How did you get interested in Linux/ Puppy?

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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Puppyt
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#46 Post by Puppyt »

Acme - all those wonderful products Wile E. Coyote bought to catch the Road Runner, only to do himself harm, over and over again? Windows has blown up in my face more than once - and on a regular basis whereas (puppy) linux is rapidly retrievable, after a steep learning curve...
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starhawk
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#47 Post by starhawk »

NOW it makes sense! :lol:

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Moose On The Loose
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Re: How did you get interested in Linux/ Puppy?

#48 Post by Moose On The Loose »

The order for me was:

-MessDos
-Win-98
-SuSE
-Puppy

My reasons for moving to Linux

1 I like to be in control
2 I like to be able to make my own programs
3 I saw Windows ME in action

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Rattlehead
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#49 Post by Rattlehead »

I tried to install Linux several times, but all my attempts failed. I was so illiterate at that time that I did not realize that my computer had a really tiny RAM (196Mb), and that's why all live CDs crashed.

I bought a magazine with the latest Suse version hoping it would be the one. Again, no luck. But in the magazine there was an article that mentioned Damn Small Linux and Puppy (I'm not sure if my memory is idealizing this part, but I'm pretty sure the mention was in the last page of the last article!)

I downloaded Puppy 2.16. and... oh wow.

Then new computer and Puppy 4.

Then Slacko, from which I write. Happy camper. Very often, as I switch the computer on, I still think to myself 'god I love Linux'. The suffering of the M$ years was long, and a bit like that story of the frog in heating water: as each version got a bit worse, you kinda got used to it without noticing... :)

J_D_
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#50 Post by J_D_ »

Heres how I found Puppy. Before XP support ran out, maybe a year ago, I started looking for a Linux alternative. Found MInt and liked it. Then I was looking for a non PAE version for one of my laptops. Found Puppy 5.7 and liked it so much, I put Puppy on
my other 2 laptops. Its sooooo much faster when you have no antivirus dragging you down.I still use XP for certain things. When I take the time to learn how to use the features available with Puppy I may stop using XP completely.
Another thing I like is the ability to boot from a Flash drive and do an install in 5 minutes. Never expected that after spending hours installing and updating Windows. For the record, I dont hate Windows. I mostly hate the need to keep updating and dealing with security programs.

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ardvark
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#51 Post by ardvark »

Hi...

My first experience with Linux was with a copy of Red Hat 7.2 a relative gave me back in 2001. However, at that time, Linux as a whole was a lot less mature and much more difficult to work with. There was a much greater chasm between what was available for Linux, in terms of applications, and Windows. As a result, Linux for me didn't get beyond the "playing around/experimenting" level until 2006, when I decided to try Ubuntu 5.10 after hearing so much positive reports about Ubuntu and Canonical around the internet. I was really impressed and saw that Linux had come quite a ways and in October of that year, I installed it as my sole OS. That lasted in until February, 2007, when I went back to Windows XP because the learning curve and trying to iron out bugs and learning how to use the command line became too much of a headache. However, those were a formative four months! I did learn quite a bit about Linux and was able to begin helping others a little bit at Ubuntu's forums.

In 2008, I received a new laptop that had Windows Vista installed on it and used that primarily up to 2011 when I started experimenting with Kubuntu and installed it side by side with Vista. In March, 2012, my Vista install went belly up and the restore CD didn't work for some reason, so I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on it and have been using it ever since on that computer. :)

Periodically, I'm given older computer systems and discovered Puppy last year in an attempt to be find a way to reuse these systems and give them away to others whenever possible.

And that is a very quick, rough summary of my experience with Linux. To give the detailed version would take probably several full posts. :lol:

Regards...
Last edited by ardvark on Tue 11 Nov 2014, 19:43, edited 1 time in total.
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bark_bark_bark
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#52 Post by bark_bark_bark »

The shell in debian and ubuntu is a pain to learn. I think they use dash.
....

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ardvark
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#53 Post by ardvark »

bark_bark_bark wrote:The shell in debian and ubuntu is a pain to learn. I think they use dash.
Hi...

