Newbies - Puppy needs YOUR help too!

[cfmendez]

I used Guvcview. There's a thread about it here.

Thanks for your help. I realize that my webcam is not uvc compliant so it didn't work.

Re: logging in as root. Most Linux users don't do this - they run as a normal user and then use "sudo" when they need to do something that requires root privileges. Personally, I don't thinks it's a problem

How do I switch back to user mode? I was asked during installation to select root or user and I didn't understand the implications of this. Moreover, to a newby (or perhaps I should say to me), root sounds better.
Thanks again
Carlos

[antiloquax]

Sorry, maybe I didn't make that very clear. Puppy users usually run as "root". We get criticised for it by other Linux users. I've never bothered with the spot / fido things.
Being "root" does carry the risk that it's a bit easier to mess things up ...

I'm sorry the webcam isn't sorted - I expect there is a way to do it, but I don't know ...

[torgo]

I find both "root" and "home" amusing in Puppy.

For many users, "root" implies a top-level directory, either of a specific drive or of the file system overall. The name "home" implies a user directory, typically for a specific user account.

But when you boot Puppy from CD, whatever drive contains the save file gets named "home". Meanwhile, the default user name is "root".

So... your home (user) folder is named "root", while the root directory (top level) of the hard drive is named "home".

[Tote]

I'm still new to Puppy linux. I've only ever used XP before and then only for the basics.

Speaking for myself I don't feel there's any great distinction between running as root or as spot. I don't use the console a great deal yet, still getting to grips with that. But I have used it as root and spot, just to see what the difference is.

In my case I'm the only one who uses this laptop so I don't think it matters much either way. Traditionalists, and I mean people who have probably been using linux for years, would probably frown upon the way you can sign is as either one, that's how it seems to me from what I've read here and elsewhere. I know there's more chance I can mess things up using root but I figure if I do I'll just start again with a fresh install so there's no real harm done.

That, by the way, is one of the reasons I'm enjoying Puppy so much. If I mess it up, I can start over. And I have, a couple of times, but that's all part of learning how it works.

I'm forever amazed at what you can do with it, and at how much work and time and effort the people who develop everything here put into it.

I found a little console music player here this morning, cmus, I think it's called. I downloaded it, a couple of clicks and it's playing my music perfectly, no hassle, first time. It's brilliant. I didn't even know stuff like that existed.

Root or spot, I don't think it matters. I'm having fun.

and I definitely won't be going back to w*%%!ws, ever.

[Aitch]

Tote

NICE!

Aitch

[mgh]

I am not an experienced Linux user, but currently dual boot desktop with WIN7 and Linux Mint, and laptop with WIN7 and Bodhi Linux (which is an outstanding distro!), so have had some experience.

Spent a good deal of time today reading around the forum, and tried at least 8 different methods to get Puppy to boot from USB all with no luck.

Very interested in Puppy, runs amazing off of live CD, but a USB option would be nice.

Thanks

Looks like a great forum here!

[antiloquax]

@mgh
The usb booting difficulties are often to do with the bios of the computer. I had a Dell machine (not even a very old one) that would not boot from a usb at all until I did a bios update.

It is a bit trial and error. If you post up details of what you have tried / what options your bios gives when you call up boot device selection, someone will probably be able to help!

[mgh]

I am not an experienced Linux user, but currently dual boot desktop with WIN7 and Linux Mint, and laptop with WIN7 and Bodhi Linux (which is an outstanding distro!), so have had some experience.

Spent a good deal of time today reading around the forum, and tried at least 8 different methods to get Puppy to boot from USB all with no luck.

Very interested in Puppy, runs amazing off of live CD, but a USB option would be nice.

Thanks

Looks like a great forum here!

My apologies to the dev team!
Apparently my issue was that I was installing to an ext4 partition, or a VFAT partition.
I reformatted the partition to ext3, used the universal installer with all the default settings, and it will now boot of the flash drive on both my PCs.
Very nice!

[antiloquax]

Good news!

[Old puppy]

I think that I can give you a rare point of view here, the one coming from a perfect and unskilled nobody, who used just win98se for over a decade and who installed puppy 5.2.2 right yesterday.

To start off, the installation.
As I've written on the other board -beginners help-, although totally unskilled, I was able to install puppy-wary 5.2.2 on a toshiba satellite 2180cdt 64mb ram without CD/floppy support. After having done it, I feel that few words about this possibility could be spent in those very detailed "how to install puppy" guides, maybe adding a chapter named "No CD/DVD? No Floppy? No USB? No problems!".

Also, about Grub. I've loved it, more since when I've discovered that it was enough to copy to the HD just 2 files (grldr and menu.lst from Grub4dos) , to edit the .lst a very simple boot.ini (win) to see puppy in dual boot. No installation, no warnings about possible boot troubles. Nothing.

