(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi! I have an old Fujitsu Siemens laptop. It was bought in 2004, and has Windows XP. I can't get any hardware details, because it has no charger (I'm getting it soon). But anyway, the computer was super powerful when it was new, and it could easily run many games. It should still work, and I think I'll install Puppy to it, because Windows is full of viruses and it is also slow. I have some Puppy-related questions.

1. Can I install Puppy through Windows XP, and delete XP completely? (also all of the stuff I have installed on XP)
2. I will use the computer for programming. Is it easy/possible to install Gnu Compiler Collection and some IDEs (Eclipse, Code::Blocks and Emacs)?
3. Does Puppy come with GCC or some other programming tools preinstalled?
4. If Puppy doesn't support my hardware or isn't good for programming, which are the best light-weight free sofware alternatives?
5. How hard it is to install Puppy Gnu/Linux? (From the scale of 1-10. 1 is one-click-install and 10 is Gentoo)


Thanks for your help! Sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes.

Hello Fine[research-&-design?] >> Welcome to Pup! Pssst.. mine's as old with a crummy video card.

Pup, including most any Nix can satisfy your requests. I'll suggest you flip through this page first.

finerd wrote: 1. Can I install Puppy through Windows XP, and delete XP completely? (also all of the stuff I have installed on XP)
4. If Puppy doesn't support my hardware or isn't good for programming, which are the best light-weight free sofware alternatives?
5. How hard it is to install Puppy Gnu/Linux? (From the scale of 1-10. 1 is one-click-install and 10 is Gentoo)

Hi...

Welcome to the forums

While I can't answer number two and three...

1. Through XP? Not that I'm aware of. You would either need to burn a copy of Puppy (of your choice) to a CD or use a program like BootFlash (or unetbootin if unable to use BootFlash) to create a bootable copy on a thumb drive and then repartition your hard drive and install Puppy manually.

4. There are several to try, although Puppy is, in my experience, one of the best in terms of low resource requirements. There is also Lubuntu, Peppermint, Crunchbang, Slitaz and AntiX, to name a few. Depending upon your hardware, they may or may not be as snappy as Puppy can be.

5. It depends on your skill level. But for newcomers to Linux who don't know anything about how to partition a hard drive or install an OS, I would say a 10. If one has some experience and can do those things, maybe a 6 or 7. I am fairly well (but not highly) experienced with Linux and Puppy threw me for a loop when I installed it for the first time. It is very manual, hands on (but quick) operation.

Although just my opinion, I hope this helps...

Regards...

1. apart from the windows 32 installer for puppy which runs as a windows program

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 86&t=61404

mike

Hi finerd,

Welcome to the forum.

Plugging Fujitsu Siemens into the search box on this page http://puppylinux.us/psearch.html (select Puppy Forum) reveals that several models had problems running some of the older versions of Puppy, and gave solutions to some –but not all-- problems. Newer Pups –employing newer kernels and more drivers-- may have resolved those problems, so the first Pups to try would be the more recent ones. That being the case, you might consider using any of the newer Pups created by the Japanese team which can be downloaded as an exe file, that you run under windows. You'll find information regarding Puppy Linux Window Installer starting here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 720#462720 The first link on the first sentence of the first post will take you to various Pups available in that format. Pups to consider: Slacko Puppy Non-PAE 560.exe, Precise Puppy Linux 570 Retro.exe, Puppy Linux 528.exe, Non-PAE because your CPU probably won't boot a PAE kernel designed to handle over 4 Gbs of RAM. Sometimes when a developer creates a Pup which can use a PAE kernel, (s)he'll also create one which doesn't and refers to it as “retro.

Welcome to the forum, finerd.

If it were my machine, I would start by playing with the litter of Puppies available to you using Live CDs.

I would start by cleaning off MSOSXP entirely and repartitioning your HDD. (You can use Puppy to save your personal data from XP.)
Use *Gparted* to reformat the HDD.
Menu/system/Gparted

Boot up a Live CD of Puppy (start out with Puppy 5.7.1 and if it doesn't work, then work backwards to Puppy 525 RETRO or similar)

Keep experimenting with Live CD's of Puppy until you find one that runs the machine best.
Then you can decide how you want to install Puppy.

Here is a reference point for finding Puppies:
http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%20L ... elease.htm