handle the details. I like Synaptic a lot for this reason, it just does the job without bothering me. :)

Also, having a lot more software to choose from would be a great bonus. Currently, it's pretty slim pickin's as to what's available.

Best Regards...

tropicalretriever
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon 24 Jun 2013, 10:54

#890 Post by tropicalretriever »

Hello everybody,

I have tried a lot of different distros including Debian based and Slackware based, but I have only tried Puppy once. As I am typing this I am burning another ISO and will give it another look. The reason I am hesitant is that you are always running as root and I couldn't find a firewall, although there may be one I don't know about. I think the best thing about linux is all the choice it gives the end user, so why not let them choose if they want to set up a root account or not? That is about it, and thank you for a great distro. I know a lot of hard work goes into making it.

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ardvark
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Location: USA

#891 Post by ardvark »

tropicalretriever wrote:The reason I am hesitant is that you are always running as root and I couldn't find a firewall, although there may be one I don't know about.
Hi...

While I'm not sure about the other versions, Precise Puppy 5.6.1 (and probably earlier, to some extent,) comes with a firewall, which a window, (either during a live session or upon installation to, say, a hard drive,) will offer to set up for you if Puppy detects and is able to use your ethernet or wireless device. If given this option, it's probably easiest, in most cases, to choose "automatic" unless you want to fine tune the parameters. :)

Regards...
Last edited by ardvark on Sat 27 Jul 2013, 04:37, edited 1 time in total.

tropicalretriever
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon 24 Jun 2013, 10:54

#892 Post by tropicalretriever »

ardvark,

Thank you for your reply. I found the firewall and have set it up. I appreciate your response.

Kindest regards-

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ardvark
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Joined: Tue 02 Jul 2013, 03:43
Location: USA

#893 Post by ardvark »

tropicalretriever wrote:Thank you for your reply. I found the firewall and have set it up. I appreciate your response.
You're welcome, glad I could help :)

kidx
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun 28 Jul 2013, 08:42

#894 Post by kidx »

This just too dificult to install i would love an arcade edition with steam and thunderbird on it but its to damn difficult to install and nothing installs right please fix teh installer casue if I cant install it rihgt then i cant use it at all same goes for angel linux nothing works right for installing nice distro but dont install right.

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ardvark
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Location: USA

#895 Post by ardvark »

kidx wrote:This just too dificult to install i would love an arcade edition with steam and thunderbird on it but its to damn difficult to install and nothing installs right please fix teh installer casue if I cant install it rihgt then i cant use it at all same goes for angel linux nothing works right for installing nice distro but dont install right.
Hi....

It is a bit more challenging than other distributions, I agree. I had to learn by trial and error with Gparted (which is probably going to be your first stop before installing,) and the boot loader before I was able to install it on the hard drive of the system I'm using it on. If you would like to give it another shot, let us know and we can give you a hand. :)

Regards...

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Pat the Rat
Posts: 2
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Puppy install = waggin' tail

#896 Post by Pat the Rat »

Have had a pair of HP T5540 Thin Clients sitting around for a while. They've a VIA Eden running at 1GHz. I upped the RAM to 1GiB. The internal 44-pin header is populated with a 512MiB DOM or flash card. I'd previously run Slitaz 3 on one of them, but have never been able to get 'Taz 4 to run — something hinky with the graphics I suspect. I tried Puppy a looong time ago and set it aside. I've been tinkering with 44-pin adapters with a plan to install an SD card. While waiting for my parts from the River People, I went ahead and burned the two latest releases of Precise. The box supports PAE so I used the non-Retro version.

Installation was quick and fairly painless. I've ditched SeaMonkey for FF and installed UnPet. I don't need the combo-chat-mail-browse. Now I'm in the process of figuring out how to shrink my install down since the DOM has about 188MiB left free. Been uninstalling stuff I don't need using UnPet. I'm thinking this will make a dandy low-energy fanless torrent box, using an external NAS or USB drive as a target. Of course, I'll be acquiring only legal and public-domain files from the interweb.

