Newbies - Puppy needs YOUR help too!

[Diggs]

Have you tried it yet?

Sure have. It insisted on only doing a Frugal install when I wanted a full install. Not sure why a choice isn't available. And, why isn't it part of the the ISO? Most newcomers wouldn't find that installer buried in the forums and the ISO desperately needs something like that.

Why do so many insist the best way to run a laptop is with the slow and noisy CD roaring. Is a traditional fast HDD boot not a preferred by most? Besides, I need the CD/DVD open for other media and don't want the OS CD in the all the time.

I've already mentioned the manual HDD prep required (swap, format, flag, etc.). No one has answered how anyone new user would know to do that coming from any other distro/OS.

And yes, my mind is a bit made up about the install of Puppy. Regardless this is an excellent light distro that I continue to enjoy and recommend as well as financially support.

[racepres]

Why do so many insist the best way to run a laptop is with the slow and noisy CD roaring. Is a traditional fast HDD boot not a preferred by most? Besides, I need the CD/DVD open for other media and don't want the OS CD in the all the time.
.

And yes, my mind is a bit made up about the install of Puppy. Regardless this is an excellent light distro that I continue to enjoy and recommend as well as financially support.

The cd/dvd media can be removed at anytime after boot, as Puppy runs completely in ram! Unless you don't have the "Minimum recommended Ram"..
But I'm over it...
RP

[dru5k1]

?I'm not pleased with the "no browser - quickpet a browser" 5.2 I guess?

I have one quick suggestion

that there be a <100mb .iso somewhere with firefox and flash
whenever there's an update to either of these two?

[rcrsn51]

Sure have. It insisted on only doing a Frugal install when I wanted a full install.

That's not true.

[Diggs]

Sure have. It insisted on only doing a Frugal install when I wanted a full install.

That's not true.

What's not true? I could not find an option to change it from frugal to full. I know it will do a full install. I just couldn't get it to do that. Regardless - It's a great tool.

[dogle]

Diggs has been taking a bit of flak, and bravely.

A false culture has been established in which INSTALLATION of an OS is perceived to be de rigeur, and established Puppy lovers are lucky to be able to stand above this. For people coming in from the outside it is still a major issue.

The whole point of this thread is to find out why people don't immediately fall in love with Puppy, and analysis of responses has indicated that perceived 'installation' issues (however misguided) have been the second biggest turnoff. That's important, re. Puppy's popularity and progress.

Many thanks Diggs for your forthrightness, and patience. I hope you will stay on board, and continue to contribute to making Puppy even better.

[Diggs]

Many thanks Diggs for your forthrightness, and patience. I hope you will stay on board, and continue to contribute to making Puppy even better.

I appreciate the words.

I am not trying to troll or cause problems, I have worked with quite a few Puppys and puplets over the last 2-1/2 years. I also use several versions of Ubuntu on a desktop, laptop and netbook and server so although I am a bit new to Linux I am not intimidated by it.

I dare say one other issue that never fails to surprise me is if you try to repeat an install (full or frugal) you cannot. Puppy will not let you unmount the drive so that a swap can be created, (boot flag set?) and in fact will not let Parted run at all on the drive. You and I know to run pfix=ram. Even if a newcomer were to see the splash screen they wouldn't understand the significance without coming to the forums/web site and doing quite a bit of searching. The liveCD should at minimum be able to force a dismount (another strange term to Windows users) and allow them to correct any disk issues. Ideally, the installer would just ask "Use entire hard drive?" as do other installers and partition the swap and primary and format for the user. But.....

Now, to my PCMCIA NIC issues. Both are common Linksys cards and although the cat 5 NIC is recognized it cannot connect to the Internet or ping the router. The wifi PCMCIA NIC is totally unrecognized by Puppy. I know how to use the search function and will work my way through it. I don't see these PCMCIA issues being major for Puppy. PCMCIA devices are basically legacy items and will continue to fade into memories. But, since a forte of Puppy is to bring new life to older hardware, it is an area I wish could be improved as I have used no less than 5 different PCMCIA devices over 4 versions of Puppy and have never had a plug-n-play experience.

[andromache]

Hi!

I thought I'd drivel on, as a total n00b, about my Puppy experiences over the the past couple days.

