Many questions about using Puppy.

[fiskrond]

I've finally managed to install PuppyLinux 4.2... yey!!
Honestly can't believe what this is doing with only 384Mb of SDRAM!! (yep.. that old!)
I've even worked out the menu options to get connected to the internet!

But I honestly can't work out how to do anything else... many hours googling has only yielded stuff in jargonese...

I'd like to do the following:
i) create a 'My Documents' folder on desktop.. or if one already exists somewhere in the install, an icon on desktop.

ii) create a 'My Downloads' folder... as above

iii) install a program that I've downloaded.. eg, browsers - Opera 12.16 or Vivaldi

iv) I haven't attempted it yet.. but I want to install MAME on this pizza-box..

Please help... it's taken me a long time to get this far... but I'm loving linux already.. I always knew I would!

Help would be much appreciated in non-tech talk... as in really low level.. I'm fresh from Windows.. so please be patient.. I'll get the hang of it soon as I get into the mindset of how it fits together..

TiA

[Gordie]

By way of introduction... "Hi all.. I'm a virgin!"

I've finally managed to install PuppyLinux 4.2... yey!!
Honestly can't believe what this is doing with only 384Mb of SDRAM!! (yep.. that old!)
I've even worked out the menu options to get connected to the internet!

But I honestly can't work out how to do anything else... many hours googling has only yielded stuff in jargonese...

I'd like to do the following:
i) create a 'My Documents' folder on desktop.. or if one already exists somewhere in the install, an icon on desktop.

ii) create a 'My Downloads' folder... as above

iii) install a program that I've downloaded.. eg, browsers - Opera 12.16 or Vivaldi

iv) I haven't attempted it yet.. but I want to install MAME on this pizza-box..

Please help... it's taken me a long time to get this far... but I'm loving linux already.. I always knew I would!

Help would be much appreciated in non-tech talk... as in really low level.. I'm fresh from Windows.. so please be patient.. I'll get the hang of it soon as I get into the mindset of how it fits together..

TiA

Hi fiskrond and welcome to Puppy and to the Forum.

"My Documents" and "My Downloads" are windows folders. Anyway, have you tried the right button of your mouse on the desktop? Should give you a menu.

How did you install? Is it on your hard drive? I think you must mean you don't use it as a live system?

[fiskrond]

hey man.. thanks for quick reply!
Took me 2 days of failed attempts to install onto HDD... I had to re-install WinXP and create partition from format options on install options...

Short version...
have got Puppy installed on HDD as permanent O/S
can get online.. but browser not handling standard fayre, eg BBC News
I know this is a browser issue.. on my main PC (Win7) i've noticed Opera 12.16 becoming increasingly incompatible with many webpages, am weaning myself onto Vivaldi

I know 'My Docs' and 'My Downloads' are MS terminology... can you create your own folders on PL desktop that serve same purpose.. and call them what you like?
Say.. could I create a desktop folder and stick the word/spreadsheet/paint/draw in that one folder..

I know I must sound like a numpty, but I honestly can't work out how to do anything from the 'menus'... none of it seems straightforward.. as said.. straight from Windows so used to being spoonfed..

I've got the feeling that I'm missing something obvious... it will be obvious once I work it out..

[Gordie]

LOL. I am only trying to help and so far am not doing well in that regard. Right button click is pretty much a Windows thing too. In Puppy you will get an applications menu.

Try this. Up at the top of the desktop should be a folder that will open the file manager and allow you to navigate to the "root" directory. You may find a "My Documents" directory here. You can drag and drop a link (shortcut) of it to your desktop.

You right mouse button will allow you to make a "My Downloads" directory in root and you can drag and drop a shortcut to the desktop.

[fiskrond]

..just looking on Ebay to see if there's an inflatable KING DONUT costume available!.. : D

So if I got this right...

You need to create a 'folder' (in Windz terminology) - which is technically a directory - in 'File' (icon like a house).. and THEN drag to desktop.. as against creating a folder straight from clicking on desktop...

Terminology difference.... in MSWin you create a 'Folder'... in Linux you create a 'Directory'

Am I on the right track here...

I've had quite a few beers by the way...