I think this is a mighty nice distro for this application. Documentation is good, pop-up dialogues help neophytes like myself understand what's up, and tweaking is pretty easy. Everything important has worked "out of the box": network, sound, graphics. For now I'll be keeping one unit running Puppy. The other will get the 16GiB SD adapter and will get a "chunkier" install of some Debian-type distro (this I tested using a notebook drive adapted to the DOM header).

This is a fresh install so I'll keep messing with it until I break something. Maybe, as time goes on, I'll report back. Give it a few weeks to "age".

Good dog. Sit , stay.

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mikeslr
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If (or NOT) a Puppy Works on your Computer, let others know

#897 Post by mikeslr »

Hi all,

I figure that if you multiply the number of different computer models --each with different motherboards, CPU, wifi adapters, sound and video cards-- by the number of puppy variants, you'll get a number in the hundreds of thousands. Almost invariably, your first question was "Will this Puppy version work with my computer?" By next year they'll be many more "Beginners" asking the same question. By next year they'll probably be 6 more Puppy versions. And there's a good chance that a couple of years from now you'll be thinking about buying a new computer and wonder whether any of the recent Puppy variants will work with it. Of course, you can ask, and some "Regular" may know, stumble across your question and answer. But there are many more users than Regulars.The information each user possesses has value. One way every fan can "pay for" receiving a great, free system is to "pay-it-forward" by providing information.
If you have a laptop, take the time to post the make, model and Puppy version which works fully, or almost fully, to the end of the PuppyOnLaptop thread. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 175#705175.
If a Puppy version is still being developed and some essential function doesn't work, post that information on the thread discussing that Puppy. Essential functions are "boots to desktop," sound, graphics, ethernet and wifi. The Dev of the Puppy Version and those "testers" who follow his work are the people most likely to figure out how fix something which doesn't work. But even if they can't, future beginners and Puppy fans will know not to use that Puppy Version or, when possible, avoid that computer.

mikesLr

rufus
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed 11 Sep 2013, 15:31

tiny c compiler

#898 Post by rufus »

I run Slacko and Lucid from usb sticks. They just work and are blindingly responsive. So thanks to everyone who has made this possible. I can now carry my own PC in my pocket.

Could some consideration be given to including a binary of the Tiny C Compiler (tcc)? The GCC is HUGE and does not seem to fit in with the Puppy philosophy of having a small but pretty complete Linux which can be run from a usb stick.

I use the Windows version of tcc and find it does all I want.

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vovchik
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Location: Ukraine

#899 Post by vovchik »

Dear Rufus,

I use gcc every day and have used tcc when I was toying with the idea of creating a tiny BaCon pet that would include tcc. Peter van Eerten obliged me by including tcc as one of the compilers that can compile BaCon-generated c source. Unfortunately, I found that the tcc-produced binaries were huge, and I still don't know how to shrink them. I can produce a little GTK Bacon program using GTK shared libs, which I strip and then UPX and some weigh in at as little as 6k (using Bacon's PROTO and PRAGMA options, plus clever gcc compilation parameters). I have not found a way to come anywhere close to this using tcc. This means, in my limited testing, that while tcc is small, the progs it produces are not. :( Perhaps somebody has some experience here and can give us some hints.

With kind regards,
vovchik

rufus
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed 11 Sep 2013, 15:31

tcc compiler

#900 Post by rufus »

Dear vochik,

Thanks for the response. My interest is in having tcc included in a Puppy distribution so that I can run it from a usb stick just as I am doing now. The size of the binaries it produces is of less concern to me as my C program are a few hundred lines at most and for me gcc is a bit of overkill. I already use the Windows version of tcc from a usb stick and find it very good for my purposes. It just works! And that is the great thing about Puppy it just works!

rufus

swedenfox
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 07 Oct 2013, 16:25

My opinion

#901 Post by swedenfox »

i really like puppy

PRO
  • FAST
    RECONIZED ALL MY HARDWARE STUFF
    IT USE ROX (MY FAV FILE MANAGER)
CONS
  • PACKAGE MANAGER IS REALLY UNFRIENDLY
    A BETTER WIKI COULD HELPFUL.
    A BETTER SELECTION OF THE START INSTALLED PROGRAMS (SOME OF THAT AREN'T WORKING)
BYE

klva47
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed 16 Oct 2013, 00:38

Puppy - It Just Works

#902 Post by klva47 »

Various versions of Puppy have been my favorite OS from the time a Puppy CD booted an old, basically worthless, laptop in 2005. The original OS was dead. Puppy booted-up fine, and even recognized the Netgear wireless PC card. That laptop soon became very useful in the workshop. Computers get upgraded, so my shop computer has been upgraded. I've tried other Linux distributions. Puppy is always the most useful. A computer with Puppy OS just works, no hassles.

