Puppy on a Socket 1155 Computer

[Crash]

I have an Athlon 64 socket 939 computer whose Motherboard finally gave up the
ghost, and I replaced the Motherboard with a Socket 1155 version. I'm using an
I3-2125 in it, which works really well and is by the way going down in price
with the arrival of its Ivy Bridge successors.

This computer runs Windows XP, and before I plugged in the hard drive, I tested
the setup using Puppy 5.28 on a Thumb Drive. It booted like a champ, and the only
thing I needed to do was re-run the Network Connection Wizard, which took about
30 seconds.

Then I plugged in the hard drive. From the time I started until I had an acceptable
Windows XP running was about three hours. Between the driver updates, Windows
updates, and re-activating XP, it was pretty exhausting.

The out-of-box experience was certainly better with Puppy Linux!

[Dewbie]

How were you able to re-activate WinXP with a different motherboard?
From what I understand, M$ usually doesn't allow that, unless you purchase another COA number from them.

[Crash]

Dewbie,

I think that as long as a month has elapsed between activations, MS$ doesn't
care how much hardware has actually changed. The only hardware that is the same
as when I originally obtained this box is the case and the SD/Compact Flash USB hub.
Over the years, I have replaced the hard drive, motherboard, power supply, and
DVD writer. I'm actually on my third motherboard, but the first time I replaced
it with a similar Socket 939 unit.

More good stuff regarding Puppy: I put Puppy version 5.33 on the Thumb Drive, and
the experience was even better! It recognized the display correctly as 900x1600,
and installed the Ethernet driver automatically. Basically, it worked 100%
out-of-the-box without any effort on my part. A really nice setup.

[disciple]

This computer runs Windows XP

Out of interest, why?
Games?

[Crash]

This computer actually belongs to a family member, and she wanted the exact look
and feel of the machine to be maintained. I remember offering her a new Win7
computer last year, and she refused it. One of the things I find MS$ to be terrible
at is migrating things from one operating system to another. I cloned the hard
drive before doing the upgrade in case things didn't work. There must be a thousand
little programs on this computer, and I wasn't about to re-install every one of them.

But this is a little off the subject. Even if I had done a fresh install of
Win8 on the computer, I bet it would have taken over an hour. With Puppy Linux,
I just pushed in the Thumb Drive and it worked.

[starhawk]

Just out of curiosity... was this person even willing to consider the switch to Puppy? (which, BTW, can be made to look quite the WinXP clone )

[Crash]

...So...

This computer is going to be delivered as a DUAL BOOT SYSTEM...

Both WinXP and Puppy Linux...

I think it's a great way for the end user to make the choice themself.

I'll let you know how things turn out, although it may take a while... the computer will make a journey of about a thousand miles to its destination...