Okay, so I discovered Puppy when a Xubuntu alternative-install CD was too much for a little '97 Toshiba laptop to handle. I wanted anything, just anything, to work on it--its job in a new life would be a poor woman's credit card terminal--all it needs to do is pick up wifi and run a web browser for PayPal. And it kind of works, actually. Puppy was crashing a lot as I attempted to explore it, so . . . I got the crazy idea to pop its CD into my shiny newer laptop which I had just installed Xubuntu 10.10 upon.

Success--I had a little too much fun with Puppy running properly, and I wanted to see how fast I could get it to boot. (38 seconds, incidentally.) I should have read more first, because my impression was that I'd just experiment with installation and remove the Puppy CD when I wanted to boot with Xubuntu. Yeah, I know, I'm clueless and stupid, and how did I install it? I don't even remember! Because I thought it was all temporary and I thought I partitioned it properly! D'oh.

So now, the easiest way for a n00b like me to "repair" this laptop is to reinstall Xubuntu, I guess. I hope it would work. I didn't intend for this to be a Puppy-only laptop even though I like Puppy. So in my case--even though I know it's my own ignorant fault--it's hard to be totally happy with Puppy when it's kind of "against my will," or an accident, you know? I'm just telling you raw emotions, since they will effect how successful or widespread Puppy becomes, right? Hm.

On the bright side, the wireless card is recognized by Puppy, and not by Xubuntu. So I'm only online and writing this because Puppy works so well--and that makes me feel like HAPPY FUN TIME!!!1

I do like the appearance of Puppy--I'm hoping that it looks kind of like people's smart phones or whatever. I don't know. People are very antsy about logging into PayPal on a non-Windows machine, which is hilariously ironic. I discovered this while letting someone make a donation through PayPal (thus the shoestring budget, I'm trying to set these up for a nonprofit) on my personal Ubuntu laptop, and the dude seemed convinced that it was some kind of counterfeit Microsoft, Linux being all an elaborate ploy to steal his credit card information.

Sigh.

So, I don't know if Puppy is the solution to a nonprofit's woes yet--I wish I knew what I was doing, because I know Puppy will do what I need, and more.

[Aitch]

andromache

Sounds like you may have put puppy's grub loader on, which goosed the Xubuntu 10.10...

Re: paypal/banking, ...

Perhaps print a copy of this and paste it on the wall for folks to read...

The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don't use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

I do not offer this recommendation lightly (and at the end of this column you'll find a link to another column wherein I explain an easy-to-use alternative). But I have interviewed dozens of victim companies that lost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 dollars because of a single malware infection. I have heard stories worthy of a screenplay about the myriad ways cyber crooks are evading nearly every security obstacle the banks put in their way.

But regardless of the methods used by the bank or the crooks, all of the attacks shared a single, undeniable common denominator: They succeeded because the bad guys were able to plant malicious software that gave them complete control over the victim's Windows computer

You could do the whole article....[plus later Aussie one]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securi ... nk_on.html

Then recommend Puppy live CD for banking/paypal etc useage, 'as recommended by Security expert Brian Krebs, and Australian Police chief Bruce van der Graaf from the Computer Crime Investigation Unit'

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/157767,ns ... nking.aspx

Aitch

[linuxlizard]

I tried a few versions of puppy in the past, but never more than a few minutes playing around on the live cds.

A couple of weeks ago, my 10 year old laptop finally died. I was using pclxde on there. Mainly I used that distro because the repo in puppy is so small.

When the laptop died, I decided to stretch my budget and give puppy 5.2 a try on one of my wife's laptops from work. A Dell Latitude e5400. I am using the live cd with a usb flash drive so I don't have to touch the computer's hard drive and I can have my own customized desktop.

I have been very happy with the result.

It is lightning fast, I love the automatic detection and installation of the video card.

So first, just a big thank you to puppy linux for the wonderful work.

But, also, there have been a few irritants which are no huge deal but would be better if they weren't there, and I have a couple of thoughts-

1) The internal wireless on this laptop worked fine the first time I booted up the CD. It also worked fine a time or two after I started using the pupsave file and had everything set up. Then it didn't. Sometimes it works, most usually it does not. This is true when I just run the live disc without the pupsave file. Which is really weird. Fortunately, my old laptop didn't have a build in wireless so I had a belkin card leftover from it that I am able to put in this dell and puppy uses it better than pclxde ever did- lights work and everything. So I am a happy camper when using the belkin card. But is kind of wierd that the wireless built in works and doesn't just depending.

