How I used Puppy today.

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John Doe
Posts: 1681
Joined: Mon 01 Aug 2005, 04:46
Location: Michigan, US

How I used Puppy today.

#1 Post by John Doe »

The place my mom works at had a computer boot up (their accounting computer, with no backup) yesterday and a bios error pops up which said something like, "Imminent Harddrive Failure".

She called me and I said, "no problem, unplug the tower from everything, buy an ide HD from the store and bring it all home".

I got out my trusty philips, a pencil and piece of note paper, a floppy disk and my secret weapon: a USB stick armed with puppy linux.

After dropping in the new drive and running the manufacture setup, I booted into puppy linux and typed "dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdc1"...waited..rebooted (pulled the old drive and switched IDE cables)...

*trumpet fanfare*

..and up comes the windows ME screen, asking me if I'd like to boot into safe mode. Puppy linux to the rescue again.

I do have to fix vmm32.vxd. I'm downloading a ME iso right now. They really screw up usability with those damn compaq OEM recover disks, but as far as I'm concerned Puppy saved the day. I checked and all their important files are intact and readable.
Last edited by John Doe on Thu 22 Sep 2005, 07:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Lobster
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Posts: 15522
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 06:06
Location: Paradox Realm
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#2 Post by Lobster »

Ah John
(I spotted the deliberate mistake) your mom was using ME (even by MS standards this is not good - get her up to 2000 or XP)

I think because Puppy preserves my HD space so well - I might start downloading big stuff . . . Nah . . . small an' cute . . .

Now I am gonna report on another John (forum names have been omitted to preserve discretion)

"I still hope that the ideas of maintaining users' desktops, icons, etc across upgrades and using user-defined startup scripts (that are called by and are not modified by system scripts) will come into Puppy soon.

A lot of people are very clever and are getting a lot of fancy things happening... but the fundamentals of what makes a good, usable operating system are being neglected. Seamless upgrades, customization (that DOES NOT get trashed with a new upgrade or new software release) and properly addressing transitions for ex-Windows people (like providing an automounting facility -- the Unix purists can always turn it off) are higher priorities to me than getting someone's pet program to work in Puppy. In a lot of ways, I think Puppy is in danger of choking himself with feature-bloat and he'll come to grief when he can do all these tricks but he can't even rely on his little legs to work!"


OK I hope they will forgive me for reporting what was part of a private fume - I let them cool for a few weeks :)

I totally agree with the above points. I am also a pragmatist. If it works I will use it. For example I prefer Inkscape (massive) to sodipodi (which inkscape is based on - Inkscape is 10 times as big - I ain't gonna use sodipodi just because it is small. I see NO reason for audacity to be included in Puppy but there it is as a dot pup and I use it because I need the facilities for my pawed casts.

Barry does not like Java - but a lot of sites use it and so do I. I would NEVER expect java to be included in Puppy but who knows . . .

JWM when I first used it was not as stable as fvwm or Icewm - now it is (I am using it in 1.0.4 in preparation for 1.05) With thoughtjourneys config we have a tiny window mananger. With dotpup and pupget options we can install all manner of other arrangements such as fluxbox.

My dream is to go and buy a computer with all the bits integrated on the motherboard - with a generic OS (Puppy please!) embedded. Then if I wish for more facilities or a slowed down system I can buy or lease MS or the AMD/Intel version of Apple OS or download a big bloat Linux such as Suse or Debian (only joking about them fellow penguins). How many would stick with the generic OS - especially if it was Puppy (paws up please)?

Now if we have a small OS does that mean that we should not have:

1. Voice recognition ("heel!")
2. 3D Pov-Ray and Blender type programs
3. New processor intensive bloatware progs . . .

:?:

I hardly ever use Windows anymore. After a while it is just not worth the trouble. In fact I am told the computer I am using can not use Windows XP (only Windows SE) - probably just as well

:roll: Anyways I have rambled on so much I do not even remember the original topic . . .

Ah - yes - Puppy to the rescue . . .
How did Puppy rescue you?
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#3 Post by Pizzasgood »

My dream is to go and buy a computer with all the bits integrated on the motherboard - with a generic OS (Puppy please!) embedded.
I'd still prefer a computer with a blank hd. It would be cheaper, even if the os was free, because embedding it takes work, and work takes money. I don't have money.
your mom was using ME
The only MS product I hate more than ME is IE. My mom uses ME, and her computer is garbage. It is physically better than mine in all areas but ram and graphics card, but with ME, it is garbage. I use 98SE (or I used to, at least), and my computer takes almost all the abuse I throw at it. If I even touch her's it breaks. One of these days I'm going to try to force her to use Puppy. I know for a fact that she would like his indestructability. He also looks better than ME (at least after I groom him). I'm sick and tired of maintaining her computer, and I'll be in away in college soon, so If she gets one more virus, ME is going down. :x
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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