I have a real prolem with puppies after 4.3. I am using an OQO model 2 that I got on e-bay and it is a wonderful machine.
I currently have 2 puppies that boot functionally: puppy 4.2 and oddly, Puppeee. The latter even works with my wifi dongle if I copy over the zd1211 firmware into /lib
When I try anything that is made during the first Lucid and later, i.e. snowpuppy, icepuppy, slacky, etc, it gets to Loading modules, hangs for a long time, then will continue to the xorg setup if booting RAM but anything connected to usb, including the original booted device, is not recognized. My usb dongle, any other drives, mice, etc; nothing. I cannot even save a config file to the drive even though it prompts me to save to the original /directory on that drive.
I do not have this issue with any of the ubuntu's so I don't suspect it is linux kernel issue, but something that is modified by puppy.
Suggestion of any boot parameters that keep it from shutting down the USB during the boot process? I tried pfix=nocopy, but then I get an error after loading hardware modules that the "cdrom" medium cannot be found. I have tried no less than 12 different puppies created after 4.2/4.3 with the same results, whereas ubuntu 8.10 (old) at least boot. 8.10 is the only one that gives me sound (although 4.2 and puppeee also give me a sound codec). I realize this machine is maybe 3 or 4 years old, but I am surprised to find that it does not have generic hardware support for it's usb. It is a via chipset.
Later Pups, after 4.3, USB is shut off during boot process?
Will post back in a while.
I wont have time to tinker until the new year but I would like to investigate and find the issue so that a solution might be found