I have converted a Windows-user, but which puppy is best?

[tallboy]

Hi all.
I think I have converted a Windows user, and convinced him that Puppylinux is a the distro to use. I have no idea yet as to what his hardware is, but I guess it is a 4-6 year old desktop machine, not a laptop. I will provide info as soon as I know more. I know that he is using Firefox. He has had problems with a machine that slows down over time, he roughly know what defragmentation is, and have had to clean out viruses many times, but he claim to know very litle about PCs, his interests is mainly in using them.

I use a massaged dpup-4848beta4 or dpup-485 live-CD/DVD myself, but I would not recommend that as his first puppy. I came from Mac to Linux many years ago, and even if I can use Windows, I have no practical experience with the daily frustrations Windows-users have to go through. I would very much like to learn what experiences other recent Windows to Linux converts have made.

Which puppy is easiest for a Windows convert to use?

The only limit so far; it will be run as a live-CD, and must have a stable edition of Firefox, and not demand a lot of configuring. There is no such thing as a second attempt at making a good first impression, so it is preferred that it is usable 'out of the box', but if absolutely required, I may do some alterations first.

Suggestions anyone?

tallboy

[Dewbie]

There is no such thing as a second attempt at making a good first impression

Remember, you're attempting to run Puppy on a computer designed to run Windows.
So it might take a few attempts with a few Puppies before you find one that's compatible.

The most-likely-to-run choices for a machine that age would be Lucid or Wary.

From what I understand, Lucid gives you a choice of browsers.
Wary comes with SeaMonkey pre-installed, but there are plenty of Firefox .pets available for it as well.

[tallboy]

Remember, you're attempting to run Puppy on a computer designed to run Windows.

Haha, point taken!

It has always come up as a theme in the forum: How to convert Windows/Mac users, is it really possible? So one question that pops up, is if any effort has been made to make an easy entry puppy, specifically targeted at converts?

tallboy

[Dewbie]

You can always play around with this.
(I know...shameless self-promotion. )

[Tote]

My tiny input; I've been using Wary puppy since December without any problems, all I've ever used in the past is XP.

If you want something with all the bells and whistles you might want to look at the Legacy OS. I've been playing with it for a few days. It's knocked my eyes out, but you need to read the blurb to see if it will run properly on your friend's PC. It's designed for older systems. Find under Puppy Derivatives.

(Edit. I lied, it's here, http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyVersion)

[bigpup]

For someone new to Puppy and Linux I would suggest Lucid 5.2.8-005.
It has a good help section and all of the major programs also have working help. Very good for new user.
Lucid does not come with Firefox installed, but it is very easy to install.
It offers you a choice of browsers, to use, when you first select browse on the desktop.
You could set it up the way you want and do a remaster. Burn the remaster to a live CD.
It is in final testing, but only because of updates to programs and getting programs help working.
It should work good on that age computer.
This Windows refuge must understand, that Linux is Linux, and some things will be different from Windows.
Every operating system has a learning curve.
Lucid 5.2.8-005
http://diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy500/lupu-528.005.iso
Main Lucid topic
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70855

[Lobster]

You can install directly from Windows.
Any easier and you would have to sit up and beg . . .
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/SlackoTips

A link to Puppy School and this forum for his browser . . .
- We are noob friendly
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppySchool

Job done
Windows Legacy infestation [oops penguin tendencies getting the better of me]
Try again . . .
Windows almost operating system
once more . . .

Windows on hard Drive
Puppy from DVD boot
Puppy configuration and data on hard drive

Use Puppy for quick booting, browsing, buying and banking
Use Windows for nostalgia

Good Luck
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/WhatPuppyLinuxIsBestForYou

Once bitten by Windows
Always Puppy

[mini-jaguar]

There is no such thing as a second attempt at making a good first impression

Remember, you're attempting to run Puppy on a computer designed to run Windows.
So it might take a few attempts with a few Puppies before you find one that's compatible.

The most-likely-to-run choices for a machine that age would be Lucid or Wary.

From what I understand, Lucid gives you a choice of browsers.
Wary comes with SeaMonkey pre-installed, but there are plenty of Firefox .pets available for it as well.