2) Every time I change which sfs files I want loaded at startup (gimp2 for example), my custom desktop icons go bananas. The ones that come standard with puppy which I have removed, return, and everything looks scrambled so I have to take a few minutes to delete them again and re-arrange the keepers the way I like them. I would prefer to choose to load sfs files only when I will be working with that app, rather than every time so the system stays lightweight. But when I switch I have to take time to fix my desktop icons. Don't understand why sfs file use should effect desktop icons at all.

3) Rox filer (I realise this is probably a rox problem, but hey, maybe someone is up for a fix or for using lxde filemanager which is also lightweight)

- I am not familiar with what the icons in the icons in the toolbar are, so I turned on text below the icons. Now, all are not visible because the icons take up more space, unless I manually resize the window each time. Which is wierd- IMO the window at a minimum should display all the icons in the toolbar even if it dynamically resizes for folder contents.

- Rox does not tell how large files are, nor how much space is left on the drive. In a system like puppy where drive space is usually at a premium because it is on a usb flash drive, seems like this would be extremely useful to know.

4) Puppy Package Manager- on a lightweight system like puppy, knowing how large each package is (or better yet how much space it takes up installed on the drive) would be extremely useful. Seems strange it is not there. Maybe quickpet spoiled me?

By the way, quickpet is a very nice touch. Love it.

Some random thoughts-

Why do sfs require a reload? It's been years since I tried damn small linux, but they had something similar where packages were left in home directory and then showed up in menu. Were not in memory until clicked on in menu and then "added" on the fly. Seems better than choosing what to load, reboot, and fix desktop icons, then when finished removing from load list for next reboot.

What benefits do sfs have over say these?-

http://portablelinuxapps.org/

Seems like portable apps compiled specifically for puppy would offer a number of advantages-

They can be stored like the sfs files outside of the pupsave file so they don't take up room or memory.

They can be used when needed and then when closed memory is free again.

They are instant and do not have to selected prior to boot.

They don't mess up the desktop icons when you decide to use them.

They can be stored on a completely seperate drive if wanted, so they don't have to take up limited space on the same drive as the pupsave file.

Anyway, just my 2cents feedback and thoughts from the peanut gallery.

Thank you again for puppy- I am surprised how much I am liking it- the speed is spoiling me. If there were more portable linux apps or sfs or pets in the repos I would probably never use anything else. As it is, it has saved me from investing in a new laptop and I really enjoy using it.

[amj]

I've been a Puppy Linux user for 36 hours. Here's the feedback.

I downloaded the ISO for Puppy Lucid 5.20, burnt a CD and ran the system on a couple of my PC's. It was all very straightforward and the results were encouraging.

I installed Puppy on a Eee PC 900A, or to be accurate I put a bootable puppy on a SD card, did the basic configuration and wrote the 2fs file out to the SD card. It all worked very smoothly. So now I have a Puppy system.

My first 'issue' was resolved in a mere 25 minutes. That's how long it took me to find out how to swap the mouse buttons.

I quickly found: Desktop -> Desktop Settings -> pupX Screensaver/Keyboard/Mouse. But that is not the answer. From then it was a frustrating business until eventually Google 'advanced search' linked me to a helpful thread in this forum.

I like what I see. It's clear to me that this is a useful and well thought through Linux version.

I'm currently wrestling with two more issues which are pretty fundamental from my perspective.

My Eee PC 900A has 2G RAM and a fast 60Gb SSD. The SSD has two partitions. A small partition containing an MS Windows operation system and a larger NTFS-3g partition containing my data files.

Puppy is giving me read access to both these partitions. A significant number of my data files in the NTFS-3g partition have kanji (unicode) file names. ROX cannot display the file names. I presume this is simply a font issue, but:

- I cannot find any way of telling ROX to use a different font,
- I cannot find any currently installed font that looks like a unicode or CJK font,
- At system level, I cannot find any mechanism for installing an additional font.

My instinct is that this should be easy to solve, but several searches of this forum have not led me to useful information.