[nic007]

A few pointers - Puppy 4.2 is very old in puppy and linux terms. The browser that comes with that version is almost useless and also the old operas are way outdated. What is your cpu speed? Your hardware seems rather similar to what I have on my old machine ie. 384 RAM, 1.7Ghz. I ran a frugal install of Wary Puppy 5.5 dual-booting with windows xp. Worked well. With so little ram I strongly suggest you keep XP on the machine and add puppy as frugal install as suggested. XP will also work better with games (especially Mame). I've never had a full install of puppy (that is not the preferred method of install) but generally for creating a new folder: left-click on the drive icon left-bottom of desktop (c in windows normally equals sda1 in linux) > create your documents folder by right-clicking in an open space in the window and selecting new folder from the menu > name the folder > click, hold and drag the folder from the window to desktop to create the shortcut.

[Burn_IT]

4.3 would have been better as it did not have all the "pretty" stuff and was just functional.
However I liked and still have 4.2 available.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
As to your other question any folder in any directory can be dropped onto the desktop and there are already downloads and documents folders in your root directory. You may also create a directory in root and transfer it to the desktop.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, fiskrond.

Vis-a-vis; creating a 'My Downloads' folder (directory). TBH, the very first time you download anything via the browser, if there isn't already a 'Downloads' directory, Pup'll create one. It's a simple enough matter then to rename it, via the rt-clk 'context' menu.

Or, as others have said, just click on an empty space in the ROX /root window (this is what comes up when you click on the 'File' icon), then select New->Directory, then name it & 'OK' it.

Easy-peasy.


Mike.

[davids45]

G'day fiskrond,

There is usually a default 'My Documents" called my-documents in Puppy's root (~) directory. Single-clicking on the Rox file icon should open Pup's the root directory and show you the available default directories.
Screenshot is from a new slackopup but I think 4.2 was the same.

If you want to make your own new "My Documents" or "My Downloads" directories, right click in an open Rox (file) window and a menu will open that has "New" which includes making a new directory (screenshot) in the already opened directory.

Dragging the new directory icon from the Rox window to the empty desktop and dropping it there, makes a link to open the new directory when clicked. I have several on the desktop already linked back to my data partition.

Being an early Pup, with 4.2, you may need to not include spaces in the new directory or file name. The underline was popular to show a space between words without using a space.

Good luck with exploring your (quite old) Puppy and finding how similar and different it is to Windows.

David S.

[mikeslr]

Hi fiskrond,

Welcome to the kennel. I hope you'll find your mates here helpful. If anything, we tend to be overly helpful to newbies as we're inclined to tell them they've done everything wrong and should start again, from scratch. Everyone here has his or her own favorite "Puppy for Low RAM", and his favorite way of running it.

Personally, tend to agree with nic007. But part of that is because its been so many years since I've run a Puppy from the 4 series that I can no longer visualize how they work. That makes it difficult to answer questions. With Wary, on the other hand, I know it works pretty much like XenialPup or Slacko6 which are among the newest Puppies.


Wary is also the Puppy suggested on http://puppylinux.org/wikka/WhatpuppyLinuxisbestforyou with the recommendation to do a frugal install and add a swapfile. I would have thought this was one of those occasions when a Full install might be suggested. But I've never used a Full install. Not even on the first computer I employed Puppy with, and it only had 292 Mbs RAM, including that on its Graphic Card.

But adding a swap is strongly recommended even if you stick with Puppy 4.2. All Linux Distros will automatically use swap if its available. What it does is use a portion of your hard-drive as additional RAM. Of course, writing to a hard-drive is many times slower than to RAM; but still, that's better than not being able to write at all (and have your system slow to a crawl, hang or crash).

There's a way to create a swapfile. But, off hand, I don't know it. To create a swapdrive I always use Menu>system>gparted Partition Manager. When it opens it will display each partition on your hard drive and the amount of space used and available. What you're going to do is resize one of the existing partitions to create space for a swap drive. If you have XP on a partition and plan to resize it, boot into XP first and defrag it. When you're back on gparted Right-Click the partition you want to resize and reduce its end by 1 Gb. (Unorthodox, but not dis-allowed). Right-click the now "Unallocated" space and under File System select Linux-Swap. Then Click Apply on the top menu.

