Did a Derivative bring you to Puppy? Why Derivatives Matter

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john biles
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Did a Derivative bring you to Puppy? Why Derivatives Matter

#1 Post by john biles »

Hello Everyone,
Over the years Puppy users have said "I now use Puppy but it was the xxxxxxpup that introduced to it.

I would never have considered using Puppy if I hadn't first discovered xxxxxxpup.

What's your story.... Did a Derivative bring you here?
Legacy OS 2017 has been released.

Volhout
Posts: 547
Joined: Sun 28 Dec 2008, 08:41

puppeez

#2 Post by Volhout »

The first puppy that I tried was Puppeez (a 2.17 derivative).
It was simple, ran on my old 266MHz Gateway laptop, but not stable enough. But a great puplet. It is too bad that the old forum page that gave a graphical matrix of puplets is gone. That would definitely promote puplets (derivatives).

Later I tried Macpup 412. But at that time I had difficulty understanding all these puppy specific programs (as a windooze user) and the different behaviour (Mac-alike). To be honest, the biggest hurdle comming from Microsoft is the variety of programs in linux, but everyone keeps calling them by the name. "ROX", Thunar", "GIMP", "Abiword" ??? It is nice to know that there is a program with that name, but I need to type a text, and I don't care what program does it, as long as it does. Anyway, I got used to this now.

The first puppy I used for longer time on that laptop was mainstream 412.
The later 431 would not run on it anymore in frugal mode (too large).

Since I have my eeePC 1001HA (2 years) I use Puppeee 1.0 and later 4.4RC2 from Jemimah. I think these are derivatives also.

The only thing that I know of that comes close in simplicity to the old puppeez is Browserlinux from Puppymartin, but that does not work well on my eeePC, and I have simply not spend the effort to make it work.

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TLM
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Location: Central United States

#3 Post by TLM »

Indeed it was a derivative. The first two puppy derivatives i tried out were TEENpup and Vestapup (honestly cannot remember which was first)
As i surfed and researched, i became intrigued by the many variations of Puppy, and over the past several years i have tried dozens of puplets and even remastered a few of my own. I now use a Lucid derivative and a 431 derivative on a daily basis for my main computing needs.

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RSH
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Location: Germany

#4 Post by RSH »

My first "Puppy Linux" has been Muppy 08.3F - a German Puppy Linux Derivative. It was assembled on the com! Multibootstick Builder, presented in a German computer magazine. This one contains Avira, Damn Small Linux 4.4.6, Darik's Boot & Nuke 1.0.7, F-Secure CD 3.0, Memtest86+ 2.01, Muppy Linux 08.3F, Parted Magic 3.1, Puppy Linux 4.1, Ubuntu 8.10 & XBMC Atlantis Beta 2..

I did not know anyone of them but gave it all a try. Muppy 08.3F has impressed me because of its German Menu & Surface but mainly of its included sfs files.

So i gave this one the opportunity to encounter my usb stick, which i mainly did need and use until then for the use of PortableApps in Windows - actually Lupu PenSuite.

Muppy 08.3F
Image

It took at least one year to get the Muppy 08.3F to work with all the programs i wanted to use with it. Several times i returned to windows, wiped the usb stick (not without making a backup :lol: ) and then return to muppy. 14 Months later i got this:
Image
This has been my daily OS since february 2010 until i did create my LazY Puppy. Today i do use windows only on testing the win installer of LazY Puppy. :D :lol: :D

These two songs i did record using audacity & rosegarden in Muppy 08.3F. :D
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wpt3l31o7 ... ePizza.mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/file/j9bclmpr0 ... tDrums.mp3
Recorded track by track and then mixed down. All instruments are played by myself.
[b][url=http://lazy-puppy.weebly.com]LazY Puppy[/url][/b]
[b][url=http://rshs-dna.weebly.com]RSH's DNA[/url][/b]
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=91422][b]SARA B.[/b][/url]

starhawk
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Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#5 Post by starhawk »

Heh. Funny one should ask, it's a cool story :D

I was looking to find a lightweight version of Linux that would run on a Thin Client that I had modded for use as a desktop PC :shock: trust me, that thing was slooooooooooow. It took like 10min to boot, once I'd installed something on it... from the beginning I knew that it wouldn't work with Windblows, and I'd need a version of Linux that was a lot less hefty (and nicer to hardware overall) than the Ubuntu stuff I'd tried in the past.

