I'm gonna do a Puppy vs XP demo show

[SnowDog]

My wife has a itty bitty store out here in the boonies of northern manitoba where we consign local art & craftwork.

I am so impressed with the pup that I decided to have a pupfest at said location.

Plan so far...Bust open piglet bank and buy some parts.

I will set up two identical second hand pc's ....I've found these ones...

Clone PIII550 CPU, 128MB of ram, 6.4GB IDE hard drive 32x IDE cd-rom drive, sound card, 8MB AGP video card, 10/100 PCI ethernet card, 1.44MB floppy, aprx cost without monitors kbd & mouse is $75 each.
I'd really like to put DVD burners in both & use puppy multisession to demonstrate saving sessions and playing dvd's, but funds will dictate.


Advertize a free show in local free classified ad's.....Invite local news media to attend.

Install somewhat equivalent commercial software on xp box as can be had for free in puppy

Provide a printout of time required to install XP, Service Packs, Software, Drivers, etc. as compared to time required to install similar puppy. (I'd show em but I can't imagine anyone sticking around for the whole show)

Let people play with both machines from boot up time to web browsing using Open Office / MS Office, games etc. maybe show em how easy it is to download a virus and some spyware or a porn dialer ....accidentally on purpose with both machines and how to deal with the resulting problems on each system.

Display the actual receipts for each box's hardware & software as demonstrated.

Print out or otherwise aquire some paper documentation about linux vs windoze security issues & give it away.

If I got any money left in my piglet bank after setting up the xp box with it's commercial equivalent software, maybe I'll burn some puppys to distribute to interested parties or give em out as door prizes or something.

Find a good hiding place from wife for when she finds out I'm doing all this at her workplace

Think MS or Adobe would donate copies of their stuff for this?....really hate to pay them for it but I guess I'll have to so as to be legal and to show what it really costs....no beer for snowdog for a couple weeks i guess.

Anybody have any other ideas I could bundle in this gig to make it more fun?

[raffy]

Hey, that's great, though to save you all the trouble about getting Windows software, simply borrow a (not so new) Pentium 4 machine loaded with all the stuff you're thinking. Don't worry, if both machines have equal amounts of RAM, Puppy will not be left behind. If you can't borrow an XP machine, just throw the challenge to XP owners. You start Puppy from CD but make sure the usr_cram.fs is on the root of the Puppy PC so it loads fast.

From the use of live CD alone you are already a winner - just show them how small Puppy is

[Lobster]

Good plan

My Intro to Puppy on this page was designed with such demos in mind and created in composer and NVU
http://puppylinux.org/home/

What's the difference between a duck?

an important question and the answer is (mostly) a lobster

hope that clarifies

[rarsa]

I think that raffi's suggestion would save you the money and will make for a fairer comparison.

Having the owner of the XP box showing XP and explaining the cost and you showing Puppy and explaining the cost.

[SnowDog]

I'll look into this more b4 I do anything.
I really like the idea of identical and older (but not ancient) harware on both machines though, because I think that illustrates another strong point for Puppy and other linux distro's as well.

I have spent lots of time over the years trying to explain to people why not to upgrade their MS operating system to the latest one. The big one was when it went from 18 or so floppy's to a cd based 98 that took up so much more HDD space, then xp with it's massive drive space (and harware) requirements compared to 95.

I do have a copy of XP Home edition that came with wifes pc but never got installed (did I mention I really despise MS products?) so I guess if MS doesn't have some obscure gibberish in their EULA about it being illegal to make public comparisons to their bloatware, I can use that on one of them.

I thought of also downloading trial & shareware versions of commercial software for the rest of the comparisons. I do need some help in that department though, because there's so much stuff in Puppy that I don't know where to look for many comparative commercial apps.

Also, if Lobster is crawling around here anywhere....Can I use your intro?
Excellent work.

Well, back to the butcher...I mean PC shop now....Thanks guys.

[Lobster]

Also, if Lobster is crawling around here anywhere....Can I use your intro?
Excellent work.

Thank you.
Of course, it was designed for everyone to use.