I switched to Puppy and now i need help

[Alucard_the_dex]

At the moment i have never used puppy nor do i have the power to download it (am thinking of askign a friend to for me) and am amitedly scared of switching from windows

at teh moment My computer has 320 ram 400mhz P2 and hopfully il be able to get the 120 gig hard drive working on it

long story short i ruined Windows XP on it and cant offerd a new OS and Am loking for a better one if so to replace it

I love windows and unfortunatly have never used any other OS and truthfully im scared to completly cuz of my love for tweaking and optimizing XP pro and many questions came to mind while lookign at puppy and id much apreciate it if anyone would be kind enough to answer them

is it as safe>? has anyone ever gotten viruses or spyware>?

can i use files from my windows comp such as pictures in puppy>?

does trillian work on puppy>?

is it easy to tweak>?

can anyone post some screenshots of Defualt puppy>? id love to see what it looks like and for some reason havent found any good screenshots

im also pretty scared of not being able to use my favorit windows programs on puppy

id love extra info on it if you feel its needed to be spoken thank you

[klhrevolutionist]

I say make the switch.
Nobody has evr gotten a virus, that is for sure!
We use Gaim, which is the alternative to trillian, but just as good.
You can tweak puppy down to the bone.
As far as windows programs, be more in depth about what kinda programs
you are interested in, to see if linux has an alternative for your needs,
most of the time this is true. As you seem to be a typical end-user.
Screenshots! YEAH!!

here are some
http://tinypic.com/e9faxt.png

http://tinypic.com/e9fcy1.png

http://tinypic.com/e9fdko.png

[dewdrop]

Hi,

Welcome to the world of Puppy Linux. If you are looking for some screen shots of the Puppy Desktop go here:

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/PedigreePuppy


Linux has some very different ways of presenting information - here's the address of the WIKKI page for example

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/PedigreePuppy

You have found the Puppy Forum page, since you put your post here, so no need to give that to you.

In the above pages you will learn about something called the IRC chat. Have you ever used it? It is a great place to meet other people who have all kinds of experience with Puppy linux, or just Linux in general. Some are developers, some just like to use Puppy.

I think Puppy is great because it allows people with little or no experience to try it out. All you have to do it get the ISO image (the "program" you download from the Internet and have "burned" to a CD).

I might suggest you have your friend download the ISO called 1.0.5 Chubby Puppy. It is about 94 megabytes in size, but it has 3 programs that are "like" Word, Excel, and Powerpoint for Windows - and these programs will "read" most, if not all, files you have saved in those formats.

You should be able to access just about any or all the files you have saved on your hard disk....so that means you can see your pictures, play your music, watch movies, etc.

You don't even have to install the program to the hard disk - I have Chubby Puppy 1.0.5 on a CD in my CD drive and since the whole program fits onto my 256 meg RAM disk, I can take the Puppy disk out and play music CD's if I want.

I don't know if Trillian works on Puppy Linux, but I use a program called GAIM, which comes with Puppy, and it is just about the same as Trillian. I have my MSN/Yahoo contacts on it and can chat with them when they come online. It also alerts me when I receive emails on those two online email services.

When I first tried Puppy Linux, I couldn't get my printer to work. But I was able to work with one of the developers, and now my printer works.

Am I a happy Puppy Linux user. You Bet! Would you be too? I think so.

So, have your friend download it, start up your computer with Puppy linux, and see what you think. Give yourself time to learn how to do things with it, ask questions on the Forum, go "live" on the IRC chat, and get to know the Puppy community. I think they are a great bunch of people.

Welcome to the kennels, as the saying goes.

dewdrop

[Alucard_the_dex]

^^ thank you very much kind Pple i was reading up on the security thread daydreaming sorry about that anywho

for programs i love playing with the registry using reg cleaners some oter things i use Foobar2000 for music and firefox for internet paint.net/faststone image viewer for pictures and my fav passtime for windows is making it safe with spyware cleaning and preventing programs I just like how hands on windows is But im getting tired of breaking windows and the cost to replace it im just pretty scared to enter a new OS world when i already know oh so much about windows

[rarsa]

You seem to be an educated Windows user. I am making that assumption when writting this response.

