(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Okay, I'm a computer programming student at a community college and my professor showed the class puppy linux. We loved it and currently have it installed on 3 or 4 computers. (two of which I did on home computers)

The good.

We love how fast it is, and how it works wonders with older computers. We also like how it can be portable and brought with you anywhere.

The bad. (We think this needs changed asap.)

Install is complicated, we encounted many problems with it. Booting it from a cd or flash drive was great but trying to install it and run it without a cd or flash drive was a pain!

The Idea.

After loading the cd/flash drive it should come up to a screen with 2 options.

Install- Selecting this option will take it to a few other options. These would include.

Install to flash drive. - Selecting this will take you through a step by step explained install process where clicking next and filling out info should be the hardest part.

Install to hard drive, or simply say install to computer.
Selecting this will take you through a step by step explained install process where clicking next and filling out info should be the hardest part.
(Yea, i copy pasted. =) lol)


Boot - Selecting this will take you straight to puppy.

I'm sure these things can be done and if they were done I'm sure puppy linux would be a great hit. (I already love it.)
Think of the opportunities this provides people.
Portable or permanent.
It turned 2 of my 7-9 year old computers into fast working machines. They work like new.

The general idea i offer is a step by step install process. Options to make installing much more user friendly.

Many newcomers complain about this. Here is what you can do to help:

Make a step-by-step list of the installation procedure you used.

Explain at what point(s) you were confused or misled by the instructions.

loaded cd with puppy linux
install
hard drive (ide or sata)
full install
grub4dos

did it another way

install
hard drive
frugal
grub4dos
did it with and without save

It's working on a few computers but I guess I just dont know exactly how I got it to install. It was a few hours worth of trial and error.

For a temp fix, could you lead me in the direction of a full install guide?

rcrsn51 wrote:Explain at what point(s) you were confused or misled by the instructions.

studentprogrammer wrote:loaded cd with puppy linux
It's working on a few computers but I guess I just dont know exactly how I got it to install. It was a few hours worth of trial and error.

In order for the developers to make the installation process better, you need to tell them specifically where you had problems.

In order for the developers to make the installation process better, you need to tell them specifically where you had problems.

It's okay.
I'll just use Lubuntu.

studentprogrammer wrote:Okay, I'm a computer programming student at a community college

It's okay.
I'll just use Lubuntu.

Too bad. Dealing with user complaints is an important skill for you to learn.

rcrsn51 wrote:Too bad. Dealing with user complaints is an important skill for you to learn.

touché!

I understand the frustration of the student programmer. Installing puppy on harddisk is harder than on USB flashstick.

However, the installation wizard already discourage installing it on harddrive. I am not sure why the wizard does not spell out the steps clearly one by one.
The wizard assumes that the user knows what grub is and how to modify the grub.cfg (menu.lst) to make it work.

I would suggest the wizard to do auto instal for the grub and the correct configuration for the kernel location in the menu.lst.

Running puppy from a harddisk is more certain than USB stick. Many old computers does not support booting from USB stick. Only from CD or harddisk. Also, booting from USB without a HD caused "lupu_525.sfs not found".

GBU