The second issue is: How do I award myself write access to the NTFS-3g partition that contains my data files?

I have made a 'wrong' click in the icon for this partition, followed the Dir -> Properties path and ticked the boxes to give write access to 'group' and 'world' and that has not made any difference. I'm still stuck in RO.

I've come across a couple of Linux distributions that have this issue sorted (Mandriva, Fedora) but I am painfully aware of others that don't seem to be able to do something as basic as giving users full access to their own data.

OK, that's my feedback - one mild complaint and two issues which, if I cannot resolve them, might significantly erode my current enthousiam for Puppy.

[starhawk]

You might take a look at Puppeee if you have a spare flash drive to boot with...

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=48288

[amj]

Thank you for the link.

In the meantime, I've solved my font issue. Debian has a quite nice CJK font called sazanami-mincho. I installed the .deb package containing the font. ROX picked it up and used it without any prompting from me. I can read my file names now.

[Rais1977]

Hi.,First of all thanks to the guys who created puppy in the first place. I had been using Xp on my PII ,350Mhz,256 ram for the past 6 to 7 years .Apart from a Hard drive replacement and slow speed it was fine until the Hard drive crashed again.Thats when i got this live cd and to be frank I was amazed how quick my computer ran. takes less than 90 seconds to load with the same crashed drive .i am still able to access my data in the D drive. I agree navigating through the file system is not easy but you will get used to it.I am not an expert in this field but still its way lot better than Xp on this old PC.
setting up my internet connection was easy and so also installing wine with Quickpet.there are some issues though.some EXE files work while others dont.
I really wanted MS word for my office use .But unable to get openoffice working on my puppy 511 version. but i am sure it will as i learn more .I have started to get my friends and colleagues to switch over to pupppy but before that i need to make sure that i can answer all their doubts.

[amj]

After almost two weeks as a Puppy user, some final feedback from me before I take my newbie hat off and declare myself a Puppy convert.

NTFS-3g: Heavens! I had to read the FAQs to find out I needed to upgrade the NTFS-3g driver to get full access to my data. I had to install a package! Well, maybe that's not such a big deal for me, but for any first time Linux user it is a big deal. The Lucid Puppy 520 I'm using is a pretty new build but the correct NTFS-3g driver seems to have been omittted?

File Management: ROX has good functionality. I am somewhat underwhelmed by the ROX user interface. There are some helpful tweaks available via the settings options, but not enough to make me want to be a ROX user. I rolled in Thunar. A much kinder user interface but not quite the same range of functionality. Specifically, The lupu520 build of Thunar seems to have trouble deleting files. When I ask it to delete a file it starts copying the file to my personal user space. This space is small and if the file is large Puppy get over-excited and starts flashing red warning messages on the screen. I can't find any way of telling Thunar that delete should mean 'delete' rather than 'copy to personal storage'. My current fix for this: I've added a custom command to Thunar (rox %d) which launches the directory containing the file I want to delete into a ROX window and I then use the ROX delete command (in quiet mode). ROX needs to steal a few user interface ideas from Nautilus and the Puppy build of Thunar needs to become the functional equivelent of ROX.

Wireless Networking: I've made three Puppy installations (all lupu520). Two of the PCs have built in wireless adapters, the third does not. A few years ago I did some research and bought a USB adapter with a zd1211 chipset. That chipset seems to be ubiquitously supported by Linux. Certainly Puppy picks up my USB adapter (it's a ZyXEL G-220F if you're curious) and configures it without any prompting from me. Very nice. But if I plug the USB adapter into a PC that already has a built-in adapter, it is ignored. It seems Puppy is satisfied with the first adapter it comes across and does not look for a second. If the built in adapter is an akward thing not well supported by Linux in general and Puppy in particular, the simple remedy of popping in a USB alternative does not seem to be available.

External Monitors: Puppy does a good job of picking up external monitors and putting them into some sensible default screen mode. One of the external monitors I use is my television. I have a little hardware gizmo which allows me to plug my TV into a VGA socket. This works extremely well. Puppy picks up my TV and puts it into 1024x768 resolution at 60Hz. This is pretty good. If I output audio-visual streams to the TV they will play very nicely in that mode. But I know from experience that the TV will give me a slightly better picture at 85Hz. Since I have several external monitors, I've used the Puppy video resolution wizard quite often. All the options seem to be 60Hz (or thereabout). I am vaguely aware that there is an xorg HD package available for lupu520 and maybe that is the answer (haven't tried it yet), but 1024x768 isn't HD. Even some low resolution monitors require something other than 60Hz.

