Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Moose On The Loose]

Here are a couple of things I did:

1) A person had a problem where they wanted to copy the entire contents of the Windows partition onto an external device as a backup while they tested some untried and perhaps virus carrying software. I made 2 suggestions:

1A) Instead, make a puppy system, install VirtualBox, install Windows on that. This can then be used to test the software. Since the host is not Windows even very clever viruses won't be able to reach through and do bad things.

1B) Boot puppy and use gparted to copy and paste the working install of Windows onto an external drive. This can later be compared to the system with the new software installed and also used to bring back the old system.

2) A person had a problem where they wanted to take a picture of something every hour.

This was strictly low budget so I suggested a webcam and puppy Linux and a script. In less than a day, he had what he needed.

The lesson here is that it is far easier to get someone interested in Puppy when they have a problem that it easily solves instead of as a replacement OS for what they are using.

[GeePS]

My mother in law has a Dell laptop that died, and wanted me to salvage the files off of it before she got a new computer (she ended up buying a MAC). When I got the machine I tried to boot it in safe mode to see if it was salvageable, and several windows files were corrupt, so that wasn't going to happen. I normally use a drive adapter I purchased at the local hardware store to move files off by first removing the drive and then copying them via the adapter to another machine. I was lazy though, and instead popped one of my Puppy USB drives into the laptop and fired it up. It came right up, I was able to see the drive, and after plugging in her external drive, moved all her files over quite easily.

She was thrilled to get her files, and likes Linux a little more as a result. She is not likely to go out and try to install it however. My thought was to do a distro of puppy that was 'dumbed down' to operate only on a flash drive and manage just a few things like rescuing files, wiping the hard drive, maybe repartitioning, that kind of thing.

Any thoughts or has this been done?

[disciple]

Someone was certainly working on a Puppy rescue CD. I'm not sure if it was finished.