Is this an attempt at humour? If so, I do not find it in the least bit funny.

I have a computer of about the same age also "designed to run Windows" and I haven't found a single Puppy which isn't compatible (tried around 20 versions of Puppy), except for maybe Arcade 10, the reason there being some of the drivers seem too old, the xorg/xvesa for example.

Oh, and please tell me how easy it is to install Puppy to a computer designed to run Mac OS, of the same age in fact. I have installed rEFIt, I can get pretty much any Puppy to boot (except Lucid which just crashes completely), but to get the grub to work with the EFI is another matter. And not to mention touchpad problems, I'll probably have to manually edit the configuration file since it doesn't recognise it properly.

[Burn_IT]

4 to six years old would be brand new to me.
I also found that comment to be condescending at the least.

And what IS a computer design to run Windows?

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
I dont find it condescending at all, but then I am looking at the "Designed for Windows7" sticker below my arrow keys!!
PC designed for Windoze...
How about "Puppy Linux - Designed for the PC".. LOL

[pikacane]

With the exception of my netbook and the "big laptop" I haul out if I need to run VMs for school, four years old is pretty new for me too. I have a cluster at 10-12 years and trails off into "too old even for Puppy" (8 meg of ram 486SX).

I have run Puppy successfully on everything from a shiny new HP dv7 to a PIII Sony Vaio. The majority of them are laptops, and if anything was "designed for Windows" it would be a laptop that shipped with it. Although getting wireless to work on some of them is a stone... puppy.

[Sylvander]

1. This machine I'm working on [my only one] is a 2003 desktop PC running Win2000Pro, and also very successfully the following...
DPUP-squeeze-5.x.9-scsi-ataflash.iso [ataflash because I modified isolinux.cfg to include pmedia=ataflash]
Slacko-531-scsi-MAIN-ataflash.iso
Wary-5.2.2.iso
Lupu-528.004-ataflash.iso [My number-1 Puppy][about to update to 005]
Puppy-431-BoxPup.iso
Luci-001.003-ataflash.iso [3-Headed-Dog]

2. @tallboy
I wonder if your Windows user would like to be able to:
(a) Boot from a "live" puppy CD-RW...

(b) Hold the pupsave file on a partition on an internal HDD...

(c) Have the pupsave be treated as though it's on a Flash Drive...
For the following purpose:

(d) So that he can have 1 config change, and 1 coding change made, with the result that...
He can choose IF/when to manually "save the session changes, during the session" [back to the pupsave]...
Then...
At shut-down/reboot...
Choose whether "to save or not to save" [back to the pupsave].

(e) He may be astonished that IN PUPPY he has been given this wonderful POWER!
.
Then again, he may be of the mindset that he doesn't want to be bothered with such stuff.
SAD!

[jemimah]

Saluki is worth a try - it's minimalist, clean, and XFCE is much more intuitive than rox/jwm. My primary test subject is my husband who is about in the same boat as the user you describe. Just install firefox, and drag the firefox icon to the desktop and that's all you need.

I believe firefox 10.0.2 from the saluki repo is more stable than the 11.0 version.

You can use the saluki custom builder to add Firefox and burn a new livecd. (Midori is the default, but still a bit unstable - the user is generally expected to install Firefox, Seamonkey, Chrome or Opera).

[Moose On The Loose]

(b) Hold the pupsave file on a partition on an internal HDD...

I commonly make a second copy of the save file once I get everything working. This way, making random changes to things is a lot less scary. You can let him play around with the system, knowing that no matter what, he can always go back to the situation that works. He can change colors and themes and all the settings and in general make it just exactly the way he wants it. He thus ends up with a little more "ownership".

[Dewbie]

mini-jaguar wrote:

Is this an attempt at humour? If so, I do not find it in the least bit funny.

Umm...no.

Read closely:

Remember, you're attempting to run Puppy on a computer designed to run Windows.
So it might take a few attempts with a few Puppies before you find one that's compatible.

Why do you suppose BarryK and others have released alternate/retro-kernel versions of the same Puppies?