Puppy is a virus: It can repackage itself, move from disc to disc, from system to system. It can install itself on new targets and take with it most (or all) of what it has learned from the previous targets. All very virus-like behaviour, and also one of Puppy's best features.

Boot Menu: I made a Puppy installation on a Fujitsu Amilo Si1520 laptop. Added in the upgraded NTFS-3g driver, an arial unicode font for displaying non-european languages and the Thunar file manager. I then generated a new version of the puppy installer and used it to build a system on an ancient Dell desktop PC. I first installed Puppy on an external drive, but after some experimentation I was so impressed by the suitability of Puppy to the Dell environment that I decided to put Puppy on the hard-disc. This desktop PC has for years been dual boot, Windows and Debian. How to add an entry to the MBR Grub menu to boot Puppy in addition to the other two options? I have no previous experience of triple boot and maybe there is no simple answer to this. I experimented for two or three hours trying to add an entry to the existing MBR Grub menu that would launch Puppy. In the end I realised that I was not going to be able to do it. [That's not the same as saying it can't be done.] A different approach. I asked Puppy to install a second Grub into the partition where Puppy resided. I then edited the MBR Grub menu to launch this second copy of Grub. It in turn launches Puppy. This works perfectly. The best solution? I don't know, but it's practical and it works.

Thank You: My thanks to two members of this forum. To Crash for the Wakepup2 floppy utility and to Zigbert for the Pfont TTF install utility. You both managed to make my introduction to Puppy a little easier.

[1234seng]

Took me endless hours to get that working.
The most common situation is a LAN with PCs accessing a Mdm-Router with a nailed up allways available internet connection. The PCs need not bother about username / password. All they need is a working Ethernet connection. My conclusion after my hazzles :
Wizard wizard seems to be able to Repair the combined damages made by Network Wizard and Roaring Penguin ! Hence :
DO NOT use "Network Wizard" and/or "Roaring Penguin".
DO USE "WIZARD WIZARD".
I also did NOT find in the manual that a normal windows network is NOT accesible by Linux. You need Samba for that, but Samba is 'hidden' behind
Pnet so It took time before I found it.
In WinXp when I clic on properties i get an easy rundown of gateway, DNS etc. I suppose ifconfig should do that but apparently not as complete as the "IPconfig /all" in windows.
The # sudo xxxx responded "No such command"
Perhaps this is not the place for this comment, but how I would have loved to find just that easily when I started.

[jim3630]

Gland to have an oppertunity to contribute to the Puppy community. Lupu 511 was my first distro and my initial impression went something like what an unassuming simple little distro most suited for small children.

History Being retired and preferring to get hands on first rather than dig through manuals Linux was another Christmass. Knoppix looked like the best eye candy with a ton of unknown apps. Using it or trying for a week couldn't figure out why this guy "nobody" and "Knoppix" had a user account on my computer and when I made a user account for myself it seemed to work less. After deleting both of those bums "nobody" and "knoppix" I only had the eye candy to look at. On ward to distro 3.

Education After using most major distos and learning linux system a bit became able to discern some of the pros and cons of different distros especially developed an appreciation for Puppy. Not just because it's designed as single user root account with ability to create non-full privileged accounts but Puppy empowers me the user instead of setting up road blocks to using it. Of course, with that power I can delete a hard drive but that is how I learn the best... From my mistakes.

The Good. Unlike some distros that boot to a blank screen or a visual wonderland in Puppy I can execute programs and download and save my work without getting so frustrated. Puppy provides an environment were a non-programmer can get far enough along to become vested in the program so when become challenged does not give up. Bill Gates never asked me what I'd like in W** for it to work for me. There are some great guys here willing to work for you and make changes in their pup so it works for you.