I can't say a lot more about puppy itself because I'm still looking at it.
Just few things: it appears that the seamonkey embedded in wary 5.2.2 is meant for higher class machiness than mine. It starts to load. And continues. Nothing else.

In my opinion, and I remark that this is a newbie one, I would have preferred to deal with further installations (browser & co fitting to my machine possibilities) rather than to search ways to uninstall embeded apps previously downloaded @ 5kb/s

More comments will follow

Meanwhile.. a big THANK YOU for all your efforts!

[Dewbie]

Old puppy wrote:

I was able to install puppy-wary 5.2.2 on a toshiba satellite 2180cdt 64mb ram...it appears that the seamonkey embedded in wary 5.2.2 is meant for higher class machiness than mine. It starts to load. And continues. Nothing else.

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB.

Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition.
RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512MB.

[pikacane]

I'll make a help thread with more specifics on this, but...

I've used Puppy off and on for several years. It's taken a few old laptops of mine from dinosaur to happy puppy-a specific example: I was given a PIII Sony Vaio with (iirc) 128 mb of RAM and told that I could keep it if I could get it to work. It was running XP with a fancy theme including moving wallpaper and a starfish cursor, as well as a full Norton suite, and took 45 minutes to boot. It was marginally usable after I replaced Norton with avast! and stripped it back to a minimal theme, but when I dropped Puppy 421 on it, I swear it started dancing jigs.

What I've noticed over time, though, is that Puppy either notices wireless on first boot (for those computers that have it installed), or it will never work. If it wasn't autodetected, no matter how many things I try in the network setup wizard, it never finds a working one. I've let it autoprobe the entire list.

Going to go make a thread with the issues involving the specific computer I'm working on at the moment. Just adding my two cents that, while I know wireless is always the Linux bugaboo, it's often nearly impossible to set up and probably drives away a lot of people looking for plug and go distros.

[Old puppy]

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB. Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition. RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512M

Thank you for your answer, it was really appreciated.

Indeed, that is, but being close to (finally) buy a new machine, I'd face 10 WBA rounds with both hands tied rather than to spend a single cent for this laptop. In addition, through years I've forced this poor win98-based hw to perform -somehow- all the tasks required and, as far as I could foresee, Wary 5.2.2 won't be an exception, since all performance troubles are coming from heavy apps and not from the mere OS. Sure, I could try older puppy versions, but I want to deal with last kernels.

Back to thread topic.
Having a lot of free time, yesterday I've started a Puppy full immersion stage, being really impressed by devs and community skills.

It took me a while to understand the reasons behind the lack of a proper uninstalling feature for ISO unwanted apps (hence petget mgr/petbegone aside): I'm now aware that remastering (at first sight I prefer Douglas rem script) is the way to go, but, as a newcomer, I've felt the urge of it while moving my first steps in a new environment, more if considering the limited disk space.

However, it hasn't been a difficult task to uninstall unwanted apps without remastering (even considering the cross-interactions such as Seamonkey-gxine & co): it gave me the opportunity to surf and understand puppy's files/directories management and mechanisms (all those .txt are amazing!) and to learn some basic tricks (such as to put files into a directory to see them working: something really weird coming from win98 :s), right what I need at the moment.

This said, I'd like to spend few words about Wary Puppy's Help: in my opinion, a newbie one, it should come such as a standalone rather than default browser input, or, at least, to rely on a very light editor able to deal with basic links: this would ensure that everybody can take advantage of it , and, talking about a Puppy such as Wary one meant for dated hw, this could be more than welcome.



Once again, thank you for your efforts and time!

[edit]

@ Dewbie:
Nevertheless,
I've just followed your suggestion about the swap file. I've created it via console (64 mb -I think that it was the best way, at least for me, to prevent eventual troubles) and setted it to automatically mount at puppy boot.
Having uninstalled seamonkey, I've added a temporary standalone ff 2.0.0.20 to write this edit and all works fine (lol all is working without cpu fan ranting vs me ). The next step will be Flash 10.x, but since this CPU doesn't support all required sse instructions, I'll need either to find a way to emulate them like I've already done in win98 or to find out who and how did it before me :p

Guys, you don't immagine how it feels discovering your world coming from the stone age!

[Dewbie]

Sure, I could try older puppy versions, but I want to deal with last kernels.

BarryK intentionally builds Wary with an older kernel (but newer packages), to keep it compatible with older hardware.
Read here.

I've just followed your suggestion about the swap file.

Those instructions were for a swap partition.
You can also make a swap file with Puppy; I have no idea how to do this.