Watchdog has created a Palemoon pet which will work in both Puppy 4 and Wary. Palemoon is a fork of firefox, and will enable you to access most current Website. You'll find it here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 443#933443 But read thru the rest of the thread to see if newer versions are available for your Puppy.

Keep opera 12.16. It's still the fastest browser for accessing websites --such as this one-- which do not display "rich graphic content".

Read thru these two threads: "Keep your savefile slim and healthy", http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 769#468769 and "Remove automatic pupsave for frugal installs", http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 326#662326.

Puppy does everything in RAM. When it Saves, whatever is in RAM is written to your SaveFile. Even if you delete it later, you may not recover all the space which was used. And when Puppy boots it copies at least some of your files, including what was in /root when you Saved, back into RAM. Every web-browser caches its images onto your computer, and by default, that cache is in RAM. One of the ways to circumvent this is to move cache out of RAM onto your hard drive.

To do that open two rox windows. The first will be to /root --which, by the way is more or less the equivalent of Windows Documents & Settings. Just click the desktop icon at the top left. It's either named Files or Home. Then LEFT-click Rox's EYE which will show hidden files. Leaving that Window open, if you have desktop icons representing drives Left-click the one with the X at its top right. They would be just above the taskbar --but as I said, I can't visualize how Puppy 4 operates. So, if you don't have desktop icons, this is what you'd have to do. Click the Files icon again. Then click the UP arrow. Then click mnt -- all drives hang from mnt. Then click home. That will take you to your Home Partition/Drive --the one on which Puppy is located. If you've installed Puppy to a folder, first click its folder. Otherwise, just Right-click an empty space. Select New>Directory and give it a name, such as WebStuff.

Now, in the first window click cache. If you've installed and used Palemoon, you'll see a folder named Moonchild Productions. Left-PRESS, Hold then drag it into the Webstuff folder. Select Move. Now Left-PRESS, Hold and drag it out of the Webstuff folder, back to cache and Select Link(relative). You've created a symbolic link, a more powerful version of Window's shortcut. Palemoon will now cache its files to your hard-drive. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't clear cache from time to time. Look for a similar folder named opera, and handle it the same way.

MAME can be run under Wine. Unfortunately, Portable Wine, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 297#755297 may not run under Puppy 4.2. It says it's for 4.3 or later. I'd try it anyway. Like portable Windows programs under XP, Linux portables do not become part of your system and so do not use RAM unless you are actually running them.

But, if it doesn't work, you can use the same trick suggested for 'cache' -- move it out of /root. What you'd have to do is first install wine.

I don't know what version graphic libraries (glibs) Puppy 4.2 used. To find out, open a terminal and type "ldd version" without the quotes. The newer the version, the higher the number. Greendome (AKA version2013) provides wine pets starting here:http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 800#402800. Each number will take you to a webpage which discusses that build of wine. Although it is best to use the latest version, I ran Wine 1.4 on my old laptop for several years. So I'd start there, see what it says about glib versions, and move forward or backward as appropriate.

Once you've installed a wine pet, you'll have to configure it: You should be online when you do. Open a terminal and type "wine winecfg" without the quotes.

The version of wine you select may not have Menu listings. See this post: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 255#882255. You really don't need them. Browsing to and clicking the setup.exe will install it.

Once wine is installed and configured, you can move it out of /root.

Once again, create a folder on your hard-drive and give it a name, maybe WineStuff. Once again, open a second window to /root and Left-Click Rox's Eye. You should see a folder named .wine. Note the "." dot. That makes it a hidden file. Left-PRESS, hold then drag .wine from /root into your WineStuff folder. Select Move. Then drag it back and select Link(relative).

If you've turned off Automatic Save, remember to Save.

The easiest way to start MAME once its been installed is to browse to its executable and drag it to the desktop. Inside the .wine folder will be other folders. Keep browsing down and eventually you'll see one named "Program Files" MAME's executable (exe) will probably be in a folder (named MAME?) in that folder.

There's a link from the Wine Menu's post, above, to one on how to add windows programs to your menu.