The Bad. Many good Pup derivatives here. Some worked on my box straight away. Others didn't. When 2 or more dial up or wirless connection apps exist and both in the menu which do you try first? When there is also a Pup control in the menu along with the connection apps it becomes more challenging to get on line because on my box not all of them work. In fact, I suspect using the wrong one first hindered getting connecting. My experience has been when there is a control panel go there first to have the best chance of getting connected. It would help if there where only one connection app in the menu that actually worked. Or some instructions as some thoughtful builders provide.

The UglyWhen something is free it's usually taken for granted. I underestemated Puppy and wrote it off early on. It really is a top rate secure Op sys. I forget the name of one of the internet security consultants but he recommended Puppy because of it's security for online banking and transactions where security is utmost. My experience has been that is a good recommendation.[/b]

[Amarck]

First post.. and iLL explain!

(be warn..english is not my native language (french it is) from Québec)

i have and old p4 100mgz...but only 256 mg ram on it!

i wanted to set up a light OS for that computer in my room (its a second one), when my son came at home for his week...i barely see my real computer...Kids...loll

it has a dlink dw525 wireless card (pci) on it!
So i wanted it to be able to go on the internet...Twitter, facebook... some IRc and video mainly...so i can play my guitar while watching some videotut... from disk and on the internet!

I've tried winxp and Ubuntu...problem with xp...the connection on the wireless network is so chitty...and i had memory hang up.... even if my Xp was a very light one (tinyxp from experience.. for the one who happen to know), and on the Ubuntu...well it took me almost a week to find the drivers for my wireless card...just to find out that it is barely working... and that os with my low memory computer...it was not as good as i would expect!

So i began to search for a lightweight OS...

after a couple of try with Zenwalk and damn small linux... i just find them to ben very complex.. just installing them.. and i wont even start to talk about the damn wireless card..

So there i tried Puppy..5.2

Very easy to install on hard drive in a 54 gig ext2 partition, with a 9gig swap partition...well well, very light on start... from there... lets try to install the wireless card...hummm.. i have the driver i found for Ubuntu...since it is linux...it must work... hahahaha...

Did i say...i'm a very Newby in linux!

So i find that forum that direct me for reading...and then a find out i can used the window driver...hummm that must not work well a thought....
But since i could not find the way (realy newby/remember) to compile the driver or install it...well lets try it!

Wow...to my surprise..it work perfectly... the network is better on an average of 40% even compare to Ubuntu...



I just wanted to shared it with you...hey... and you'l see me around...asking probably stupid question...on how that and this work...


But so far.... I just Love it... it does just what a wanted from the start....

Thanks

[spaceboy]

Hi all! I have sampled and used various distros going back to Red Hat 5.2 in 1999, and THIS THREAD is the best thing I've seen in the Linux community during that time!

Sound strange? Let me explain. Linux and OSS has so much hype surrounding it. So much dogma. So much propaganda. So many myths. Linux is almost 20 years old, but in so many ways, it still can't cut the mustard compared to Windows! 20 Years! And it still isn't there yet!

Of course there are those that disagree, but they are much fewer in number. The numbers of newbies that return to Windows; the countless testimonials of Linux horror stories, not just of Linux issues, but of hostile community issues, are littered across the internet.

Some would suggest that Windows is still the king because of marketing, contracts, under the table shenanigans, etc. Sure, those are major aspects, but the real reason is because "it works", it's "simple enough", and it is fully supported by software and hardware makers. ......and last but not least, Windows users don't get beat up on the forums for their unwillingness to hack the CLI and compile from source!

There are many reasons why 'Linux' hasn't made it yet, but the starting point to resolve our issues are threads like this: One that directly solicits something more than just 'newbie problems', but first impressions, which inherently include an emotional response, such as the negative response one has when you can't do something simple that ought to be simple.

So, thank you for this thread. Other distros may have had them at times as well, but I can't recall any off the top of my head.

I am presently learning programming and Linux development and hope to play a role someday in evolving the Linux Desktop. I would love to see Linux replace Windows as the 'king' of the Desktop, but realistically, I'd say that's still another 10 years off, and maybe more, if the philosophy doesn't change to include some hard lines in the sand, such as the understanding that certain bugs, or lack of functionality, are completely unacceptable, and must be fixed before a final release, along with a more open forum for consumers to voice their desires and gripes about Linux.

