Adopting Puppy Linux

[BusterGates]

What should I expect from Migrating from Win98SE to Puppy Linux on an Intel Acceleron PC with a 10GB hard drive with 512 MB RAM and regular crashes. BTW Is there a simple third party utilitry for testing RAM?


Make of my computer? HP Pavillion 6630
Amount of RAM installed? 512 MB
The CPU (processor) speed? 500Mhz
What Hard Drives: 10 GB
CD-ROM CD-ROM
The Partitions, size and type 10GB total 7.7 used & 1.8 available
What type of Keyboard & Mouse i.e. Serial, PS/2, USB or other? Bus
Which version of Puppy you are working with? None yet.

I'd want to know what to expect. I have an old Win98SE platform with a bridge type DSL modem with PPPoP drivers. I get lots of freezes that may or may not be due to a third party browser called Smart Explorer and I'm considering chucking it all for Puppy Linux.

But I know next to nothing about command prompts and was wondering if I try Linux Puppy, do I have to wipe out all my Win98SE partition or can I just keep it and just partition for sample run under Linux Puppy. If so how hard is this partition to do?

What percent of my WIN98SE applications if any can I expect to run under Linux? Is it zero? If so, what should I expect as a remedy or solution for adopting Puppy Linux? Will I at least be able to say goodbye to screen freezes?

Will my online experience be better than the dicey reliability I have now under Win98SE? Epecially for a DSL Connection using a bridge type modem that requires EnterNET 300 or RASPPPOP? Or should I just get a router type DSL modem to make the change?

Does Puppy Linux have its own browser?

How fast will I be able to configure everything once loaded. And can I really load an X-Windows Emulation of Puppy from a CD?

I tried to dicover these answers from the FAQs but they didn't jump out at me. Sorry.

And I hope this automatically posts to my email box becaseu it doesn't say that here either.

[oblivious]

was wondering if I try Linux Puppy, do I have to wipe out all my Win98SE partition or can I just keep it and just partition for sample run under Linux Puppy. If so how hard is this partition to do?

How fast will I be able to configure everything once loaded. And can I really load an X-Windows Emulation of Puppy from a CD?

You don't have to touch your Win98 installation. You don't have to partition. You can run Puppy totally from a cd. Because you can try it without changing your current settings, try it and see. Configuring things is easy - there are wizards to help.

What percent of my WIN98SE applications if any can I expect to run under Linux? Is it zero?

They won't run under linux, but there are equivalent linux programs. There is also an emulator (wine) that can run some windows programs (I don't know which ones). Any Word documents will open without drama in Open Office or Abiword (though I noticed that Abiword won't open Word indexes)

I don't know about your modem. Linux can have some problems with win modems (whatever they are ), but why not try it and see if it works?

Does Puppy Linux have its own browser?

It comes with Seamonkey, but you can easily install Firefox or Opera if you like them better.

BTW Is there a simple third party utilitry for testing RAM?

There's one called memtest.

[erikson]

I'd want to know what to expect.

Just try

As oblivious said, you don't need to touch your Win98 setup until you feel fully comfortable with Puppy.

I myself started with Puppy just three weeks ago, also see my "Puppy page" referenced in signature below.

By now I am running two Puppy flavors from pendrive, with multi-boot option (standard Puppy 3.01, pcPuppyOS rc6, or WinXP from hard disk), and I find that I'm now using WinXP for barely 10% of the time.

[Lobster]

What should I expect

Fun
http://tmxxine.com/wik/wikka.php?wakka=PuppyPuplets

Fans
http://tmxxine.com/pup2/img0.html

Frizz
http://www.12design.cl/puppy/

Fizz
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PedigreePuppy

http://www.12design.cl/puppy/

Welcome to the kennels

[Pizzasgood]

But I know next to nothing about command prompts

Don't sweat it. The key is to not fear the prompt. Often times when people ask questions about how to do or fix something, they're given answers that involve running a command from the terminal. Generally, the most vague response we give is "Open a terminal and run the command whatever_command." So you do need to know that if we say that, we mean to click the icon that says "console", type out whatever_command, and then press the [enter] key.

(note, there is no such thing as whatever_command! That's just an example).

Another good thing to know is how to copy-paste into and from it. Just select the text you want to copy, then middle click (or click with the scroll wheel, or click with the left and right buttons at the same time) where you want the text pasted too. That's it. Nice and simple. Most apps to support ctrl-c and ctrl-v and the right-click->copy methods, but the default terminal in Puppy doesn't. (however, the Sakura terminal in the PETget package manager does).


The terminal really is a useful and powerful tool once you get the hang of it. It might take a while for that to happen, but you'll learn to love it. You can do things much more quickly by just typing the commands than by hunting through menus and clicking on things.

But it's almost never required, so you can stick to the GUI method most of the time too, if that's your inclination.

[HairyWill]

(note, there is no such thing as whatever_command!

Code: Select all

alias whatever_command='echo bothered'
# whatever_command
bothered
# 

there is now

[hillside]

<<Does Puppy Linux have its own browser? >>

Yes it does. It comes with a lot of programs. It has a word processor, text editors, spreadsheet, mail client, graphics tools, I could go on forever. Last time I counted the number of included applications was, I think, somewhere around a hundred billion. (That may be an exaggeration, but there are a lot of apps and more that can be added through the package manager.)

I've never used anything like your DSL modem, so I can't speak to that. If it requires some kind of Windows software to use, it could be a challenge.

Boot from the cd and you can leave your Windows installation just as is so you can go back to it if you want.

If you have an older machine and can't boot directly from the cd, ask about Wakepup or SmartBootManager. Those are systems that allow you to boot puppy on a cd by initiating the process from a floppy.

[Pizzasgood]

I know nothing about modems, but one of the apps you listed has three p's in a row. Puppy does have a program which also has three p's in a row (rp_pppoe), and I know it's for using ethernet modems. Something about "ppp over ethernet". So my guess is that's what you need.

[jonyo]

I myself started with Puppy just three weeks ago, also see my "Puppy page" referenced in signature below.

By now I am running two Puppy flavors from pendrive, with multi-boot option (standard Puppy 3.01, pcPuppyOS rc6, or WinXP from hard disk), and I find that I'm now using WinXP for barely 10% of the time.

[klu9]

Hi
you can find some info about the programs included in Puppy here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/puppyapps

[jonyo]

What should I expect

Mostly good.

[dptxp]

Just burn Puppy Linux to a CD using 'burn image' command. Set your bios to boot from CD and power up with CD in CD/DVD drive.

It will load to your RAM and run from it. It does not matter if you have a harddisk or not. You can remove the Puppy CD after it loads and runs and use the CD/DVD drive too.

Everyone loves Puppy Linux.