But before spending a lot of time on Puppy 4.2, think carefully about doing a frugal install of Wary. If fact, if you have enough space on your hard-drive, do a frugal install of Wary and see how well it works with your system. Fully fleshed out with 'the Out house sink', I've never had a Puppy which needed more than 4 Gbs --unless I installed wine and ran a bunch of XP programs.

To do a frugal install, create a folder on your hard-drive and give it the name Wary. Download Wary's ISO. Left-click the ISO, and from the window which opens drag each of its files into the Wary folder. Select Copy. Left-Click the ISO again to close it. Then Run Menu>System>Grub4dos. It will install a new bootloader with a menu.lst. On that list will be a listing for each Operating system on your computer including XP, Puppy 4.2 and Wary. Reboot, this time into Wary


mikesLr

[fiskrond]

Hi,
from Everest 2.0.. the following

Mobo: Intel Rexburg D845GRG
CPU: Intel P4 Northwood, 2400Mhz
RAM: SDRAM - 1x 256Mb, 1x 128Mb
HD: 40Gb... 5400rpm

Been through my 'junk'.. no graphics card to fit this board.. that's the only RAM I've got to fit.... so I'm working with what I have.

Please keep in mind I am completely new to Linux... tbh am finding it quite hard work presumably as always used MSWIN (I can't even get on with a Mac)... but can see the potential as astonished with the speed even with dinosaur specs given above!

So.. this begs (cheap gag! lol) the question what version of PL should I be aiming at?

MAME isn't essential.... but would be a bonus! This is going to be a donation PC for a lad in college who is skint.. at basic level, really just needs access to internet plus Word & Powerpoint compatible programs.

And now that I'VE discovered Linux, I want to get my head round it.. been a long time since I've been impressed with just about anything nevermind computers!

[fiskrond]

I'm all good with starting from scratch.. no matter how many times it takes... perfection takes practice!

Rome wasn't built in a day...

.. fortunately got rather a lot of time on my hands.. (unemployed).. meh!

My intention is to repeat ad-infinitum until I get it sussed... and then do a write-up in more familiar (and simpler) language to those wishing to give it a go who have only ever used Windows...

and of course.. spread the word!

Bear in mind that a lot of the terminology that you guys are very familiar with is not necessarily familiar to a Linux novice... cross referencing with Windows terms/equivs would be of significant help during the transition!

[fiskrond]

Current state of play...

Gone back to scratch..
- Re-installed WinXP (obviously I did this many hourzzz earlier)
- Partitioned drive using a downloaded Partition Wizard
- I now have 3 partitions on 'C' drive (40gb)
i) 7Gb - NTFS - WinXp
ii) 21Gb - NTFS - blank, hopefully for MAME
iii) 9Gb - Ext3 - blank

Eagerly awaiting advice.. ideally with just banging it on as a permanent install... this is easier for me to get my head around! Then I can start learning to use it...

[nic007]

Current state of play...

Gone back to scratch..
- Re-installed WinXP (obviously I did this many hourzzz earlier)
- Partitioned drive using a downloaded Partition Wizard
- I now have 3 partitions on 'C' drive (40gb)
i) 7Gb - NTFS - WinXp
ii) 21Gb - NTFS - blank, hopefully for MAME
iii) 9Gb - Ext3 - blank

Eagerly awaiting advice.. ideally with just banging it on as a permanent install... this is easier for me to get my head around! Then I can start learning to use it...

Brilliant. Decide which Puppy you want to use (I suggest downloading Wary Puppy5.5 iso and burn to cd). After you have done that follow the following procedure:
- Boot the puppy from cd
- Create a directory (folder) for your puppy on the ext3 partition (say puppy550)
- Copy initrd.gz, vmlinuz and the big base sfs files from the cd to the created folder (if there is a zdrv on the cd include that too). Make sure the mentioned files are named like mentioned (it may be different on the CD). The big sfs file should be named puppy_wary_5.5.sfs for example.
-Download the attached zip file which contains the grldr and menu.lst and files.
-Copy these 2 files to your first partition where xp is installed. Grub(grldr) is going to be your bootloader for dual-booting and the menu.lst file will give you the option which operating system to boot. Depending on which puppy you are going to use and the name of the folder you created for puppy, you may need to edit the menu.lst file accordingly (left-click menu.lst open as text). Also check that the partition for the puppy files are correct (should be sda3 in your case).
-Rename ntldr on the windows partition to ntldr1 and rename grldr to ntldr
-You now have the safest dual-booting system you can get as we have not touched your MBR at all.
-Reboot (without cd) and enjoy.