Now, I'm ready to list off my first impressions! I realize that for some of the negatives I list I may have just overlooked the obvious, or there may be fixes or workarounds for them. This is just what I've experienced up to this point.

Pros:

Install seemed to go ok, as I recall. I love the speed! Love it! Definitely the fastest distro I've used thus far. It actually makes my computer feel new again, and that feels great! Boot up time is nice too!

I also love the look and feel! It has a perfect blending of fun, happy, kids computer and yet still professional, clean ready for business. Just looking at it, it's the most exciting desktop I've ever seen, and immediately begs to be explored! I've only used Macs a couple of times in the past, and this may not be Mac like, but the look of it just gives me that impression of being easy, simple and fun to use.

I like the extra descriptions and guides that either pop up, or are part of the window, for various settings utilities. There is still room for enhancement here though. One of the best way to educate the new comer is by suppling instant help at the 'POP' (point of problem, to coin a term). This can minimize the time spent searching for help, which can be a real pain.

As an experienced computer user, I appreciate the partition listing on the desktop, which I'm sure I'll change later, but a newbie might not like it, especially since they're all labeled with device names (dev/sda1, etc).

The native firewall is a smart idea, and the 1-2 click setup right off of the taskbar is very nice.

Now, those are just the positives off the top of my head (I'm sure there's plenty more), and now I'll list the negatives off the top of my head.

Puppy is the 3rd OS on my dual drive system. I presently have WinXP, OpenSuse, and will also install Debian and Zenwalk. (I used Ubuntu for 4 years, and I'm sick of it!)

Well, Puppy setup a functional grub, but it decided to list every single partition on both drives as menu entries! I've managed to sort it out manually, and a newbie with a normal dual boot probably wouldn't have that problem.

I like the fact that the firewall is there on the taskbar just waiting for you to click on it, but I'm dismayed that an OS that instantly has better net security than other distros, leaves the user wide open on boot up with no enforced password! It's the opposite of some other distros who don't run a default firewall but enforce a root/user password system. On top of this, after digging around, I couldn't find an easy way to set one up! I then catch wind on the forums of a very lengthy CLI implementation.

That's a major negative for a lot of people, especially in multi-person households where people (kids) have a tendency to fiddle with things they shouldn't. A new user needs to be able to quickly install, and have instant password security. I recommend going with passworded installation, with the option to opt-out during the setup.

There's a couple of issues with both the hidden and unhidden taskbar, covering up the tops of apps. When in hide mode, my mouse triggers the bar way too early, before the pointer even gets close to the bar area, so I can't access the top off max'ed apps.

Right Click on taskbar is non-functional. I like to be able to alter all taskbar properties with a right click.

Haven't yet found a "minimize all" icon to place on the taskbar. This is a must (but not a deal breaker).

There is nothing in the package manager to indicate the how/when/what of updates for installed packages and kernels. It "appears" to be just an optional package installer.

The Desktop location in the file system is not readily apparent.

The 'start' menu is very nice, on the one hand, but at the same time, there are some potential downsides. For a "newbie", it's going to be overwhelming, and hard on the eyes. There's a ton of stuff in there, much of it for advanced, experienced and niche users, as well as as a wealth of administrative stuff.

There are different ways that could be spruced up, depending on who your target user group is. One way would be to have a simple toggle button showing after you click on Menu. This would toggle between the current menu, and a simplified one for newbies or casual users, which would only have the most popular and most commonly needed apps and tools for newbies.

The default streaming player for Opera (GMplayer) has a poor default cache setting, adjusts to undesirable settings, and does not save the setting from session to session.

Several times now, there have been utilities where I have clicked on an option and the utility just crashed.

Ok, well, those are just the first impressions after about a day of using it. Based on what I've seen, I would recommend it to seasoned Linux fans, or those who don't mind playing around with new distros, but I would probably hesitate to recommend it to Windows users.......however, as a rule, I don't recommend any of the distros I've tried to Windows users.

Having said that, Puppy could very well be the first distro that I would recommend to Windows users as time goes on! But for me, this distro will definitely be a keeper!

(edited for typos and clarity)

[Sylvander]

I began using Win95 at Xmas 1996.

A couple of years back [Dec 2008] I discovered Puppy_Linux.

I found it as easy [probably easier] moving to Puppy, as it was to begin using Windows.