Should i switch>?

Only you have the answer. The great news is that you don't need to decide right away. You can use Puppy without having to get rid of windows until you feel comfortable. Maybe you discover that you deppend to much on windows and go back, maybe you decide that puppy has all you need.

truthfully im scared to completly cuz of my love for tweaking and optimizing XP pro

Nothing to fear it's just a little puppy .

You like tweaking? Welcome to Puppy, you will have a blast tweaking it and in the process I'm sure that you may even feel compeled to contribute to the Puppy development with your advice, tweaks and point of view. (at least) That' happened to more than one.

is it as safe>? has anyone ever gotten viruses or spyware>?

Only a tiny fraction of viruses attacks linux. Even more. If you run puppy from a liveCD, it is even harder to get a virus, and way easier to get rid of it.

can i use files from my windows comp such as pictures in puppy>?

Definetivelly. Of course certain formats are application dependant. Most (if not all) of the standard formats are supported by a linux application. If you have very specific formats in mind, you can just ask to find out.

does trillian work on puppy>?

There are many IM clients in linux. Don't fear, you'll be in contact with your friends 2 mnutes after connecting puppy to the internet.

is it easy to tweak>?

Easier than windows. In windows easy things are easy, the rest are almost impossible without a certification.
Puppy was built with simplicity in mind. Linux is designed with choice in mind. Pair both and you have your answer. Multiple window managers (the ones that control how the desktop and menus look & feel) Multiple editors, browsers, multimedia players, file managers, etc). By default in puppy you will see that and there are many more packages that you can install easily.

can anyone post some screenshots of Defualt puppy>?

Here is a review and screen shot of the default puppy http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20051003#fdow

Most everybody customizes the look and feel.
Here are some samples http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/PedigreePuppy
Here are some themes for the default window manager http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... highlight=
Here are some other screen shots with an alternative window manager with instructions to tweak it. http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... highlight=

[Ted Dog]

Dude, I would like to introduce you to my mother. She has had the most infected WinXP around. I spend too much time making repairs on her box. I have installed FireFox on her box and uninstalled IE (sort of, it will still popup, like a bad virus) so I haven't needed to fix much in the last month. I am slowly trying to replace her apps one at a time. I need to find the spider-solaitare she plays nightly - in a open source version.
OK. with Puppy I found hacking the scripts that formed the glue in this linux distro funner than RegEdit and msConfig combined.

[Alucard_the_dex]

Hmm So far its looking good but i still hold some fears Like the switch from programs Windows has been so easy to find so many neat and handy little tools (im really into finding non install programs at the moment) and thank you for the educated windows user commnet I have spent about 2 years learning al li can about windows and im also scared of droping all that knowledge at once

[Alucard_the_dex]

@ted dog

Same here ive been spending my days tellign pple to convert from defualt windows applications personaly i dont think i use anything winows on windows >< Isnt it ironic>?...dont you think>?

[Alucard_the_dex]

now I dont feel safe using a CD is it just as easy to put it on hard drive>? idk why its jsut i really prefer having it on my hard drive instead of a CD which cn be damaged easyer and when its on a hard drive i feel i have more control over it I.E. tweaing the OS

[klhrevolutionist]

Yes it is easy to use on the hard drive. My suggestion if you have time.
Get onto the chatroom, I can help you better bye you doing this
On the top of this page is a button named chat. Hit it & come talk

[Lobster]

I have used Windows from version 1
(yes there was a version 1)

For the last few months I only use Puppy.
Here is the report I did for HolyGeeks (a religious order I set up to worship hardware)
http://peace.wikicities.com/wiki/HolyGeek_Linux_Report

Ubuntu will send you (takes about 6 weeks) a free Live CD and another for installing to HD - so you can try a Live CD (like Puppy) for months and get used to it.

Take your time. Have the best of both worlds. I like XP but I can not be bothered with the hassle. The "hassle" with Puppy is just fun all the way . . .