Feel free to ask more question here or send me a private message.

Note this is a frugal install of puppy which is the easiest and preferred method, it also has multiple advantages over a full install eg. you can add as many puppys as you like.

[davids45]

G'day,

I think 9GB is plenty to play with Puppy for starters.

Only issue before installing a Pup could be to use GParted (Puppy's built-in partition tool - in the System menu) to make a small linux swap partition. Do you have a live-CD of 4.2?
The swap works as a 'poor man's RAM' when you're limited with real RAM. Re-size your 9GB to 8.5GB (sda3) and create a new 500MB swap partition (sda4) in the empty space.

This small extra partition will use up your four primary partitions quota but I don't think that matters as you don't need more partitions than this?

Go the Frugal Pup install route to sda3. This way, you may add another Pup or two if you are happy with your first Pup. Frugals allow sharing of a partition by multi-Pups whereas a Full doesn't.

And in playing with your Pup, mucking up a Full Pup means doing it all again (wiping the partition and re-installing) whereas mucking up a Frugal means deleting just the mucked-up save file and booting the Pup again - no re-installing since the Frugal Pup OS files are read-only and still good to go.

Of course, compared to installing or re-installing Windows, even a Full Pup install is a doddle to re-do.

( Oh! I've just read latest nic007's post which is on the same Grubby process I've written of below - try whichever seems more fun )
Once you have a Pup installed (actually during the install process you should be prompted to do this next bit), you need to install the Grub or Grub4Dos boot-loader so you can boot either XP or Puppy (or one of your Puppies if go multi-Frugal). Otherwise, XP will still be in charge of your computer.

Adding other Pups to try later just means editing the list of Pups in the bootable OS list file "menu.lst" that should appear in the C: (sda1) root directory if you install Grub to the MBR - I've not had a problem doing this despite the Puppy installer's warnings.

If you are worried, install Grub to sda3 which should equally be OK (once sda3 is flagged as the boot partition by GParted and this will be where the menu.lst file now turns up).

Always back-up the menu.lst file BEFORE you edit it - it's what tells the computer which to boot so is pretty important it's error-free.

David S.

[nic007]

G'day,

I think 9GB is plenty to play with Puppy for starters.

Only issue before installing a Pup could be to use GParted (Puppy's built-in partition tool - in the System menu) to make a small linux swap partition. Do you have a live-CD of 4.2?
The swap works as a 'poor man's RAM' when you're limited with real RAM. Re-size your 9GB to 8.5GB (sda3) and create a new 500MB swap partition (sda4) in the empty space.

This small extra partition will use up your four primary partitions quota but I don't think that matters as you don't need more partitions than this?

Go the Frugal Pup install route to sda3. This way, you may add another Pup or two if you are happy with your first Pup. Frugals allow sharing of a partition by multi-Pups whereas a Full doesn't.

And in playing with your Pup, mucking up a Full Pup means doing it all again (wiping the partition and re-installing) whereas mucking up a Frugal means deleting just the mucked-up save file and booting the Pup again - no re-installing since the Frugal Pup OS files are read-only and still good to go.

Of course, compared to installing or re-installing Windows, even a Full Pup install is a doddle to re-do.

Once you have a Pup installed (actually during the install process you should be prompted to do this next bit), you need to install the Grub or Grub4Dos boot-loader so you can boot either XP or Puppy (or one of your Puppies if go multi-Frugal). Otherwise, XP will still be in charge of your computer.

Adding other Pups to try later just means editing the list of Pups in the bootable OS list file "menu.lst" that should appear in the C: (sda1) root directory if you install Grub to the MBR - I've not had a problem doing this despite the Puppy installer's warnings.

If you are worried, install Grub to sda3 which should equally be OK (once sda3 is flagged as the boot partition by GParted and this will be where the menu.lst file now turns up).