[Old puppy]

Got it, and sure, you talked about a swap partition. I've preferred a swap file just because atm I feel more comfortable with them than with partitions. This is what I've done (following somebody else instructions, ofc):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/home/puppy.swp bs=1024 count=64k
mkswap /mnt/home/puppy.swp
swapon /mnt/home/puppy.swp

and then I've added, before rebooting,

swapon /mnt/home/puppy.swp

to /root/.etc/rc.d/rc.local

I've read even an old thread in this forum (~2010) linking a .pet swap-file manager, but I preferred the manual way.

[edit]

I remembered win pagefile (win386.swp for win98) while writing this post, and I've searched this forum for possible interactions between it and puppy. I've found out that I can use it (=disk space friendly) without any troubles, hence I've forced it's size (dynamic by default) setting the same initial and maximum size through virtual memory management (change). The rest ws quite easy following

My experience is the pagefile makes a fine Linux swapfile

In rc.local

mount partition windows partition rw (as necessary)
format pagefile to linux swapfile
then activate the swapfile

Then Linux uses it

When you boot Windows it is not bothered by the markings
Linux made to it, so there is nothing to do.

OT: I'm thinking to collect all "very old and weak machines users"-friendly tips I can find on this board while I'm getting started with puppy and to publish them into a dedicaded thread. Is it ok?

[RetroTechGuy]

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB. Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition. RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512M

Thank you for your answer, it was really appreciated.

Do you know what you have installed? i.e. 2 slots, 1 occupied... Or perhaps 2 empty slots, with 64MB soldered on the Motherboard?... It might be possible to scrounge some more RAM, potentially for free or nearly so, and bump it up.

I have an old Compaq Armada 333 (laptop), that I managed to stuff 256MB total into. I added a 512MB swap partition. It runs 5.25 Retro and Firefox (though Firefox eats a lot of memory) -- functional, though not speedy...

Guys, you don't immagine how it feels discovering your world coming from the stone age!

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

<edit>

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba ... 33566.html

<edit 2> Just found a spec sheet, but doesn't clear up the memory slot question. I did, however, find this model being sold with > 300 MB RAM (indicating like expansion 2 slots -- and 128MB in each)...

http://www.retrevo.com/support/Toshiba- ... ag124/t/2/

[Puppyt]

@Old puppy -
loved your first post - what an elegant and constructive way to introduce yourself to the kennels! Many Thanks!
You might have seen this thread earlier, started by Yours Truly, but real experts have added to it so there might be some useful tips for you in getting Puppy unleashed on hardware it wasn't really geared for:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... b5ac17f1f3
From the get-go may I suggest you consider upgrading your lappie hard-drive from the original (ye olde PATA?) drive? Without RAM additions possible, a newish 7200 RPM IDE drive, or an SD-card with IDE adapter makes a MAJOR speed improvement in all desktops I've renovated. When using SD- or CF-cards as hard-drives I found that the puppy.swp was probably better for the life of the card, rather than a swap partition,
Cheers!

[Old puppy]

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

People feel lonely for a number of reasons. Everyone experiences loneliness. Luckily, though, there are a number of ways to overcome loneliness, and you've just helped me

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

Thank you very much for your time and efforts!
I have considered to do it (yup, it is soldered), but then, looking at the whole picture (no working cd, floppy and Keyb - I use an external one - plus a GPRS connection without a working usb charger below puppy -> GD87 ...) it appears that the time to change this machine (plus net and OS) has come. I've spent last 18 months learning all I could about each single actual and announced piece of hardware and their own benchmarks (waiting for trinity apus community feedbacks for the last choice -cpu+gpu- the A10 3870k should come with an integrated radeon ~7000 and cost, joined to its fm2-socket mobo, like a mere i5 2500k cpu - the most sold worldwide in last months), about modding, about overclock & co, and atm I should be able (remember that I'm an OLD puppy) to build a decent machine from scratch spending as less as possible (and then to keep it for the next 13 years :s ). However, this machine will always have a special place in my heart and on my desk, and I'll use puppy for a long time because, as far as I could see, it is right what I need to feel comfortable with Linux.

what an elegant and constructive way

Hmm, I think that this is the first time that the word "elegant" has been associated to me, and I can't deny that it sounds good! Many thanks to you! (Don't worry: I know my limits, and I'm back to reality already )

You might have seen this thread earlier, started by Yours Truly...

No, I hadn't seen that thread before, but after having written my last post I've spent a lot of time here around and now I know that I could hardly add something new to what has been previously said. This is the proof that enthusiasm may involve everybody, and not just younger beings..

From the get-go may I suggest you consider upgrading your lappie hard-drive from the original (ye olde PATA?) drive?...