For me, it wouldn't have mattered what they used, it still would have taken quite a bit of time getting the hang of all the different commands and switches, etc... :lol:

Regards...

bark_bark_bark
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#54 Post by bark_bark_bark »

Back in 2009 when I was 10 or 11. I got from my grandparents an old Dell Optiplex GX1 with a 4xxMhz P3, 384MB RAM, and a 160GB IDE hard drive. It didn't have any OS on it, so I had to find something free and I ended up running Ubuntu 9.04 on it. It never really got hooked up to the internet and I really couldn't do anything with it. I actually had 2 Ubuntu 9.04 CDs, 1 from the site and 1 six-pack CD from Ubuntu User Issue #02.
....

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tubeguy
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#55 Post by tubeguy »

Sometime in the late 90's I played with Mandrake because many of the people on the newsgroup I was in were talking about Linux. It worked but didn't hook me in. Sometime in 2000 I got drunk and didn't sober up until '08. Soon after I had an old Win 98 lappie that wouldn't play music while anything else was running without stuttering so I began a search for a different OS. Went through more than I remember including Damn Small and Vector and finally happened upon Puppy and it was perfect. As I remember it, Damn Small was too damn small, Vector was too heavy and Puppy was just right.
[b]Tahr Pup 6 on desktop, Lucid 3HD on lappie[/b]

Scooby
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#56 Post by Scooby »

I was happy running WinXp, I liked it.
I remember trying some Linux installs for a computer
firewall. Think it was red hat, failed miserably, couldn't get it to
run and thought Linux was crap

Then came Vista which I couldn't stand so I stuck with Xp for a long time

But microsoft seemed such a greedy company especially their tactics in the browser wars disgusted me.

Linux with open source seemed such a cool place in comparison so it was just
to make a decision to learn linux and for me that was not so easy. Anyway
puppy was a bit easier to start with.

Now I'm on AlphaOS which I still consider a puppy despite everyone else's opinion.

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Ted Dog
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#57 Post by Ted Dog »

Got transfered to an Internet team at company I was working for and needed to get up to speed on tech. Could not affort Microsoft server so went to book store to get a book on running programing for internet.
Found very little but a very thick linux ( new york phone boom thick ) with 3 different linux packages in CDs. It was dated and in the discount bin. Saw it had a good section of information on internet servers.
Spent a good week playing with linux and after transfer ended up learning on the job like the other transfers. :roll: Oh that was 1997 all you nobbies.

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pemasu
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#58 Post by pemasu »

1999 our county had used up all the Teamware mail licences and buying more was out of question. It would have needed money. Our center had 60-70 workers. About 10 of us had mail account. People started to need own mail account more frequently.

I didnt have anykind of experience of Linux before. I stil havent been in any OS courses officially. All I know I have learned by using Internet.
I ordered Red Hat Linux 5.0 CD from Netherlands. They had internet shop which sold Linux OS around the world. I played with it in console state and I compiled my first own kernel with it. Then I ordered Red Hat Linux 6.0, I installed Roxen Webserver into it and webmail module IMHO inside Roxen Webserver. I configured it and then I did create accounts for our workers into it. I got domain for our center. That was the only money I had to ask from my superior. The server was old unused server: Pentium 90 MHz with 32 Mb RAM. Real monster. No X server at all.

I got it working at the beginning of 2000 and it served about 50 workers as webmail server. It went on knees only once. The spam attack flooded the mail queue with thousands of mails and the processing power of mighty Pentium 90 with astonishing ram size couldnt handle it. Luckily I was able to connect it with Putty and I managed to delete the mail queue. 2003 I got another unused server and I installed SME server into it.
2005...at last....my county got more licences for mail usage and I was able to drop the mail server down. My unasked career as linux server administrator was at the end. So...after couple of years...I started to play with Puppy....

l0wt3ch
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#59 Post by l0wt3ch »

I found Puppy on Distrowatch in 2004.

It used to automatically pop out the cd after it booted. It was amazing - no hard drive needed?! All running in RAM?!

But back then there were no collections of pre-compiled apps. You had to manually build every app yourself. I managed to compile OpenOffice and it took like a week; I was so proud of myself. :lol: But it just wasn't practical, and I never really had any use for it. I was more interested in Debian and Gentoo.

It wasn't until I heard about Lucid Puppy that I took a renewed interest. I was in the process of building yet another low latency Linux music studio on Ubuntu for my personal use, when I heard there was a version of Puppy Linux based on and compatible with Ubuntu packages.