Always back-up the menu.lst file BEFORE you edit it - it's what tells the computer which to boot so is pretty important it's error-free.

David S.

You don't have to install grub4dos with my method, it's not installed to any boot record anywhere, just copied to the drive. Fail proof/ safest method. In fact, I strongly urge NOT TO INSTALL IT TO THE BOOT RECORD.

[nic007]

G'day,

I think 9GB is plenty to play with Puppy for starters.

Only issue before installing a Pup could be to use GParted (Puppy's built-in partition tool - in the System menu) to make a small linux swap partition. Do you have a live-CD of 4.2?
The swap works as a 'poor man's RAM' when you're limited with real RAM. Re-size your 9GB to 8.5GB (sda3) and create a new 500MB swap partition (sda4) in the empty space.

This small extra partition will use up your four primary partitions quota but I don't think that matters as you don't need more partitions than this?

Go the Frugal Pup install route to sda3. This way, you may add another Pup or two if you are happy with your first Pup. Frugals allow sharing of a partition by multi-Pups whereas a Full doesn't.

And in playing with your Pup, mucking up a Full Pup means doing it all again (wiping the partition and re-installing) whereas mucking up a Frugal means deleting just the mucked-up save file and booting the Pup again - no re-installing since the Frugal Pup OS files are read-only and still good to go.

Of course, compared to installing or re-installing Windows, even a Full Pup install is a doddle to re-do.

( Oh! I've just read latest nic007's post which is on the same Grubby process I've written of below - try whichever seems more fun )
Once you have a Pup installed (actually during the install process you should be prompted to do this next bit), you need to install the Grub or Grub4Dos boot-loader so you can boot either XP or Puppy (or one of your Puppies if go multi-Frugal). Otherwise, XP will still be in charge of your computer.

Adding other Pups to try later just means editing the list of Pups in the bootable OS list file "menu.lst" that should appear in the C: (sda1) root directory if you install Grub to the MBR - I've not had a problem doing this despite the Puppy installer's warnings.

If you are worried, install Grub to sda3 which should equally be OK (once sda3 is flagged as the boot partition by GParted and this will be where the menu.lst file now turns up).

Always back-up the menu.lst file BEFORE you edit it - it's what tells the computer which to boot so is pretty important it's error-free.

David S.

No, it's quite different. You are installling grub4dos to the MBR (you are altering the boot record windows created). You can do it that way but it's not as safe.

[davids45]

G'day nic007,

Thanks for your clarifications.

I was assuming that starting with a 4.2 Pup, it would only have Grub with the Universal installer as the in-built 'automatic' offering to enable dual booting after Pup-4.2 was installed via the Live-CD.

If I gather correctly, your method would avoid using Puppy's Universal Installer. So a better way to see how things work, of course.

Good luck fiskrond, let us know what you try and how you go.

David S

[mikeslr]

Hi nic007,

If I recall correctly, the method you propose for establishing a bootloader was that provided by Win 'n Lin --the first method I used 9 years ago. And you're correct about it being the safest because the Window's bootloader hasn't been overwritten; only its name changed which makes it easy to revert by deleting the renamed-grldr (now appearing as ntldr) and changing ntldr1 back to ntldr.

What makes just installing grub4dos 'unsafe' is that it would be difficult to later recover ntldr. The thing is, however, I've never had grub4dos fail to recognize and list Windows XP as an operating system, don't know of anyone who did; and can't think of any reason why I'd want to revert to ntldr even if I removed all Puppies and only ran XP.

9 years ago I had to use the method Lin'N'Win specified as I had no choice. But it's not something I'd recommend to noobs. Grub4dos does what its supposed to do --establish a boot-loader and a menu.lst of (almost every) operating system I've thrown at it other than on a UEFI screwed computer. It even creates an Advanced-Menu enabling me to boot into Puppy if I've screwed up while editing menu.lst. And that human error is more likely to occur while renaming grldr than ever having to revert to nltdr.

Indeed, on the several times I've written ntldr on this post, I've had to go back and correct it, having mistakenly typed nltdr.

Linux is about choice. I choose simple.

mikesLr