My Toshiba Satellite wants me to make you aware that he feels honoured by your interest, so, not wanting to see it moved to tears, I've decided to do this: first, I will build the new machine, then, with the euros left from the budget, I'll see what I can do to make it feel better

@ moderators: I'm sorry, this post went totally off-topic, but these guys deserved a reply!

[RetroTechGuy]

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

People feel lonely for a number of reasons. Everyone experiences loneliness. Luckily, though, there are a number of ways to overcome loneliness, and you've just helped me

Should I mention that my newest box was purchased in 2005?... The tower that I'm on right now is older than that (but still pretty solid: 2200 Athlon, 1 GB RAM).

My nephew did find a Asus eee900 netbook in the trash, and gave it to me. I ran that for a while, to replace the 900 Athlon tower I was using as my primary (it only had 384MB RAM, the eee900 had 1GB and the same speed benchmarks...). Then there's my older 750 Duron, with 512 MB, which I used as a computational machine at work (dual boot Puppy/Win98). My 1.6 GHz laptop has Win98, and Puppy (dual boot via Lin'N'Win).

I've thinned out most of my older machines...

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

Thank you very much for your time and efforts!
I have considered to do it (yup, it is soldered), but then, looking at the whole picture (no working cd, floppy and Keyb - I use an external one - plus a GPRS connection without a working usb charger below puppy -> GD87 ...) it appears that the time to change this machine (plus net and OS) has come. I've spent last 18 months learning all I could about each single actual and announced piece of hardware and their own benchmarks (waiting for trinity apus community feedbacks for the last choice -cpu+gpu- the A10 3870k should come with an integrated radeon ~7000 and cost, joined to its fm2-socket mobo, like a mere i5 2500k cpu - the most sold worldwide in last months), about modding, about overclock & co, and atm I should be able (remember that I'm an OLD puppy) to build a decent machine from scratch spending as less as possible (and then to keep it for the next 13 years :s ).

I'm guessing from your avatar that you're not in the US. But you can run Puppy on some really old hardware (in fact, I tried to run 5.28.004 on a colleague's 64-bit machine, and it hung -- I'm guessing "too much" hardware). I didn't get a report back as to whether Fatdog worked.

Here in the US it isn't uncommon to pick up perfectly workable computers from the trash (in fact, my nephew does it all the time -- often virus laden WinXP systems, which are cleaned up and distributed to computer-less folks). On your system, assuming that you wanted to upgrade storage, rather than looking at a new internal HDD, I would look at a PCMCIA USB2 card. Then you can get or assemble an external HDD storage and plug it in, or just a really large flash drive (which won't require an external power supply to run it). There are some here who run old machine with no HDD at all -- running either from flash, or rewritable CD/DVD.

My Compaq 333MHz has a 4GB internal, but has no trouble handling a large (500GB or more) external drive -- but those external drives do need external power, as the PCMCIA really doesn't supply enough power to run even a laptop drive.

BTW, you may be a little surprised to learn that many here are pushing or well past that half century mark.

[cleg223]

Hi, I have been using puppy linux for the last few days, and I have to say im impressed!
I have managed to get it to work, despite being new to linux!!!

the biggest problem i have had with it is getting the tor browser bundle to work..... I have spent 11+ hours on this so far....

I have installed openssl from the package manager which is a dependency for tor... this worked fine... the next task was libevent, which was more difficult to find and use. (i couldn't find it in the package manager of download it form there.

I found it on the internet, and extracted the gz file, everything from there needed to be explained to me... a long process!!!....

eventually i got it installed and even created my own .pet file.. but i have no idea how!!!... however, its now installed and working....

I then installed the tor browser and connected, but not without problems..... when the tor browser connects to its network, it then automatically launches a version of Aurora Firefox... this didn't happen and im still trying to fix it...

It mentions somewhere on the tor website.... Do not unpack or run TBB as root.

this is where my problems really start as I know that puppy linux runs everything as root, and so far i cannot find a work around, i will be starting a separate thread about this somewhere.

Other than that I cannot see any problems with it but i do have a few questions and suggestions,

would you make a step by step guide on how to install packages for newbies? I have read the install files of other applications and they make reference to $ make however, when I type this in the terminal, it doesn't like it

also, Seamonkey wouldn't open an irc chat, but i suppose Ayttm was good for that, so its not really a complaint.

ohh, one of the biggest things i have found is that if I install a program, the program sometimes needs to be installed every time I boot up, is there a particular install directory i should use?


and how do i get these programs to run in the startup process?

I think thats every thing... whilst my comments may have been "annoying to read" I think its shows a good picture of what its like for a newbie, hope this helps, as I want help from you now