And it was instantly obvious the potential benefit a technology like Puppy, tiny and designed to run purely in RAM, could make to low-latency Linux audio recording. Everybody who does Linux audio work loves to tune their systems right up to get the lowest latency possible, and I was no different. I could instantly imagine how adding Puppy Linux into the mix would make for an incredible improvement in speed and lower latencies compared to your typical Linux studio. And if it was now based on Ubuntu packages (the audacity! brilliant) I could probably build my custom DAW as easily as I normally did on Ubuntu.

That was a long time ago....

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Colonel Panic
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#60 Post by Colonel Panic »

l0wt3ch wrote:I found Puppy on Distrowatch in 2004.

It used to automatically pop out the cd after it booted. It was amazing - no hard drive needed?! All running in RAM?!

But back then there were no collections of pre-compiled apps. You had to manually build every app yourself. I managed to compile OpenOffice and it took like a week; I was so proud of myself. :lol: But it just wasn't practical, and I never really had any use for it. I was more interested in Debian and Gentoo.

It wasn't until I heard about Lucid Puppy that I took a renewed interest. I was in the process of building yet another low latency Linux music studio on Ubuntu for my personal use, when I heard there was a version of Puppy Linux based on and compatible with Ubuntu packages.

And it was instantly obvious the potential benefit a technology like Puppy, tiny and designed to run purely in RAM, could make to low-latency Linux audio recording. Everybody who does Linux audio work loves to tune their systems right up to get the lowest latency possible, and I was no different. I could instantly imagine how adding Puppy Linux into the mix would make for an incredible improvement in speed and lower latencies compared to your typical Linux studio. And if it was now based on Ubuntu packages (the audacity! brilliant) I could probably build my custom DAW as easily as I normally did on Ubuntu.

That was a long time ago....
Yes, and can you (or anyone else) remember the days when you had to hand edit the xorgconfig file yourself - no setup wizards back then - and if you got it even a bit wrong X Windows wouldn't boot?

I'm so glad Puppy (and Vector too) saved me from all that :)

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rufwoof
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#61 Post by rufwoof »

Bill Gates introduced me to it
Scooby wrote:I was happy running WinXp, I liked it.
Me also. Knew it inside out and was familiar with Excel etc, then they opted to drop support so I moved over to Puppy Linux last Feb/March and now have a fixed unchanging boot/system that I have become just as familiar with. Learning experience of moving to Libre Office took a while but now can flash around just as quickly as I used to with Excel. No enforced changes, boots real quick. I run with no savefile as I store all data/text outside of puppy space and the core puppy is set up/running how I like. No need for virus scanner/updates as a virus would only persist for the single session.

Initial experience of Puppy wasn't good. Too many selections and guidance rather deeply buried. Many wouldn't work with my particular hardware (black GUI on booting). Slacko did, and Slacko 5.3.3. seemed to work well. Cut that down/remastered several times to a 75MB boot puppy sfs filesize, the rest I load on the fly via sfs's as/when required. I've built up quite a nice collection of sfs's that work well with that core puppy that covers all the things I need to do (word processing, spreadsheet, video editing, burning etc.).

Portable firefox is great, as you run the latest version all of the time and it stores outside of puppy space. I use that for general browsing, but download a fresh copy on a factory fresh/pristine version of puppy for online banking purposes (totally RAM based with no HDD's connected/mounted).

I like familiarity - if it ain't broke don't fix it - the reason I stuck with XP for so long. MS however forces you to change things even though they might be working perfectly well for you - so you have to re-learn how to use a new version of the tool rather that getting on with the job in hand which I find irritating, especially when the new tool doesn't seem to do anything much different, but just looks/feels different. I prefer to be concentrating on what I want to get done rather than on how to use the tools.

Personally a fault with Puppy is all the puplet's IMO. Often the same functionality (tool) presented differently. Many seem to be nothing more than a change of desktop background and a different arrangement of menus. Which leaves new users somewhat confused by all the choices.

l0wt3ch
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#62 Post by l0wt3ch »

Colonel Panic wrote:Yes, and can you (or anyone else) remember the days when you had to hand edit the xorgconfig file yourself - no setup wizards back then - and if you got it even a bit wrong X Windows wouldn't boot?
And having to create your own fstab file for internal drives... :cry:

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