Jacqueline_5

Puppy needs YOUR help too!

#903 Post by Jacqueline_5 »

Tell me what help your puppy needs.

dogle
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu 11 Oct 2007, 12:41

#904 Post by dogle »

Jaqueline_5, as you will see if you skip back to the first post, this thread requests help in the form of user feedback from newcomers to Puppy.

The many good people who took the trouble to post here made very clear from the beginning that newbies were having trouble with two issues in particular - one was Puppy installation, but the biggie by far was trouble in finding information.

The Puppy community has made great efforts to improve the newcomer's experience, not least in adding stickied newbie-support topics to this forum and in the painstaking building of the Puppy wiki (but, as you can see from swedenfox's valued comments above, such things are, like Puppy, ever a work-in-progress). Judging by the marked decline in comments here on those things which were previously upsetting lots of newbies, then unless the user base has changed significantly, good things are happening.

Anyhow, welcome to the Kennels! .... and any help you can give to support the wiki would be grand.

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g2k
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu 31 Oct 2013, 03:58

#905 Post by g2k »

Hi, I'm pretty new to the forums here and not "leaving" puppy linux but, there are a few things that I think are in line with this thread topic.

1) Puppy really needs a traditional right-click copy/paste function.
ALL users of ANY other operating system have this functionality OOTB.

2) secondary drives like SD Cards need to be able to be moved to an area of the screen and "locked" to that position (even after reboot). The HDD icons do this but the SD Card / USBflash icons do not, even if you rebuild the pinboard .config file. It isn't a deal-breaker but it IS annoying.

3) Frugal install with encrypted save folder is a very useful thing to have, maybe even more useful/secure than having a typical user account with password. However it is PAIN to set up "like a user account system". A GUI would be much appreciated here.

4) Root, root, and more root. One of the first things a newbie learns about linux is that the highest point in a file system after the partition is "/" this symbol is called root. It is the highest or topmost folder in the file system...OK, great. Every other distro of linux reinforces this axiom by expressing all derivations with this symbol in the following way: /mnt, or /mnt/my_folder/my_file, etc.

Puppy linux however doesn't do this. In puppy "/" is file system top folder, aka root. Then there is the folder /root, which is not a way of saying /=root (top folder of file system), but a way of saying this is the folder called root. But wait, doesn't / =root? So then really /root is really //root, the folder called root which is "within" the folder "/" or root folder, which does=the topmost folder in the structure. Do you see where I'm going with this...lol?

To make matters worse when a save filed is used it is mounted /mnt/home and not mounted as /home. To add even more confusion to injury, when mounted, this folder /mnt/home, is still shown by the file manager to be...you guessed it.../mnt/root or, said another way "/" root /mnt/root. Thats //mnt/root in the mind picture of the newbies...lol

I love puppy to bits, but this is just stupid. A user of linux DOES have an obligation to do some studying and some learning. However that doesn't= a license to make an already confusing file structure downright cryptic. Either make root/root read as /home in all instances of puppy or make it a "." folder like root/.root where it can reside where ever it wants to, but isn't causing confusion to the newbie.

In a perfect world I would like to see a save file (encrypted or not) create a folder called /home with sub folders called /music, /pictures, /documents. This folder /home could also contains /.root.

/.root holds all the custom configuration entries a given user has made like wallpaper choice, etc. while /home has these well known folders for my stuff that I want to keep private.

Then we could have a public folder" /public" that's a good place to store whatever I want to be available to ALL users under any save_file.

Please understand, I'm not complaining. Windows users have a hard enough time trying to use linux as is. This 1 hiccup in the file system of puppy doesn't make puppy "junk"by any means.

However, it does make puppy MORE confusing and HARDER to learn, without offering ANY performance enhancement at all to the system.

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