[minesadorada]

I would suggest you bring a bunch of puppy live CDs and by trial-and-error narrow them down to a shortlist of Puppy distros that will successfully on your friend's computer:

1 ) Connect to the Internet on bootup and be able to view flash pages.
2 ) Mount drives on bootup
3 ) Install and print a test page successfully from the word processor.
4 ) Mimic whatever email system your friend is used to
5 ) Be able to make sounds, and use the microphone if fitted.

Then, from your new shortlist, pick the most friendly-looking to do a frugal hard disk install (side-by-side with Windows via Grub4DOS, and ideally on a small new scavenged-from-windows ext3 partition with a small swap partition) and make Puppy the default with a 5-second timeout. Make a backup of the save file as soon as you have finished installing and configuring. Symlink the 'downloads' and 'My ...' folders to the hard disk.

Backup the windows settings before you do anything. (there's a post somewhere on this forum that tells what you need to back up)

I have followed this strategy with some success, having learned the hard way to check hardware compatibility first and also make it slightly harder to use Windows as the default. Distros can vary widely, and between versions too.

:my 2 euro

Coincidentally I am currently installing RSH's excellent Lazy Puppy 2 on a friend's ex-windows laptop. I have it in front of me as I type. I chose Lazy 2 because of the built-in 'Beginners, Intermediary and Advanced' menu level system and it passes the compatibility tests.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
( Shameless self promotion to follow):
Why not make a MultiPup disk for him...
Several Puppies per CD, or like 30 per DVD.. Include the .sfs and .pet files you want..

Download version 3.3 .pet from page 10 or the direct link on page 1, and follow the instructions...

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=63572

[mini-jaguar]

mini-jaguar wrote:

Is this an attempt at humour? If so, I do not find it in the least bit funny.

Umm...no.

O.k., that is a processor which came out in 2000, so given the normal industry delay for actual implementation it is possible that it was used on a computer manufactured in 2006-2008.

However, I'll have to argue that the memory for that computer is pretty low if one would expect multi-media browsing in many tabs. Also certain versions of Firefox are prone to bugs and are very slow.

mini-jaguar wrote:
Read closely:

Remember, you're attempting to run Puppy on a computer designed to run Windows.
So it might take a few attempts with a few Puppies before you find one that's compatible.

Why do you suppose BarryK and others have released alternate/retro-kernel versions of the same Puppies?

You got me there. I attempted to boot 4.2.1 with the newer kernel in my ancient 2007 or 2008 Dell IBM-clone-decedent laptop and it wouldn't boot, while it booted fine and worked o.k. in live mode on my 2007 Mac.

The retro version did work.

But I would argue that it's not the age of the kernel that caused problems, because every 5.*.* Puppy I tried on that computer booted fine and worked, including FatDog64, Lighthouse64, Saluki, Puppy Studio 3.3, Lucid, Slacko, etc. etc.

[tallboy]

Thank you all for your valuable input, your tips are noted.

Any additionional posts are welcomed anytime, I'll follow this thread, and comment.

4 to six years old would be brand new to me.

To me too, my main linuxbox was made sometime last century...

How about "Puppy Linux - Designed for the PC".. LOL

Absolutely love that one!

Re: running the puppy live, frugal or stored;
I have been running all my puppys since 2.17 from live-CD/DVDs only, and apart from slow bootup at times, I have been very satisfied with the live setup, and always felt very secure. Apart from ease of use, the feeling of security is what I wish to pass on to the newbie as the main reason for converting to puppylinux. So, I'll burn him a selection of puppys, and have him run them off a live-CD to start with. Then he's always free to choose an alternative way to run his puppy later.
I want him to be reassured that he can just turn off his machine anytime he feels like it, and then just turn it on again to boot normaly into Windoze if he wants to - no files lost, no viruses gained!

The guy is away for easter holiday, so I still have no input on hardware. I'll come back with that later.

tallboy

[Burn_IT]

I've just been upstairs in my workroom and fired up an old AMD K6-2 300Mhz machine with 64Mb memory and a 4Gb disk with Puppy 4.1 on it.

I was surprised at how responsive it was.