Anyhow, I'd heard of something new called WattOS, and I posted on their forums. I was ignored for a week straight. Meanwhile, everyone on the other forum I'm on (it's called [H]ard|Forum and is a popular computer-enthusiast forum) was recommending this thing I'd never heard of called Puppy Linux.

At some point I left a nasty note on WattOS' forums, saying exactly how I felt about being ignored for a week... not what I would call good customer service, at least, and I said as much. At the same time, I made a thread on this very forum, trying to find out if Puppy would be a good 'fit' for my application.

My question was answered within the hour IIRC. I was at some point encouraged to try a derivative called Puppeee to see what Puppy was like (as my other system at the time was --and remains still-- my trusty Asus Eee netbook). I burnt a CD of this Puppeee, and booted from it, and fell in love.

I used a (rather slightly) modified version of sc0ttman's Puplite 4 (the newest at the time) on that system and it was still pathetically slow... but that was the fault of the hardware -- the system was incapable of accepting more than 256mb RAM, and I'd used a CF card for the hard drive so swap was out of the question. Didn't help that the CPU was an appallingly slow (and old) example of the VIA Eden line -- the lower power fanless CPUs that VIA sells under that line are engineered for extremely low power consumption and little else -- any actual processing that goes on is apparently beside the point.

I eventually gave that system to a friend, who used it for a while and right now is waiting for an opportunity to give it back. He seemed to like the idea and the OS, but that one system is a little slow for him...

...and I'm still in love with Puppy (strictly Platonic, I promise!) :lol:

ajlec2000
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat 27 Jan 2007, 20:25

GrafPup

#6 Post by ajlec2000 »

Way back when, I somehow managed to get an early version of Puppy to boot off of a thumb drive. At the time I was completely clueless (whereas now I have moved up to partailly clueless) as to computers in general and linux was a complete mystery. However I did manage to follow step by step instructions and was able to try out Puppy. The results were that I realized that puppy was over my head but I was impressed by what the developers had created. I settled on Ubuntu as it was good at spoon feeding.
A year or so later however I found GrafPup. After a month of using it I began playing with the mainstream Puppy. When 4.31 came along I was so happy with it I've since always had at least one machine running Puppy exclusively. I may not have gotten back to Puppy if not for GrafPup.

These days 5.2.8.004 is frugally installed on my favorite laptop. I have 4.31 on a thumb drive for use on the road and a thumb drive install of 5.2.8 that I use as a rescue system. I also have a thumb drive with Thnake installed on it with the intention of buckling down and learning emacs, LISP and Python.

Anyway the Puppy derivatives were instrumental in bringing me to Puppy and keeping me with Puppy.

sparkie
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed 12 Oct 2011, 09:17

#7 Post by sparkie »

In the late '90s I had a subscription to MaximumPC. They sent a bonus issue that had a 3-disc set of Mandrake. I installed it on an old AMD K7 550 with 512mb ram and a 4.3 HD. It booted slowly, ran fair and crashed once in the week I had it installed. This got me started with Linux.

During a search for Linux distros I came across Distrowatch and found DSL. It ran much better on that K7 box. I got curious about small live distros and somehow came across Fire Hydrant Puppy. WOW! It looked great, ran quick and had about everything I needed for routine work. I STILL fire it up every now and then! I also found PizzaPup, which became the go-to Puppy distro for me for a while.

Since then I have been a live distro junkie!! I currently have 189 live discs, with 58 of those Puppy or derivatives. I boot 'em up, test 'em out and make notes about features and how well they run on my 2 current computers, collect screenshots and so forth. But it's the Puppies that I take and show frustrated Win folks. I always boot a Puppy for backing up files and other tasks.

What I like about the derivatives is that each one expresses a particular personality. So many times I read about a new one and the builder says "I just made it for me and if anyone likes it...here it is". I find that I usually like it, too...unless it won't work with my hardware. I get excited when someone puts out a new derivative, or even an update.