[Alucard_the_dex]

I got it to download on my moms comp took less then a minute anywho now i got it BUT idk how to burn a ISO image or w.e it is i got like no programs that are good for burning i have silentnight thats about it

[GuestToo]

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/WindowBurn

[Alucard_the_dex]

OK!!! i got this working WHOOT WHOOT! Urgh Im not liking a couple things tho Im hating the mouse pointer and the Dillo web browser sofare im not enjoying those at all and the mouse pointer is ruinging my experiance is there a way to make it like windows pointer>?

[Alucard_the_dex]

Meh its so hard to be in a OS world you got no clue about So sad so very sad

[Artie]

Here is the report I did for HolyGeeks (a religious order I set up to worship hardware)
http://peace.wikicities.com/wiki/HolyGeek_Linux_Report

I really liked your report. I'm a distro junkie and have been trying out dozens of distributions and live cds. At the moment I use SimplyMepis on the hard drive and Puppy running from the cd. In my opinion Mepis is perfect for a newbie who wants to change from Windows with as little hassle as possible. It's the only distribution I managed to install and configure and use without having to spend many hours or days tweaking before getting things to work. On the other hand, I've hardly been using Mepis lately since I got Puppy because I need! to tweak and fiddle and explore and learn new things and Puppy seems to be the perfect environment to do that.

[rarsa]

Oh, First impressions...

Puppy is designed as a light distribution (that's why it took just a minute to download). The window manager that it comes with is also very light.

You are not going to get the same visual appeal from it as you do with windows. Remember that in my previous post I talked about choices? Well, as you know, choices have tradeoffs.

Linux in general have very light window managers (like JWM, the Puppy default), but also full featured and highly configurable Window managers, like KDE that I can configure way more than I can windows (Semitransparent menus, Pointers that give specific feedback of the application launched, Active icons in the toolbar, etc.)

Light window managers are small and fast.
Full featured window managers are large and slower.

'Not the same' does not mean lesser. There are things that you can do in windows that you won't be able to do in Linux, but there are many more things that you can do in linux that you cannot do in windows. You'll feel that you have more control over the OS.

Sure, you will have to 'unlearn' certain things to get comfortable with Linux. They are not the same OS.

Don't judge Puppy by it's visual appeal compared to Windows. Visual appeal has not been the focus of Puppy. Speed, stability, functionality, versatility have been the main focus of development.

Think about it this way. with a fraction of the resources puppy does most of what you can do in Windows... and then some.

If you ever feel the need to have more eye candy, you can then use a larger linux distribution like Fedora.

If you really really REALLY like tweaking things, you can use Gentoo or even Linux from scratch. You will have a blast tweaking to you heart content. You'll be able to tweak every single detail of your operating system.

If you like eye candy a more end user oriented distribution is Linspire. That one is a comercial distribution. The interface is quite clean, the software repository is quite complete and accessible. They have a LiveCD to do a 'test drive'.

So, there you have it. Options Options Options.

[rarsa]

Hey! Ask and ya shall receive!

Mark (MU) has prepared a cursors installer so you don't have to suffer with the default!

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... highlight=

You've just witnessed one of the differences between the linux/Open source comunity and Windows.

[Alucard_the_dex]

^^ thank you very much Kind sir But i must say i think im gonna keep windows as my defualt seeing as to i know so much about it now and am still happily learning but i did enjoy puppy and its simplicity but i need abit of help now

I first started up with Bare Puppy just to get a feel then went and got Mozilla puppy and chubby puppy Chubby didnt work IDK why it jsut said something around the lines could not load into .usr? I switched to mozilla and it worked fine got it online adn everything But now it wont go online for some reason and id like to be able tolearn adn do at the same time

second Um about the eye candy I really no care how flashy it is or not but preferabley in Win XP i set it to clasic mode so is there any themes i can get for puppy thatll mak it look like classic windows>?

[MU]

install Fvwm95 with pupget or icewm with Dotpupdownloader.
Also this Themepack for Icewm, it contains Win95/3.1 -Themes:
http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic ... 6433#16433

Mark