It's like a Christmas present...open it up and see what's inside! Then, show it off to other people. It's a good way to change the computing world one "bark bark" at a time!

~ Sparkie

firak
Posts: 175
Joined: Mon 14 Apr 2008, 14:07

#8 Post by firak »

Yes,
My 1st puppy install was becouse of a deriate, that was hardware-optimized for a PC that I have. The eeepc 701. Was inportant to me to find a linux-distro-derivate that aready recognize the special ardware, for feel attracted to a puppy linux adventure, 1st time.

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Lobster
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#9 Post by Lobster »

What great stories guys. :)
I started with Puppy straight up, as derivatives were not available in ye olden days of Puppy. Our first community driven Puppy was fun and I used that - 1.09CE.
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy109CE
109CE had a solid base from Barrys last of the 1 series. 109CE used Firefox and Geany editor. Nathan who was the main developer went on to create Grafpup.
Muppy was well ahead of its time. Radically different and by Puppy standards a massive over 300MB. I knew how good it was but stayed with the mainstream.
Igi (Iguleder) is working on something too radical for me (at present) and Saluki too I find involves too much relearning. Saluki will lead to some innovative new Puplets - no doubt.

My own derivatives . . .
http://www.mindmeister.com/78004/linux-tmxxine
twinkle was the last. It is too easy now to create a basic puplet.
Configure and press a few buttons. Even I can do it without much effort . . .
However some puplets are crafted and honed continually . . .
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyVersionIndex

I want a Raspberry Pi + Puppy
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PARM

Many Puppys
One Kennel
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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Iguleder
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#10 Post by Iguleder »

Well, time to share my story, too. :)

It began at the age of 15. I studied for the A+ and CCNA certifications and got a good IT and networking background, with focus on Windows. I already had a rich background in programming and web development (yep, at that young age!) and I got thrilled with Windows internals, so I started tweaking it both with nLite and manually.

It was really nice - I became a true Windows geek and knew it better than anyone I knew. At a certain point, I discovered something called "Linux" exists, so I searched for it and discovered DSL. I booted it but its ancient 2.4 kernel did not recognize my NIC, so my excitement about Linux disappeared.

After some time, I decided to give Linux another try, in the form of Puppy and SLAX, because I needed a live distro. SLAX was nice, but it was extremely hard for me to understand where my files are and how to do stuff - I wasn't very productive and my flash drive became full within minutes. Puppy was better - it was Puppy 4.0 and I thought it's extremely ugly, but I liked it - I could install Pidgin through PPM in seconds and even had a save file. Anyway, I was disappointed with both, because I couldn't do all the usual stuff.

After some time, at the age of 17, I discovered PortableApps and started using those portable applications with my flash drive - I carried them to school to aid in my graduation project in software engineering. I found myself using Firefox, GIMP, Pidgin, OpenOffice and many other popular FOSS applications, so I thought - if I install a normal Linux distro meant for the casual user, it should be pretty much the same - it's the same selection of application, same interface, but another underlying operating system. So I gave Ubuntu a try - it was Ubuntu 8.04.

After some time with Ubuntu I knew all there is to know about Linux, for the average user - so I started asking why and how. I found myself remastering it, trying out other distributions and even had my own Ubuntu remix. I moved to Xubuntu, then Zenwalk, then Arch, then LFS, but had Puppy in parallel since Zenwalk. That was the time when I started liking Puppy and became a developer. My first contributions were modest, but I learnt more as time went by.

After about a year with Arch, I moved on to Fedora, back to Arch, tried Debian, but Puppy was always there as my true Linux love. When I purchased my netbook, in August 2010, Puppy became my only operating system and I devoted all my skills to its development. During all this time with Puppy, I built numerous puplets and made many contributions - it was extremely fun.

Now I'm working on roar-ng and my own distro, Subito GNU/Linux, in parallel with Puppy.

Well, that's my story - official Puppy all the way :lol:
[url=http://dimakrasner.com/]My homepage[/url]
[url=https://github.com/dimkr]My GitHub profile[/url]

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